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12-07-2004, 08:51 AM
Space control in Desert Storm and beyond
ORBIS
Summer, 1995
by Steven Lambakis
On February 25, 1991, an Iraqi ballistic missile hit an American barracks, killing 28 soldiers. Fortunately, that was an isolated incident. But imagine that Baghdad had been able to drag Desert Storm out an additional four months, hitting other critical targets, straining coalition cohesiveness, stoking political opposition to the Persian Gulf war in allied countries, and turning it into an even more bloody and costly venture. Impossible? Consider the following hypothetical course of events.
First, the Iraqi military modifies its primitive Scud missiles and deploys a handful of ballistic missiles capable of exploiting the commercially available U.S. fleet of Global Positioning System (GPS) satellites to improve targeting accuracy. Then, using information derived from commercial sources or an imagery satellite operated by an ally, Iraq scores direct hits on the coalition's three major fuel dumps in the theater. The space-derived information also tips off Iraqi president Saddam Hussein to the build-up of forces in northwestern Saudi Arabia in support of the coalition's "left-hook" counteroffensive strategy. So he launches missiles tipped with chemical warheads to disrupt and confuse these no longer secret preparations. To be sure, the coalition will still ultimately triumph over Iraq, but by maximizing his limited access to space systems Saddam confounds allied leadership and makes its victory more grueling, and several times more costly.
Of course, that was not how Desert Storm proceeded. But the above "what if" should serve to underscore the growing importance to modern warfare of outer space and space combat operations. Unfortunately, in the mountainous public record of the 1991 Persian Gulf war, references to space activities, especially space control, are about as easy to fund as an undiscovered comet. This may be in part because those who planned the war to liberate Kuwait from Iraqi military occupation made preemptive political efforts to deny space-derived information to Saddam Hussein. Agreement by coalition forces to cut off such information made offensive space control operations so easy - or unnecessary - that the war's chroniclers have simply ignored them.
Thus, the U.S .-led coalition came to the desert battlefield with a near-total dominance of Earth orbits and marshaled unprecedented space-dependent military capabilities to help it achieve decisive victory. The Iraqi leadership, conversely, approached war in so conventional and outmoded a fashion that it did not even exploit the space-based information potentially available to it.
Perhaps this unchallenged, lopsided advantage in space has persuaded American military analysts that such orbital hegemony may be taken for granted. If so, that is a dangerous error.
To be sure, the Pentagon and the defense community at large are sensitive to the emergence of information warfare and the decisive role satellites play in present and future military operations. Yet even the best analyses often ignore the real or potential countervailing efforts available to the enemy. The debate on the desert war, regarding associated strategies, operations, tactics, and technologies, is vital to the betterment of U.S. defenses; but it remains deficient regarding the emerging dynamics of political-military contests and cooperation in the newest warfighting environment.(1)
The United States and Russia led the charge to exploit the space environment, and satellites now have many important commercial and civil functions, including environmental monitoring, urban planning, and meteorology. But space platforms have also been a boon to armed forces, revolutionizing intelligence gathering, battle management, and weapon accuracy. Today the United States is the undisputed leader in space-assisted warfare, and, as the country expands military space functions, questions must be asked about the purposes and mechanics of space control. Why must orbital assets be defended? When and how should hostile space activities be challenged?
This article attempts to come to grips with the space control mission - denying space to our enemies and ensuring U.S. access to the space environment. It will demonstrate that existing policy is long on rhetoric, yet dangerously short on supporting capability, and it will show that the successful use of orbiting systems in Desert Storm required an uncontested, threat-free environment. As potential enemies increasingly aspire to space capabilities of their own, the availability of a robust and reliable space-control capability will rise in importance. When an enemy can use the orbital highways overhead at will, or interfere with U.S. space missions critical to the course and outcome of a war, space control will no doubt receive the attention it deserves. But by then the only salient question will be: Is it too late to rid the heavens of this new menace?
The battle over the control and use of space in the Persian Gulf war was as impressively one-sided on paper as it was in the theater - simply no contest. A variety of space assets from the civilian, commercial, and military sectors of the United States, Great Britain, France, and even the Soviet Union were available to the multinational coalition to support victorious air, land, and maritime operations. Iraqi space power, by contrast, scarcely registered.
Coalition Satellite Operations
Satellites provided reliable and near-total intra-theater communications (secure and non-secure voice, data, and facsimile transmissions) for military aircraft, maneuvering troops, and ship-to-shore operators. Satellite communications supported inter-theater message traffic as well, making possible secure and timely conversations between the commander of the allied forces and the White House, nightly live television broadcasts from the Persian Gulf region, and unprecedented diplomatic and military coordination among a score of governments (see table 1).
Dedicated meteorological satellites stationed over the Middle East were a particularly useful and reliable source of weather information critical to campaign planning on the ground, at sea, and especially in the air. Navigational satellites helped guide the armed services through uncharted, featureless, and nighttime deserts. The Iraqis mistakenly relied upon an old belief that no foreign army could venture into the rolling oceans of sand with any degree of confidence, let alone undertake winning military maneuvers there. The NAVSTAR (navigation system using time and ranging) GPS satellites not only allowed the coalition to coordinate troop movements, mark minefields, and position artillery, they also assisted the mid-course guidance of stand-off missiles.
