The International Herald Tribune April 01, 2003
Satellite armada gives U.S. forces 'the ultimate high ground'
By William J. Broad
SOURCE: The New York Times
Nine days before the war in Iraq began, the U.S. Air Force launched into orbit a one-ton, $200-million satellite meant to speed communications between defense officials and battlefield commanders. It joined an orbital fleet that is quietly making this war different from all others.
Scores of satellites are providing coalition forces in Iraq with an invisible web of communications, guidance, reconnaissance, weather forecasting, missile warning, target acquisition and damage assessment. The Gulf War in 1991 drew heavily on spacecraft, experts agree. But in the dozen years since then, the U.S. military's reliance on satellites has soared. The expanding fleet, officials and experts say, is now empowering dozens of new weapons and tactics on the battlefield.
And there is more to come.
"We have 12 national-security space launches scheduled for 2003, compared to only one conducted in 2002," Peter Teets, air force undersecretary, told the Senate Armed Services Committee on March 12.
At the Pentagon that same day, Major General Franklin Blaisdell, director of space operations for the air force, said orbital power translated into terrestrial might. "It's the ultimate high ground," Blaisdell said.
Skeptics wonder whether the overwhelming advantage that the United States now enjoys in space-aided warfare has led to overconfidence. Gadgets cannot subdue dust storms or fight door-to-door, they argue, and history shows that even outgunned troops can fight back.
Other analysts urge patience. Advances in electronics and space-aided warfare, they say, have increased the U.S. military's flexibility, speed and precision. They say Iraq is the laboratory that will show the depth and effectiveness of the shift.
"The information revolution has fundamentally changed the nature of combat," said Bruce Berkowitz, author of "The New Face of War," a recent book about military satellites and networks. "To win wars today, you must first win the information war."
On March 10, a $200-million part of the information war blasted into space from Cape Canaveral in Florida. The spacecraft, an element of the Defense Satellite Communications System, joined a network of 10 that provide the U.S. military with secure high-speed voice and data transmissions among forces on land, in the air and at sea. Made by Lockheed Martin, the craft now orbits above the Indian Ocean.
Such satellites, in addition to linking troops and commanders, are performing new missions like relaying signals between ground controllers and Predator pilotless drones, military experts said. In Iraq, military commanders are using Predators to scout ahead.
John Pike, director of GlobalSecurity.org, a Washington-based research group on military and space topics, said satellites are also proving important for disseminating surveillance images. During the 1991 Gulf War, he said, such images often moved slowly by fax machine, frustrating military planners eager for the latest reconnaissance.
"Now this stuff flies effortlessly," he said. "Twelve years ago you couldn't do that."
Copyright © 2003, International Herald Tribune
