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WORD
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695
MARCH 26, 2008
FORSAKING SPACE WEAPONS WOULD SPUR PEACE – by Rhianna Tyson
Tensions, it seems, between the US and Russia heighten daily.
Increasingly hostile rhetoric is slung from both sides in a tactical
volley best characterized as dumb and dumber. One side’s foolhardy
plans to deploy missile defense sites in Eastern Europe are met with
even dumber threats to withdraw from key arms control treaties. Add to
this the continued existence of tens of thousands of nuclear weapons—
thousands of which are still on high-alert status—and a cold war re-run
seems just around the corner.
Thankfully, though, the peoples of the two countries are not interested
in another arms race. According to the University of Maryland’s Program
on International Policy Attitudes (PIPA), a vast majority of both
Americans and Russians believe that they can better attain security
through treaty-based cooperation than through unilateral aggression.
According to PIPA’s newest poll, 80% of Americans and 72% of Russians
favor a treaty that bans all weapons in outer space, that crucial arena
of economic, military, and political security. Majorities in both
countries also support a prohibition against systems that attack or
interfere with satellites, even when it was suggested such interference
could be militarily useful. This attitude reflects a broader concept of
security than is touted by either government.
Current
US policy blatantly opposes treaty-based cooperation in space, and views
it as an infringement of its “rights” to develop and test weapons in or
through space. Since 2005, the US is the only country in the United
Nations General Assembly to vote against the non-legally binding
resolution calling for negotiations on a treaty to prevent an arms race
in space. (Prior to that, it had been adopted each year since 1990
without any votes against it.)
Russia,
on the other hand, has offered a pledge not to be the first to place
weapons in outer space. They have even prepared a draft treaty banning
space weapons, and they hope to circulate it at the disarmament
negotiating forum in Geneva. However, while they have yet to release
the treaty text, it is rumored to exclude missile defense systems
(which, like some theorized anti-satellite weapons, will be earth-based
but can target space-based objects). Further, the Russians say their
treaty will exclude verification provisions, a necessary element of any
effective arms control measure.
Thus
both the US and Russia fall short of what their populations want, and
what civilization needs to continue to flourish. Humanity’s reliance on
space applications for communication, weather tracking, disaster relief,
treaty verification and other civilian and military applications
continues to grow exponentially. The number of space-faring actors—both
states and private companies—is destined to parallel our growth in
technological capability. As our reliance on outer space increases, so
does our need to protect our outer space assets from anything that can
interfere with, interrupt, harm or destroy them. And in the zero-gravity
arena of outer space, even a dislodged bolt from a discarded rocket has
the kinetic kill capacity of a safe dropped from a five story building’s
roof.
Should
the US and Russian governments heed the desires of their populaces and
negotiate such treaties, the cooperation that it would engender would
have a “trickle down” effect to other regimes. Other arms control and
security initiatives—such as those jeopardized by recent dumb and dumber
moves—would receive a major boost from a robust arms control regime in
space. President Gorbachev, for instance, recalls that his and Reagan’s
failure to agree on outer space security was the primary reason why
their talks at Reykjavik did not result in total nuclear weapons
abolition. Imagine our world today if we had managed to cooperate in
space back then.
We
cannot risk, once again, losing such an opportunity to create a more
secure planet. To lose this chance could just bring us back to the
brink, towards a mutually assured destruction as mad as its acronym
warned. The peoples of the world, apparently far more in tune with the
interdependence of our 21st century planet, have already
figured out that our continued existence is dependent on our continued
cooperation. Our security needs in space and on Earth demand such
cooperation, and the people of the planet demand it, too.
--
Rhianna Tyson
is Senior
Officer of the Global Security Institute.
The Global Security Institute
is dedicated to strengthening international cooperation and security
based on the rule of law, with a particular focus on nuclear arms
control, non-proliferation and disarmament --
www.gsinstitute.org
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