Multispectral imagery satellites gave the coalition forces a celestial viewpoint of the terrain and activities in the theater of operations. The lower-resolution imagery satellites assisted military mapmakers and allowed planners to survey and reconnoiter the battlefields and track Iraqi troop movements. High-resolution visual and radar imagery platforms in space (5 meters to [greater than]1 meter) detected individual tank and artillery pieces and provided extraordinary detail useful for battle damage assessment and the delivery of precision-guided weapons. The coalition also had access to satellites that could give early warning of ballistic missiles, and these satellites quickly became part of the campaign to detect and shoot down incoming Scud missiles launched against targets in Israel and Saudi Arabia.(2)
Coalition Space Control
Space control in Desert Shield and Desert Storm was fairly straightforward. Members of the anti-Iraqi coalition took steps during Desert Shield (the five-month operation used by the allies to project forces onto the Arabian Peninsula) to deny the Iraqi leadership and armed forces the benefits of space imagery. Following negotiations with Spot Image, the corporation that operates the Spot series of imagery satellites, the French government agreed to sell its Gulf images [TABULAR DATA FOR TABLE 1 OMITTED] only to countries belonging to the coalition. The Spot spacecraft could have revealed to the Iraqis critical intelligence about allied troop positions and movements.
Now, an export control agreement is effective only to the degree that all suppliers comply. The space-imagery embargo against Iraq was possible became the few countries capable of providing space imagery of the Middle East region consented to the general aims of the coalition. An alternative scenario, however, must be considered. Had Soviet leaders believed themselves compelled to provide imagery to their erstwhile ally, the U.S-led coalition would have had to accept this potentially significant encumbrance or otherwise work to sever the communications links between Baghdad and Moscow or intercept imagery deliveries to Baghdad.
In a war where the military objectives did not have such ringing moral and political support, private companies within allied countries might be driven by profit to supply sensitive images surreptitiously to the foe. Or, without such treachery, companies might work to the ultimate detriment of a U.S. war effort by undermining export controls with sales to third parties. During the Persian Gulf war, U.S.-based EOSAT, a Spot Image competitor that operates the Landsat series of satellites, insisted on maintaining its sales of imagery even to concerns in non-coalition countries, arguing that it had a legal obligation to do so.(3)
For Saddam to succeed in defending his ill-gotten gains, he had to maintain communications with his forces. Over the years, he had constructed one of the "hardest," most redundant communication systems in the developing world, a sophisticated network of command posts and communication stations, some of which were mobile. His equipment ranged from buried fiber-optic cables and microwave radio relays to telephone switching facilities, radio antennas, and satellite communications stations. High on the list of the coalition's operational campaign objectives, therefore, stood the destruction or neutralization of Iraq's political-military leadership and its command-and-control apparatus. The objective was to compel Saddam to use primitive, less reliable means of communication, and to limit or degrade his ability to react to coalition initiatives and control his own forces.
As part of the campaign to cut Saddam off from his forces and paralyze his "central nervous system," the coalition air forces sought early on to sever Iraqi satellite-dependent communication links. Taking advantage of their dominance in the air, allied bombers knocked out of commission a least two satellite communication stations in the initial raids on Baghdad. Air strikes also were conducted against electrical power grids that fed critical command, control, communications, and intelligence ([C.sup.3]I) installations. At this time, Iraq used space communications on a limited basis. Unlike the forces arrayed against them, Saddam's forces were not equipped to use satellite communications at the operational and tactical levels. Such a capability could have been useful only to the top leadership, perhaps to communicate with the outside world and help link Iraqi cities together. Still, the use of force against these space links represented a significant step in the campaign to deny Iraq access to space.
The coalition nevertheless failed in its bid to cut Saddam completely off from information derived from space systems. Ultimately, the weak link in the space control campaign was wrought by the West's appetite for war news. Reporters from television, radio, and newspapers, among others, canvassed the Gulf region, poking and prodding for information, and testing the limits of the otherwise strict U.S. guidelines on coverage of the war. Washington reasoned that an enemy deprived of traditional intelligence sources could be expected to monitor timely and continuous news programs, perhaps using the information gleaned to military advantage.
Cable News Network (CNN), most notably, was available to Iraq throughout the war and no doubt became the best source of intelligence for Iraqi leaders. Its extensive coverage of the war included live briefings and news conferences, up-to-date weather reports for the theater of operations, access to expert long- and short-range military analysis, and viewer reactions from deep within America's heartland (significant, given that continued prosecution of a U.S. war tums largely on public favor). To the degree that Ted Turner's media empire provided news derived from space sources (e.g., weather reports), or used space to channel its services, CNN's business represented a real and potentially serious lapse in the space control mission.
A Friendly Environment
Compared to what might have been, however, the need for space denial in Desert Storm was not great. The United States did not have to neutralize Iraqi space-based systems because Iraq had none. The coalition did not have to worry about jamming or spoofing satellites or concern itself with extensive Iraqi exploitation of the GPS positional signal. The Iraqi military's minimal reliance on computers meant that the introduction of viruses into Iraqi computer software, in order to disrupt information and power flows, was not a high priority (although reportedly attempts were made to "infect" some of Iraq's information processing capability). The Iraqis did employ a sophisticated 1970s-era mainframe computer to enable the leadership to determine the scale and origin of enemy air strikes across most of Iraq, and to direct intercepting attack aircraft to the violated border areas. Coalition air forces successfully targeted sectors of this computer air-defense network at the outset of the air war.(4) Also, the effectiveness of allied bombing of ground-based space systems did not require the employment of special-operation demolition units.
Yet even the limited space-denial objectives of the coalition might not have been so easily attained had Iraq been able to challenge the coalition for air supremacy. The allies ruled the skies over the Persian Gulf region and could attack nearly any target in Kuwait or Iraq at will, subject only to the stiffness and persistence of irregular Iraqi air defenses. Moreover, the war took place in a desert setting, with a battlefield unfavorable to concealment and deception. According to the Gulf War Air Power Survey (GWAPS) sponsored by the secretary of the air force,
the circumstances of the Gulf War did not merely present a conducive environment for the successful application of Western-style air power; circumstances were so ideal as to approach being the best that could be reasonably hoped for in any future conflict.(5)
The Iraqi political system also assisted coalition space control efforts. The entire power structure centered on one man, Saddam Hussein, who dictated policy and was the supreme commander of Iraqi military operations during the Persian Gulf war. Tactics and operations undertaken by sub-commanders depended upon a single figure, often in hiding, and located hundreds of miles away in Baghdad.
