People who like the idea of a space force:
- The Army and Navy, who will see the Air Force knocked down a peg.
- Gamer Bros
- Sexless STEM people
- People who like everything Trump does
- People who are likely to get picked by Trump to run the Space Force
- Potential new military suppliers who will get the first chance to sell to the novice Space Force requisition officers
- People who don't know much about the military or space, but are afraid of foreigners
People who dislike the idea of a space force:
- The Air Force
- NASA
- All other international space organizations
- Fiscal conservatives who actually give a damn
- Liberals
When I did a research paper on PAROS and US militarization-of-space policy, I found that it was somewhat backwards regarding the existing branches. Army, Navy and Marines (and presumably Coast Guard) WANT the US to sign onto PAROS and keep space a demilitarized zone because they are incredibly dependent on satellite-based resources and would prefer those not get shot down in the middle of a knife fight.
The Air Force was the only branch in favor, though that was with the idea that the Air Force would be the one running the show. I doubt they'd be as excited about a separate branch getting the job. So I think you can reliably say that NO branch of the Armed Forces supports the concept of Space Force.
You're the expert, then. I was just spitballing. I think it might be necessary to break it down by rank -- officers are probably more educated but also more committed to the organization than a private is.
Yeah, the US refuses to sign the treaty (apparently citing hypersonic rocket tests). The Russians and Chinese have apparently signed it and are lambasting the US over it, however, the Chinese and Russians have been doing sheneinighans with sattelites and other things, so, the suspicion that others aren't abiding by the treaty is there.
Wow, that's a shitty article. Ok, so let me give some back history here:
1. The PAROS treaty has been around in various draft versions since 2002, although the discussions in the UN as to what should go into such a treaty go back as far as the 1980s. With the fall of the Soviet Union, however, America suddenly went "Wait....we're the only superpower now. You know what? Screw this, we're keeping our space superiority" and largely shit all over the process until the PAROS committee stopped meeting after 1994.
2. In 2002, China and Russia submitted a draft resolution (because the US was, at that time, undisputedly the lone space military power *and* we had a new administration who seemed to be ready and willing to bomb whoever the fuck they wanted).
3. In 2005, China and Russia got their resolution adopted (as a draft treaty) by the UN General Assembly, with only the US opposed and Israel abstaining. Russia also introduce a working paper which contained a verification regime, similar to how the IAEA operates with nuclear weapons. In 2006, this working paper was adopted, again with the US objecting and Israel abstaining.
4. 2007 (shortly before I did the research paper), China shot down one of their own satellites (an obsolete weather satellite) as a test. On paper, this was skirting the edge of violating the PAROS Treaty. Policy observers took it as a warning shot (literally) over the bow of the US, essentially saying, "Look motherfuckers...we can do this too. Sign the damn treaty, so we can all stop worrying about anti-satellite weapons." The US, unsurprisingly, didn't blink.
5. 2008, the US did something very similar to what they'd been criticizing China for -- we shot down one of our satellites (a failed spy sat) with an SM-3 interceptor missile.
6. 2008-2013: The US stops being quite such a dick about it, but we still abstained each year when a new draft of PAROS was brought up in the UNGA. But we were at least participating in the discussion again.
7. 2014: Deteriorating relations with Russia mean that the US is back to opposing Russian-introduced resolutions calling for a ban on space weapons. Georgia, Ukraine and Israel join the US.
8. 2014-2017: More or less gridlock as most of the world goes "Guys, could you please NOT?" and the US (and to a lesser extent China) are like "Oh, we so ARE." Russia has been the steadfast proponent of PAROS, presumably because they know they really can't afford that shit right now.
9. 2018: A large orange merkin who somehow gained both sentience and the US Presidency announces plans for the creation of "Space Force", which would seem to fuck the whole concept of PAROS right in the Uranus. Then again, it may wind up being largely the USAF Space Command with a bigger budget and its own uniforms, largely relegated to satellite tracking and monitoring. We lack any credible deployment platforms, any military on-orbit facilities, and certainly any capacity for manned warfare in space.
The general objection (diplomatically, at least) has been that it would be impossible to verify, rather than "we want to build Hypersonic Teenage Warheads". And most of the hypersonic craft in development would be to deliver conventional or nuclear warheads, rather than kinetic kill vehicles that that shitty article describes. KKV's have been studied and considered for decades (I read through an excruciatingly detailed RAND Corporation report on them), but were determined to be largely boondoggles -- yes, you get an earth-shattering kaboom, but for the cost of development and maintenance, you could get a lot more of them the old-fashioned way.
There's also the diplomatic problem that nobody likes it very much when you have orbiting death satellites over their heads, even if you claim it's for peaceful uses.
Author
Topic: AmeriPol thread (Read 4458336 times)