Space wars

Space may become a war zone in the near future, a senior US military officer said, hours after China became the third country to put a man in space. "In my view, it will not be long before space becomes a battleground," said Lieutenant-General Edward Anderson, deputy commander of US Northern Command and formerly at Space Command, at a geospatial intelligence conference in New Orleans.

The US military depended heavily on space-based capabilities, he said, and enemies of the US could target spy satellites. Earlier, Rich Haver, former special assistant for intelligence to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, said he expected battles in space within the next two decades.

"I believe space is the place we will fight in the next 20 years," said Haver, now vice president for intelligence strategy at Northrop Grumman Mission Systems. "There are executive orders that say we don't want to do that. There's been a long-standing US policy to try to keep space a peaceful place, but... we have in space assets absolutely essential to the conduct of our military operations, absolutely essential to our national security," he said" (Reuters 10/17/03).

RH:
These people seem to me mad and dangerous. If they said war in space is a possibility which we must strive to avert, that would make sense. It seems clear, however, that the military-industrial complex is at work, with a corporation trying to see its military products and defense officials eager to try them out. Is the enemy China?