The pyramidal political structure also meant that the most sensitive and capable telecommunications and [C.sup.3]I installations were centralized in Baghdad, though others undoubtedly could be found in other major Iraqi cities. Thus, coalition bombers could concentrate strikes around the political capital in order to disrupt command-and-control centers. Yet the favorable dispersion of such a vital target set, which may be likened to shooting fish in a barrel, may not present itself in the next war. As it was, Iraq's telecommunications system was more resilient and redundant, and less vulnerable, than was assumed prior to the start of the war. Future conflicts may present a more challenging distribution of enemy assets, one purposefully constructed to confound future enemies and vex counter-space operations.
It is a virtual law of history that a relative military advantage enjoyed by a given state will soon be subject to challenge. Why should space power be any different? Prior to his becoming secretary of defense in early 1994, William Perry noted:
Because [C.sup.3]I was significant [in the war], it will be carefully studied by other nations, not only to learn how to emulate it, but also how to counter it. Many of the [C.sup.3]I systems used in Desert Storm could be degraded by foreseeable countermeasures. In addition most of the communication systems were stretched beyond their capacity, and available Iraqi countermeasures could have reduced the capacity further. [C.sup.3]I systems got a "free ride" to some extent, because inexplicably they were not subjected to countermeasures. But this is unlikely to happen again.(6)
The "free ride," the perfectly benign environment encountered by coalition forces, cuts straight to the heart of our present predicament in space, as well as to the limitations on current space control capabilities and the hemmed-in thinking on this matter outside the enclaves of the U.S. space commands.
Why coalition [C.sup.3]I systems were not attacked by the Iraqis is naturally a matter of speculation and great interest. Iraqi forces (which did attempt to interfere electronically with U.S. airborne warning and control system [AWACS] radar operations) were known to have had at least four Soviet-made UHF jammers capable of shutting down up to 95 percent of the wartime communications to and from the U.S. Navy.(7) All U.S. commanders relied extensively on UHF satellite systems, so much so that saturation of the navy fleet satellite-communications system (FLTSATCOM) and the air force satellite-communications system (SATCOM), both HF systems, was a serious concern early in the conflict. The lack of capacity on these systems forced campaign planners to resort to commercial UHF systems, which also were vulnerable to jamming.
That the United States had undisputed control of the air may have deterred the Iraqis from using their UHF jammers to interfere with coalition communication satellites. The Iraqis knew that the moment these systems were activated, they would send out electronic emissions that would reveal the locations of their jeers. The Iraqi Air Force, after all, was not in a position to fend off retaliation strikes by coalition air forces. Once detected, the allies could attack the emissions sources. Deterrence in this instance, however, depended almost entirely upon the allies' air supremacy, another condition we cannot take for granted in the future.
Had Iraq succeeded in disrupting coalition communications with its UHF jamming systems, naval operations could not have been executed at top efficiency. Orders might not have been relayed in time; contact with command headquarters might have been unreliable and uncertain; warning of Iraqi actions on land and at sea might have been delayed. Given the precision and close-cut nature of modern military operations, Saddam's ability to throw sand in the gears of the coalition military machine might have doomed more American soldiers.
The absence of hostile anti-satellite systems during Desert Storm also made the achievement of space control for the positive uses of space extraordinarily simple. Not too long ago, however, the United States could not take the liberty of planning for war without providing for satellite survivability. During the cold war, the United States had to defend against an enemy that had developed the capability to disrupt and destroy space systems. For almost two decades, until its collapse, the Soviet Union maintained a dedicated co-orbital interceptor in readiness at its launch site at the Tyuratam cosmodrome. The Soviets also deployed exoatmospheric nuclear-tipped anti-ballistic missiles around Moscow, which could have been used against U.S. satellites in low Earth orbit. It was believed that Moscow also sponsored research and development of directed-energy weapons, lasers, and nonnuclear direct-ascent interceptors for use against enemy satellites.(8) Today, Russia continues to deploy nuclear interceptors and may still have an operational co-orbital anti-satellite (ASAT) weapon.
Hypothetically, if Iraq had succeeded in constructing its first nuclear weapon and fitting it onto an intermediate-range Al-Abbas ballistic missile or Tamouz satellite launch vehicle (SLV), and if Iraq had been capable of tracking satellites in low Earth-orbit, Saddam could have targeted one or more of the coalition imagery satellites positioned to survey the Persian Gulf region. Iraq also could have launched a nuclear weapon to generate a destructive electro-magnetic pulse, causing a theater-wide atmospheric disturbance, disruption of signal propagation and destruction of electronic circuitry in military systems. In this manner, Saddam could have exploited the coalition's dependence on electronics.
As a consequence of our growing reliance on satellites to perform military functions, a future ASAT-wielding adversary of the United States might be capable of leveraging a victory out of otherwise hopeless military circumstances. By striking down, disrupting, or neutralizing U.S. imagery satellites, the enemy blinds critical intelligence sensors. By denying U.S. forces segments of the GPS constellation, the enemy makes troop movements and logistics more difficult and may render weapons that rely on mid-course and terminal guidance useless or unreliable. Although the United States is not likely to encounter an enemy skilled in counterspace operations for the remainder of this century (unless the enemy is Russia), space is rapidly becoming this country's Achilles' heel.
