Space Force: Is President Trump A modern day Billy Mitchell
William Lendrum Mitchell, aka MG Billy Mitchell was born in France in 1879. Due to his later efforts in life, he has been regarded as the father of the United States Air Force. When he joined the US Army, his initial intention was to serve in the Spanish American War, taking place in 1898. Later on, he joined in the action against the guerillas in the Philippines, but most importantly, while on a path finding expedition in Alaska, he realized that his true passion was aviation. Eventually, he learned to fly in 1915, and this is where the story really starts.
Mitchell was a commander of the Army’s air service in France, during World War I, in 1917. While his war comrades found airplanes useful only for reconnaissance, he went a step further and used them in bombing runs. Later on, after the war, Mitchell simply couldn’t make peace with the fact that the Army and the Navy didn’t have the same vision he himself had for air power. Thusly, he became highly critical of both.
As a result of his efforts, there was a demonstration conducted in 1921. Mitchell had organized a number of exercises against several ships, including a German dreadnought. Eventually, he managed to sink them by bombing runs via air, at the same time, exposing naval vulnerability from aerial assets. Still they refused to integrate him to his sister service, even though he openly pushed for an independent Military Air service. Interestingly enough, in 1923, he even went on to predict the bombing of Pearl Harbor .
Eventually, Mitchell would get court martialed for his aggressively open criticism, despite the fact that the Navy again lost an airship and several sea planes. He said simply that these accidents were caused by nothing else other than mere incompetence and negligence. He was court martialed for the 96th article of war, for being of a nature conduct precocial to the good of the service.
General Hal Moore commanded the same unit as General Custer and it was said that the Battle of La Drang and the battle of Little Bighorn was mere logistics. However, he did teach his men to first and foremost, have a plan. Secondly, to have a backup plan. And finally, have a “go to Hell” plan, for when the first two fail.
Now, taking these two men into consideration, a modern man of today must ask himself the following question: Do we have a logistical plan for the space battle space? Who will be the leading man, or the leading country there? How will we even recognize greatness in this field, when these two men were so sorely misunderstood by their contemporaries?
Satellites enable our lives. They make it easy to go online, to watch TV, to network in any way we see fit, whether it is online or offline. They crowd key orbits. However, these satellites are in danger of space debris. China launched a missile and destroyed one of their satellites creating 3000 pieces of trackage space junk. A paint chip traveling at 17,000 miles an hour can be a hazard to both space crafts and humans. Luckily, the US Air Force tracks these larger threats and warns all nations how to maneuver their satellites, bringing them back to safety. Basically, they provide free space traffic control to every nation. However, satellites are the weakest point. By crippling them, the whole country is affected. Other nations are developing, testing, and fielding a range of counterspace weapons which might put the US in danger. This has been obvious since at least 2001 when the Rumsfeld Report was released, but the Pentagon has done very little to reduce this risk. The President has recently demanded that there be a Space Force. The Pentagon has agreed. This year’s National Defense Authorization Act will decide the outcome.
It is estimated that the projected cost of creating a space force is 5 billion dollars. Simultaneously, the cost of the development of the Bradley fighting vehicle was 14 billion; the cost is minimal in comparison. So, why aren’t we doing more when the funds obviously exist, they simply aren’t being allocated properly.
In August 2018, Vice President Mike Pence gave a speech at the Pentagon, revealing the Trump administration’s plans for reorganization of space. He spoke about the threats aimed at US space systems by many nations, most notably Russia and China:
“Russia has been designing an airborne laser to disrupt our spacebased system[s]. And it claims to be developing missiles that can be launched from an aircraft mid-flight to destroy American satellites. Both China and Russia have been conducting highly sophisticated on-orbit activities that could enable them to maneuver their satellites into close proximity of ours, posing unprecedented new dangers to our space systems.”
When he was talking about threats, he was referring to counterspace weapons. There is a wide range of counterspace weapons, and they differ in many respects. For example, they can be classified according to effects they create, the level of technological sophistication, and the resources required to develop and field them. They could also be classified according to the type of system and how its used, differentiating between temporary and permanent counterspace weapons. However, there are 4 broad categories according to which they are classified: kinetic physical, non-kinetic physical, electronic, and cyber.
Kinetic physical counterspace weapons are aimed at detonating a warhead near a satellite or a ground station. Non-kinetic counterspace weapons would be lasers, high-powered microwaves (HPM), and electromagnetic pulse (EMP) weapons. These can have a physical effect on satellites and ground staion, without necessary physical contact. Electronic counterspace weapons means that they target systems which transmit and receive data, by jamming or spoofing the radio frequency signals. And finally, cyber attacks target data and the systems which use it, such as antennas, landlines user terminals, etc.
China, for example, is clearly investing in its counterspace capabilities. Recent evidence states that just in 2018, the Chinese had tested technologies in 3 of the 4 counterspace weapon categories. Specifically, China has tested several direct-ascent ASAT weapons and it is proliferating its electronic and cyber capabilities.
