Washington’s militarization of space will ignite arms race

Washington seems intent on getting its kicks by trying to relive the good old days. If that just involved it rambling on about “America first” it could just go in one ear and come out the other. Unfortunately, it also insists on trying to act as it did in the past.

In a dangerously bastardized version of the country’s Sputnik moment, US President Donald Trump signed a memorandum on Tuesday authorizing the Department of Defense to create a new Space Command.

According to Vice-President Mike Pence, it will be tasked with developing “the space doctrine, tactics, techniques and procedures that will enable our war fighters to defend our nation in this new era”.

Trump has been pushing to establish a US Space Force by 2020, believing that “space is a war-fighting domain just like the land, air, and sea”. It wasn’t, but obviously the United States wants to make it one.

The professed zeal by the world’s sole superpower to turn space into a potential war front will definitely deal a heavy blow to the decades-old international efforts to foster the peaceful use of space.

It runs counter to the spirit of the 1967 Outer Space Treaty — to which the US is a signatory — which declares space a demilitarized zone and the moon and other celestial bodies “the province of all mankind”.

Of course that treaty, given its deficiencies, is far from enough to guarantee the peaceful use of space, as it only partially restricts military use of space.

That is why countries, including China, and scientists have long sought an arms control regime for space to prevent a conflict in space and outlaw the threat or use of force against man-made objects in outer space or to countries from space.

It is the US that has rejected any arms control agreements for space, as it seeks to remain at the forefront “technologically and operationally” in space, as it has in the air, on land and at sea.

It is with this aim in mind that the US keeps harping on the increasing space capacity of the countries it deems to be its adversaries — countries such as China, which has the capacity to shoot down satellites — so as to justify its Space Force program.

It is the consistent stance of China and other space capable countries that outer space should not be militarized and countries should instead work together to explore it and discover more about the Earth and the universe we live in.

A Space Force shows that there are some in the US who have taken

Star Wars a little too much to heart.