Iraqi Space Operations
Despite Iraqi's general lack of space power, the country's ties with space might have been more of a factor than most analysts first believed. Baghdad had made small but steady investments in military space activities and was a member of three international telecommunications networks. It had access to the civilian-run, treaty-organized companies Intelsat and Inmarsat, which facilitate long-distance communications and data-sharing. It also was an investor in the two regional telecommunications satellites operated by Arabsat and was home to an Arabsat transmitting and receiving station. Had Iraq possessed the proper equipment and been a member of the right alliances, it also could have exploited universally available meteorological data, GPS navigational signals, and Earth imagery data.
Indeed, Iraq did have steady access to network radio and television broadcasts and cable feeds (e.g., CNN). Moreover, Iraqi commanders had at their fingertips a few GPS receivers, used extensively in the oil exploration industry, although at the time they had not integrated GPS positional data into military operations. Thus, Iraq was a space-aware regional hegemon, and it may have been on the brink of deploying and integrating space capabilities into its military operations.
Iraq's space and missile-launch facilities, under somewhat different conditions, might have proved vexing to allied operations. In December 1989, Iraq tested its rust Tamouz satellite launcher, which was expected to become operational around the time of the invasion. Through its close ties with the Soviet Union, China, France, and Brazil, Iraq might have been in a position to launch and operate its own imagery satellite within a few years. Access to reasonably current satellite imagery would have given Baghdad snapshot assessments of theater-wide deployments, installations, and force movements. Such a capability, if left unchallenged, would have allowed Saddam to coordinate his defenses and possibly stall the allied counteroffensive.
Under different circumstances, space might also have afforded Saddam the means to consider significant offensive operations. As suggested in the hypothetical scenario above, if Iraq had possessed the ability to use the GPS satellites to improve the accuracy of its missiles, Iraqi ballistic missile tactics might have been far more devastating. And had Iraq possessed the capability to operate its own satellites to military benefit during the Persian Gulf war, coalition forces might have had to rely primarily on precision air strikes to destroy or neutralize the ground segments in order to achieve space control, placing aircraft and crews at great risk.
At times, however, U.S. air forces may not be in a position to use this method of attacking the satellite indirectly. At other times, when it is necessary to deny an enemy the benefits of space in anticipation of battle, space control options by air forces will be politically unacceptable, as they would amount to a premature declaration of war. Prewar battle preparations in space are a more ambiguous matter and potentially less provocative than prewar battle preparations involving the other geographic environments. These and many related issues regarding future security must be addressed.
Space Control and Future Security
Desert Storm was America's first space war, the first significant conflict wherein sure and rapid success depended upon steady access to satellites for all of the armed services. Space operational support usually did not make front page news, no doubt adding to the public's lack of appreciation for the importance of military space power. Nevertheless, U.S. dependence on military capabilities in space is rising with each passing year. The Persian Gulf war teaches the defense community that certain advantages accrue to the nation that ensures its freedom to use Earth's orbits. Conversely, an inability to exploit space (owing to our own policy and material deficiencies, or to enemy actions) will place our warriors at a distinct disadvantage that may someday spell the difference between victory and defeat.
Thus, in the future, space control will be as important as sea control or command of the air is today, depending on the importance of space to the course and outcome of the particular war. Like all other classes of power, space power can offer a unique and complementary capability to nearly any prospective war effort. Consequently, should an adversary deny the United States access to space, all forces on land, sea, and in the air will lose vital enabling capabilities, paralyzing some operations while severely restricting others. Likewise, if an enemy achieves effective dominance in space, and if the United States has no means to contest that dominance, the enemy will hold military advantages America cannot duplicate or easily circumvent.
Defense analysts agree that the Persian Gulf war was a unique case, not likely to be repeated. The desert terrain favored coalition air power, and Saddam's blatant aggression served as a rallying point for a most unusual coalition of countries, depriving him of meaningful allies. Add to this list of oddities the coalition's complete, unchallenged dominance of space.
Desert Storm, therefore, should not be looked upon as a standard for future combat. The war affirmed the importance of space to military operations in the eyes of many, especially in the Middle East and Asia.(9) Thus, we must expect future enemies to be more aware of the advantages that space can bring and even to have a tentative foothold in space. Indeed, as we reach the end of this century, the number of spacefaring nations is expected to rise to roughly forty.(10) Perhaps no developing country has more of an appreciation for military space than India. Indian defense professionals tout the vital contributions of spacecraft to intelligence acquisition, battle management, and weapon precision, and they understand such technologies to be a sine qua non for all nations seeking power status.(11) We should look at the orientation of India's space-minded military and space-aware officials as an indication of the likely global trend.
Some instruction on these points may be found in a simulated war against the People's Republic of China conducted at the Naval War College in the spring of 1994. The war game, set in the year 2010, was a part of the Pentagon's ongoing study of the revolution in military affairs. In the scenario, Beijing provokes the U.S. Navy into patrolling China's shores, luring vulnerable aircraft carriers and other surface ships within range of precision-guided cruise missiles. The Chinese begin their ambush by attacking U.S. satellites, which confounds American targeting abilities and precludes any significant counter-offensive by the U.S. Navy. The Chinese also use space-based assets to enhance the effectiveness of their own forces. U.S. players in this war game were routed, their forces hit before they could throw up adequate defenses.(12)
This military simulation taught the participants that U.S. military technologies may be neutralized by a resourceful, technically innovative country, and that the United States must make the effort to preserve its relative technological advantage. Military innovation may allow an enemy to reduce or overcome current U.S. military advantages (especially in the area of information warfare) and to challenge the adequacy and flexibility of existing mindsets and doctrines. A further noteworthy point to be taken from this exercise is that space is the one environment that can afford an imaginative Chinese leadership of fifteen years hence the opportunity to achieve a manifold increase in military leverage over a once-formidable foe. The simulated American failure to prevent China from using space led to projections of the largest numbers of U.S. casualties in the Pacific since World War II.