Russia also isn’t far behind. Supposedly, Russia has the ability to degrade and destroy satellites in space, using non-kinetic physical counterspace systems, including high-altitude EMPs and directed energy weapons. Not surprisingly, they have been testing non-kinetic counterspace weapons since 1961, and back then, this same weapon detonated three nuclear warheads approximately 400 km above the Earth’s surface. Because of their continuing interest in this field, Russia is considered a serious threat in all 4 counterspace weapon categories. And, that’s not all. Russia is in possession of destructive cyberwarfare targeting satellite systems and the ground stations that support them. Even though much of their counterspace program was a remnant from the Soviet Union, the modern day Russian Federation has put a priority on counterspace weapons.
Iran’s development in counterspace have been relatively recent, but most people consider it a thinly veiled cover for its ballistic missile program. The Iranian Space Agency has close connections with its Ministry of Defense, but they are still openly investing in space launch possibilities, even though it is general knowledge that a certain part of their space technologies comes from Russian and Korean counterparts. Despite all their best efforts, it is highly unlikely that Iran will manage to develop a co-orbital kinetic physical weapon. To do that, they’d need resource investments from either Russia or China, and the same can be applied to Iran’s kinetic non-physical capabilities.
Just like Iran, North Korea isn’t far behind on ballistic missile development, which are closely connected to their space related accomplishments. The Unha-3 — the space launch vehicle which was used for North Korea’s only two successful orbital launches — likely used components from other missiles found within the country’s arsenal, including the medium-range Nodong and Scud-class ballistic missiles. It is generally believed that China, Iran and Pakistan are helping with the funding. Latest data shows that the country’s only active spaceport, the Sohae Satellite Launching Station, was disassembled in 2018. While North Korea did show some progress in the 2 of the 4 counterspace weapon categories, electronic and cyberattack, the country is still light years away from posing a real kinetic threat to a satellite system.
Taking a look at what other countries have managed to achieve, it’s interesting to note European space capabilities, which have been demonstrated more than once. In 2000, a British microsatellite, called SNAP, was launched in the same faring as a larger microsatellite belonging to the Chinese, called Tsinghua-1. Initially with some minor hiccups, SNAP managed to to maneuver within 2 km of the Tsinghua-1. This proved the maneuverability, which is required to accomplish kinetic as well as non-kinetic physical attacks. In addition to this, Sweden performed a series of RPOs and formation flying with two experimental satellites, dubbed Mango and Tango in 2010. Recently, in August 2018, NASA and ESA have announced a collaborative mission, which is part of the cooperative Asteroid Impact and Deflection Assessment, aimed to demonstrate the possibility of redirecting an asteroid, just by using the force of a kinetic impact. While this technology has only peaceful purposes in mind, this testing can still inform the design of a kinetic physical counterspace weapon.
Back in 1980, India boasted the place of the seventh country to launch its own satellite, using its SLV-3 rocket. The Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) hasn’t successfully demonstrated a direct-ascent ASAT capability. However, some tests were done through their Agni-V ICBM system, and the then head of India’s Defense Research and Development Organization, Director General V.K. Saraswat, stated that India had the building blocks and capability to create a direct-ascent ASAT weapon, even if the country did not openly test the technology.
Taking Israel into consideration, in theory, their Arrow missile defense system could easily be used as an ASAP weapon, as they have successfully tested it: detection, targeting, and discrimination of a satellite target. The latest such test was dated January 22, 2019.
Space technologies come as dual-natured. In other words, they can be seen as both positive or negative, and as a result, sometimes even benign space capabilities may appear to have some traits of counterspace weapons. Back in 1998, Japan managed to dock two orbiting satellites. They also tested a robotic arm which could yield coordinated control over the second satellite. Both of these can be seen as a part of a co-orbital counterspace weapon. However, Japan claims these also have a peaceful purpose in mind.
Similar to Iran, Pakistan integrated its nuclear weapons with its ballistic missile systems, and it has been thought that their longest-range missile, called the Shaheen 3 could deliver a nuclear weapon into Low Earth Orbit (LEO). They haven’t been vocal about testing it.
What is important here is to follow new developments around the world and at the same time, respond adequately to those developments in the field of counterspace capabilities. The 2018 National Defense Strategy says the military will prioritize “resilience, reconstitution, and operations” to protect space assets. It’s logical that most people will go to great lengths to protect what is theirs. It’s human nature. Sometimes that is good, at other times it is more efficient to just replace something that was lost or stolen. It all depends on the situation, and the US needs to respond adequately to the situation. The Department of Defense needs to take specific steps to make sure that the space systems across the full spectrum are fully protected from any threats. The key developments to watch within the United States are changes in the organization of the national security space enterprise, further development and articulation of military space strategy and doctrine, and investments in new space capabilities, counterspace capabilities, and space situational awareness capabilities. A priority needs to be placed on space and the US must be able to compete in this domain at any given point, at all cost.