White House declares 'My Space'

An editorial / By Dale McFeatters
Tuesday, October 24, 2006
The Bush administration has quietly articulated a new U.S. space policy that greatly resembles President Bush's aggressive doctrine of pre-emptive war laid down in 2002.

The policy says, with no diplomatic niceties, that the ability to operate unfettered in space is vital to U.S. economic and military interests, and that the United States will not sign or tolerate any treaties, agreements or restrictions "that seek to prohibit or limit U.S. access to or use of space."

The written directive goes on: "Consistent with this policy, the United States will: preserve its rights, capabilities and freedom of action in space; dissuade or deter others from either impeding those rights or developing capabilities intended to do so; take those actions necessary to protect its space capabilities; respond to interference; and deny, if necessary, adversaries the use of space capabilities hostile to U.S. national interests."

In other words, we reserve the right to do what we want in space and to stop other nations from doing things we feel might jeopardize our interests.

The administration says that it is committed to the peaceful use of space and that the new policy is not a call for development or deployment of space-based weapons systems like missile defenses or satellite killers. But other nations with space interests may easily read it that way.

The pre-emption doctrine _ which dedicated the United States to remaining the world's sole military superpower and stated that, faced with a gathering threat, the United States would strike first _ was the intellectual framework for the administration to attack Iraq the next year.

The timing is curious. Why now? Last month, a ground-based Chinese laser did lock onto a U.S. satellite, but apparently without harm. If this is a warning to Beijing, it is a heavy-handed one.

The president himself announced the war doctrine in a speech at West Point. The space policy, although signed more than a month ago, was posted on a secondary White House Web site at 5 p.m. on the Friday of the Columbus Day weekend. The White House favors such a timing when it wants to bury an announcement.

As a general proposition, it should be a given, written policy or no, that the United States will aggressively look after its own and its allies' interests. But the almost nefarious method of the announcement and its harsh language seems unnecessarily provocative.

What happened to Teddy Roosevelt's "speak softly"?