ORBIS
Summer, 1995
by Steven Lambakis
On February 25, 1991, an Iraqi ballistic missile hit an American barracks, killing 28 soldiers. Fortunately, that was an isolated incident. But imagine that Baghdad had been able to drag Desert Storm out an additional four months, hitting other critical targets, straining coalition cohesiveness, stoking political opposition to the Persian Gulf war in allied countries, and turning it into an even more bloody and costly venture. Impossible? Consider the following hypothetical course of events.
First, the Iraqi military modifies its primitive Scud missiles and deploys a handful of ballistic missiles capable of exploiting the commercially available U.S. fleet of Global Positioning System (GPS) satellites to improve targeting accuracy. Then, using information derived from commercial sources or an imagery satellite operated by an ally, Iraq scores direct hits on the coalition's three major fuel dumps in the theater. The space-derived information also tips off Iraqi president Saddam Hussein to the build-up of forces in northwestern Saudi Arabia in support of the coalition's "left-hook" counteroffensive strategy. So he launches missiles tipped with chemical warheads to disrupt and confuse these no longer secret preparations. To be sure, the coalition will still ultimately triumph over Iraq, but by maximizing his limited access to space systems Saddam confounds allied leadership and makes its victory more grueling, and several times more costly.
Of course, that was not how Desert Storm proceeded. But the above "what if" should serve to underscore the growing importance to modern warfare of outer space and space combat operations. Unfortunately, in the mountainous public record of the 1991 Persian Gulf war, references to space activities, especially space control, are about as easy to fund as an undiscovered comet. This may be in part because those who planned the war to liberate Kuwait from Iraqi military occupation made preemptive political efforts to deny space-derived information to Saddam Hussein. Agreement by coalition forces to cut off such information made offensive space control operations so easy - or unnecessary - that the war's chroniclers have simply ignored them.
Thus, the U.S .-led coalition came to the desert battlefield with a near-total dominance of Earth orbits and marshaled unprecedented space-dependent military capabilities to help it achieve decisive victory. The Iraqi leadership, conversely, approached war in so conventional and outmoded a fashion that it did not even exploit the space-based information potentially available to it.
Perhaps this unchallenged, lopsided advantage in space has persuaded American military analysts that such orbital hegemony may be taken for granted. If so, that is a dangerous error.
To be sure, the Pentagon and the defense community at large are sensitive to the emergence of information warfare and the decisive role satellites play in present and future military operations. Yet even the best analyses often ignore the real or potential countervailing efforts available to the enemy. The debate on the desert war, regarding associated strategies, operations, tactics, and technologies, is vital to the betterment of U.S. defenses; but it remains deficient regarding the emerging dynamics of political-military contests and cooperation in the newest warfighting environment.(1)
The United States and Russia led the charge to exploit the space environment, and satellites now have many important commercial and civil functions, including environmental monitoring, urban planning, and meteorology. But space platforms have also been a boon to armed forces, revolutionizing intelligence gathering, battle management, and weapon accuracy. Today the United States is the undisputed leader in space-assisted warfare, and, as the country expands military space functions, questions must be asked about the purposes and mechanics of space control. Why must orbital assets be defended? When and how should hostile space activities be challenged?
This article attempts to come to grips with the space control mission - denying space to our enemies and ensuring U.S. access to the space environment. It will demonstrate that existing policy is long on rhetoric, yet dangerously short on supporting capability, and it will show that the successful use of orbiting systems in Desert Storm required an uncontested, threat-free environment. As potential enemies increasingly aspire to space capabilities of their own, the availability of a robust and reliable space-control capability will rise in importance. When an enemy can use the orbital highways overhead at will, or interfere with U.S. space missions critical to the course and outcome of a war, space control will no doubt receive the attention it deserves. But by then the only salient question will be: Is it too late to rid the heavens of this new menace?
The battle over the control and use of space in the Persian Gulf war was as impressively one-sided on paper as it was in the theater - simply no contest. A variety of space assets from the civilian, commercial, and military sectors of the United States, Great Britain, France, and even the Soviet Union were available to the multinational coalition to support victorious air, land, and maritime operations. Iraqi space power, by contrast, scarcely registered.
Coalition Satellite Operations
Satellites provided reliable and near-total intra-theater communications (secure and non-secure voice, data, and facsimile transmissions) for military aircraft, maneuvering troops, and ship-to-shore operators. Satellite communications supported inter-theater message traffic as well, making possible secure and timely conversations between the commander of the allied forces and the White House, nightly live television broadcasts from the Persian Gulf region, and unprecedented diplomatic and military coordination among a score of governments (see table 1).
Dedicated meteorological satellites stationed over the Middle East were a particularly useful and reliable source of weather information critical to campaign planning on the ground, at sea, and especially in the air. Navigational satellites helped guide the armed services through uncharted, featureless, and nighttime deserts. The Iraqis mistakenly relied upon an old belief that no foreign army could venture into the rolling oceans of sand with any degree of confidence, let alone undertake winning military maneuvers there. The NAVSTAR (navigation system using time and ranging) GPS satellites not only allowed the coalition to coordinate troop movements, mark minefields, and position artillery, they also assisted the mid-course guidance of stand-off missiles.
Multispectral imagery satellites gave the coalition forces a celestial viewpoint of the terrain and activities in the theater of operations. The lower-resolution imagery satellites assisted military mapmakers and allowed planners to survey and reconnoiter the battlefields and track Iraqi troop movements. High-resolution visual and radar imagery platforms in space (5 meters to [greater than]1 meter) detected individual tank and artillery pieces and provided extraordinary detail useful for battle damage assessment and the delivery of precision-guided weapons. The coalition also had access to satellites that could give early warning of ballistic missiles, and these satellites quickly became part of the campaign to detect and shoot down incoming Scud missiles launched against targets in Israel and Saudi Arabia.(2)
Coalition Space Control
Space control in Desert Shield and Desert Storm was fairly straightforward. Members of the anti-Iraqi coalition took steps during Desert Shield (the five-month operation used by the allies to project forces onto the Arabian Peninsula) to deny the Iraqi leadership and armed forces the benefits of space imagery. Following negotiations with Spot Image, the corporation that operates the Spot series of imagery satellites, the French government agreed to sell its Gulf images [TABULAR DATA FOR TABLE 1 OMITTED] only to countries belonging to the coalition. The Spot spacecraft could have revealed to the Iraqis critical intelligence about allied troop positions and movements.
Now, an export control agreement is effective only to the degree that all suppliers comply. The space-imagery embargo against Iraq was possible became the few countries capable of providing space imagery of the Middle East region consented to the general aims of the coalition. An alternative scenario, however, must be considered. Had Soviet leaders believed themselves compelled to provide imagery to their erstwhile ally, the U.S-led coalition would have had to accept this potentially significant encumbrance or otherwise work to sever the communications links between Baghdad and Moscow or intercept imagery deliveries to Baghdad.
In a war where the military objectives did not have such ringing moral and political support, private companies within allied countries might be driven by profit to supply sensitive images surreptitiously to the foe. Or, without such treachery, companies might work to the ultimate detriment of a U.S. war effort by undermining export controls with sales to third parties. During the Persian Gulf war, U.S.-based EOSAT, a Spot Image competitor that operates the Landsat series of satellites, insisted on maintaining its sales of imagery even to concerns in non-coalition countries, arguing that it had a legal obligation to do so.(3)
For Saddam to succeed in defending his ill-gotten gains, he had to maintain communications with his forces. Over the years, he had constructed one of the "hardest," most redundant communication systems in the developing world, a sophisticated network of command posts and communication stations, some of which were mobile. His equipment ranged from buried fiber-optic cables and microwave radio relays to telephone switching facilities, radio antennas, and satellite communications stations. High on the list of the coalition's operational campaign objectives, therefore, stood the destruction or neutralization of Iraq's political-military leadership and its command-and-control apparatus. The objective was to compel Saddam to use primitive, less reliable means of communication, and to limit or degrade his ability to react to coalition initiatives and control his own forces.
As part of the campaign to cut Saddam off from his forces and paralyze his "central nervous system," the coalition air forces sought early on to sever Iraqi satellite-dependent communication links. Taking advantage of their dominance in the air, allied bombers knocked out of commission a least two satellite communication stations in the initial raids on Baghdad. Air strikes also were conducted against electrical power grids that fed critical command, control, communications, and intelligence ([C.sup.3]I) installations. At this time, Iraq used space communications on a limited basis. Unlike the forces arrayed against them, Saddam's forces were not equipped to use satellite communications at the operational and tactical levels. Such a capability could have been useful only to the top leadership, perhaps to communicate with the outside world and help link Iraqi cities together. Still, the use of force against these space links represented a significant step in the campaign to deny Iraq access to space.
The coalition nevertheless failed in its bid to cut Saddam completely off from information derived from space systems. Ultimately, the weak link in the space control campaign was wrought by the West's appetite for war news. Reporters from television, radio, and newspapers, among others, canvassed the Gulf region, poking and prodding for information, and testing the limits of the otherwise strict U.S. guidelines on coverage of the war. Washington reasoned that an enemy deprived of traditional intelligence sources could be expected to monitor timely and continuous news programs, perhaps using the information gleaned to military advantage.
Cable News Network (CNN), most notably, was available to Iraq throughout the war and no doubt became the best source of intelligence for Iraqi leaders. Its extensive coverage of the war included live briefings and news conferences, up-to-date weather reports for the theater of operations, access to expert long- and short-range military analysis, and viewer reactions from deep within America's heartland (significant, given that continued prosecution of a U.S. war tums largely on public favor). To the degree that Ted Turner's media empire provided news derived from space sources (e.g., weather reports), or used space to channel its services, CNN's business represented a real and potentially serious lapse in the space control mission.
A Friendly Environment
Compared to what might have been, however, the need for space denial in Desert Storm was not great. The United States did not have to neutralize Iraqi space-based systems because Iraq had none. The coalition did not have to worry about jamming or spoofing satellites or concern itself with extensive Iraqi exploitation of the GPS positional signal. The Iraqi military's minimal reliance on computers meant that the introduction of viruses into Iraqi computer software, in order to disrupt information and power flows, was not a high priority (although reportedly attempts were made to "infect" some of Iraq's information processing capability). The Iraqis did employ a sophisticated 1970s-era mainframe computer to enable the leadership to determine the scale and origin of enemy air strikes across most of Iraq, and to direct intercepting attack aircraft to the violated border areas. Coalition air forces successfully targeted sectors of this computer air-defense network at the outset of the air war.(4) Also, the effectiveness of allied bombing of ground-based space systems did not require the employment of special-operation demolition units.
Yet even the limited space-denial objectives of the coalition might not have been so easily attained had Iraq been able to challenge the coalition for air supremacy. The allies ruled the skies over the Persian Gulf region and could attack nearly any target in Kuwait or Iraq at will, subject only to the stiffness and persistence of irregular Iraqi air defenses. Moreover, the war took place in a desert setting, with a battlefield unfavorable to concealment and deception. According to the Gulf War Air Power Survey (GWAPS) sponsored by the secretary of the air force,
the circumstances of the Gulf War did not merely present a conducive environment for the successful application of Western-style air power; circumstances were so ideal as to approach being the best that could be reasonably hoped for in any future conflict.(5)
The Iraqi political system also assisted coalition space control efforts. The entire power structure centered on one man, Saddam Hussein, who dictated policy and was the supreme commander of Iraqi military operations during the Persian Gulf war. Tactics and operations undertaken by sub-commanders depended upon a single figure, often in hiding, and located hundreds of miles away in Baghdad.
The pyramidal political structure also meant that the most sensitive and capable telecommunications and [C.sup.3]I installations were centralized in Baghdad, though others undoubtedly could be found in other major Iraqi cities. Thus, coalition bombers could concentrate strikes around the political capital in order to disrupt command-and-control centers. Yet the favorable dispersion of such a vital target set, which may be likened to shooting fish in a barrel, may not present itself in the next war. As it was, Iraq's telecommunications system was more resilient and redundant, and less vulnerable, than was assumed prior to the start of the war. Future conflicts may present a more challenging distribution of enemy assets, one purposefully constructed to confound future enemies and vex counter-space operations.
It is a virtual law of history that a relative military advantage enjoyed by a given state will soon be subject to challenge. Why should space power be any different? Prior to his becoming secretary of defense in early 1994, William Perry noted:
Because [C.sup.3]I was significant [in the war], it will be carefully studied by other nations, not only to learn how to emulate it, but also how to counter it. Many of the [C.sup.3]I systems used in Desert Storm could be degraded by foreseeable countermeasures. In addition most of the communication systems were stretched beyond their capacity, and available Iraqi countermeasures could have reduced the capacity further. [C.sup.3]I systems got a "free ride" to some extent, because inexplicably they were not subjected to countermeasures. But this is unlikely to happen again.(6)
The "free ride," the perfectly benign environment encountered by coalition forces, cuts straight to the heart of our present predicament in space, as well as to the limitations on current space control capabilities and the hemmed-in thinking on this matter outside the enclaves of the U.S. space commands.
Why coalition [C.sup.3]I systems were not attacked by the Iraqis is naturally a matter of speculation and great interest. Iraqi forces (which did attempt to interfere electronically with U.S. airborne warning and control system [AWACS] radar operations) were known to have had at least four Soviet-made UHF jammers capable of shutting down up to 95 percent of the wartime communications to and from the U.S. Navy.(7) All U.S. commanders relied extensively on UHF satellite systems, so much so that saturation of the navy fleet satellite-communications system (FLTSATCOM) and the air force satellite-communications system (SATCOM), both HF systems, was a serious concern early in the conflict. The lack of capacity on these systems forced campaign planners to resort to commercial UHF systems, which also were vulnerable to jamming.
That the United States had undisputed control of the air may have deterred the Iraqis from using their UHF jammers to interfere with coalition communication satellites. The Iraqis knew that the moment these systems were activated, they would send out electronic emissions that would reveal the locations of their jeers. The Iraqi Air Force, after all, was not in a position to fend off retaliation strikes by coalition air forces. Once detected, the allies could attack the emissions sources. Deterrence in this instance, however, depended almost entirely upon the allies' air supremacy, another condition we cannot take for granted in the future.
Had Iraq succeeded in disrupting coalition communications with its UHF jamming systems, naval operations could not have been executed at top efficiency. Orders might not have been relayed in time; contact with command headquarters might have been unreliable and uncertain; warning of Iraqi actions on land and at sea might have been delayed. Given the precision and close-cut nature of modern military operations, Saddam's ability to throw sand in the gears of the coalition military machine might have doomed more American soldiers.
The absence of hostile anti-satellite systems during Desert Storm also made the achievement of space control for the positive uses of space extraordinarily simple. Not too long ago, however, the United States could not take the liberty of planning for war without providing for satellite survivability. During the cold war, the United States had to defend against an enemy that had developed the capability to disrupt and destroy space systems. For almost two decades, until its collapse, the Soviet Union maintained a dedicated co-orbital interceptor in readiness at its launch site at the Tyuratam cosmodrome. The Soviets also deployed exoatmospheric nuclear-tipped anti-ballistic missiles around Moscow, which could have been used against U.S. satellites in low Earth orbit. It was believed that Moscow also sponsored research and development of directed-energy weapons, lasers, and nonnuclear direct-ascent interceptors for use against enemy satellites.(8) Today, Russia continues to deploy nuclear interceptors and may still have an operational co-orbital anti-satellite (ASAT) weapon.
Hypothetically, if Iraq had succeeded in constructing its first nuclear weapon and fitting it onto an intermediate-range Al-Abbas ballistic missile or Tamouz satellite launch vehicle (SLV), and if Iraq had been capable of tracking satellites in low Earth-orbit, Saddam could have targeted one or more of the coalition imagery satellites positioned to survey the Persian Gulf region. Iraq also could have launched a nuclear weapon to generate a destructive electro-magnetic pulse, causing a theater-wide atmospheric disturbance, disruption of signal propagation and destruction of electronic circuitry in military systems. In this manner, Saddam could have exploited the coalition's dependence on electronics.
As a consequence of our growing reliance on satellites to perform military functions, a future ASAT-wielding adversary of the United States might be capable of leveraging a victory out of otherwise hopeless military circumstances. By striking down, disrupting, or neutralizing U.S. imagery satellites, the enemy blinds critical intelligence sensors. By denying U.S. forces segments of the GPS constellation, the enemy makes troop movements and logistics more difficult and may render weapons that rely on mid-course and terminal guidance useless or unreliable. Although the United States is not likely to encounter an enemy skilled in counterspace operations for the remainder of this century (unless the enemy is Russia), space is rapidly becoming this country's Achilles' heel.
Iraqi Space Operations
Despite Iraqi's general lack of space power, the country's ties with space might have been more of a factor than most analysts first believed. Baghdad had made small but steady investments in military space activities and was a member of three international telecommunications networks. It had access to the civilian-run, treaty-organized companies Intelsat and Inmarsat, which facilitate long-distance communications and data-sharing. It also was an investor in the two regional telecommunications satellites operated by Arabsat and was home to an Arabsat transmitting and receiving station. Had Iraq possessed the proper equipment and been a member of the right alliances, it also could have exploited universally available meteorological data, GPS navigational signals, and Earth imagery data.
Indeed, Iraq did have steady access to network radio and television broadcasts and cable feeds (e.g., CNN). Moreover, Iraqi commanders had at their fingertips a few GPS receivers, used extensively in the oil exploration industry, although at the time they had not integrated GPS positional data into military operations. Thus, Iraq was a space-aware regional hegemon, and it may have been on the brink of deploying and integrating space capabilities into its military operations.
Iraq's space and missile-launch facilities, under somewhat different conditions, might have proved vexing to allied operations. In December 1989, Iraq tested its rust Tamouz satellite launcher, which was expected to become operational around the time of the invasion. Through its close ties with the Soviet Union, China, France, and Brazil, Iraq might have been in a position to launch and operate its own imagery satellite within a few years. Access to reasonably current satellite imagery would have given Baghdad snapshot assessments of theater-wide deployments, installations, and force movements. Such a capability, if left unchallenged, would have allowed Saddam to coordinate his defenses and possibly stall the allied counteroffensive.
Under different circumstances, space might also have afforded Saddam the means to consider significant offensive operations. As suggested in the hypothetical scenario above, if Iraq had possessed the ability to use the GPS satellites to improve the accuracy of its missiles, Iraqi ballistic missile tactics might have been far more devastating. And had Iraq possessed the capability to operate its own satellites to military benefit during the Persian Gulf war, coalition forces might have had to rely primarily on precision air strikes to destroy or neutralize the ground segments in order to achieve space control, placing aircraft and crews at great risk.
At times, however, U.S. air forces may not be in a position to use this method of attacking the satellite indirectly. At other times, when it is necessary to deny an enemy the benefits of space in anticipation of battle, space control options by air forces will be politically unacceptable, as they would amount to a premature declaration of war. Prewar battle preparations in space are a more ambiguous matter and potentially less provocative than prewar battle preparations involving the other geographic environments. These and many related issues regarding future security must be addressed.
Space Control and Future Security
Desert Storm was America's first space war, the first significant conflict wherein sure and rapid success depended upon steady access to satellites for all of the armed services. Space operational support usually did not make front page news, no doubt adding to the public's lack of appreciation for the importance of military space power. Nevertheless, U.S. dependence on military capabilities in space is rising with each passing year. The Persian Gulf war teaches the defense community that certain advantages accrue to the nation that ensures its freedom to use Earth's orbits. Conversely, an inability to exploit space (owing to our own policy and material deficiencies, or to enemy actions) will place our warriors at a distinct disadvantage that may someday spell the difference between victory and defeat.
Thus, in the future, space control will be as important as sea control or command of the air is today, depending on the importance of space to the course and outcome of the particular war. Like all other classes of power, space power can offer a unique and complementary capability to nearly any prospective war effort. Consequently, should an adversary deny the United States access to space, all forces on land, sea, and in the air will lose vital enabling capabilities, paralyzing some operations while severely restricting others. Likewise, if an enemy achieves effective dominance in space, and if the United States has no means to contest that dominance, the enemy will hold military advantages America cannot duplicate or easily circumvent.
Defense analysts agree that the Persian Gulf war was a unique case, not likely to be repeated. The desert terrain favored coalition air power, and Saddam's blatant aggression served as a rallying point for a most unusual coalition of countries, depriving him of meaningful allies. Add to this list of oddities the coalition's complete, unchallenged dominance of space.
Desert Storm, therefore, should not be looked upon as a standard for future combat. The war affirmed the importance of space to military operations in the eyes of many, especially in the Middle East and Asia.(9) Thus, we must expect future enemies to be more aware of the advantages that space can bring and even to have a tentative foothold in space. Indeed, as we reach the end of this century, the number of spacefaring nations is expected to rise to roughly forty.(10) Perhaps no developing country has more of an appreciation for military space than India. Indian defense professionals tout the vital contributions of spacecraft to intelligence acquisition, battle management, and weapon precision, and they understand such technologies to be a sine qua non for all nations seeking power status.(11) We should look at the orientation of India's space-minded military and space-aware officials as an indication of the likely global trend.
Some instruction on these points may be found in a simulated war against the People's Republic of China conducted at the Naval War College in the spring of 1994. The war game, set in the year 2010, was a part of the Pentagon's ongoing study of the revolution in military affairs. In the scenario, Beijing provokes the U.S. Navy into patrolling China's shores, luring vulnerable aircraft carriers and other surface ships within range of precision-guided cruise missiles. The Chinese begin their ambush by attacking U.S. satellites, which confounds American targeting abilities and precludes any significant counter-offensive by the U.S. Navy. The Chinese also use space-based assets to enhance the effectiveness of their own forces. U.S. players in this war game were routed, their forces hit before they could throw up adequate defenses.(12)
This military simulation taught the participants that U.S. military technologies may be neutralized by a resourceful, technically innovative country, and that the United States must make the effort to preserve its relative technological advantage. Military innovation may allow an enemy to reduce or overcome current U.S. military advantages (especially in the area of information warfare) and to challenge the adequacy and flexibility of existing mindsets and doctrines. A further noteworthy point to be taken from this exercise is that space is the one environment that can afford an imaginative Chinese leadership of fifteen years hence the opportunity to achieve a manifold increase in military leverage over a once-formidable foe. The simulated American failure to prevent China from using space led to projections of the largest numbers of U.S. casualties in the Pacific since World War II.