Broad Categories of Military Space Activities
Soviet Military Space Activities
INTRODUCTION
definitional underpinnings of military space activities
More than half of Soviet space launchings to date have been in direct support of military missions. Table 10 of part 1 of this report summarizes trends in this regard. While that table shows the great importance of military applications in the Soviet space program, it also shows that the program is not wholly military in its objectives. Other chapters discussing the organization, the goals and the hard ware of the Soviet program show the many elements of the pro gram used for scientific and civil or economic applications, which make the diversity of the total program abundantly clear.
There has always been an element of speculation about Soviet purposes in space because of their skillful use of information poli cies to combine a large flood of information about many aspects of space flight, including the quick identification of flight names and orbital parameters, and at the same time they have a policy of tight security and secrecy over the real purposes of most payloads and minimal information about the technology of Earth orbital flight. Other sections of this report have shown techniques for penetrating this obfuscation to provide fairly reliable indicators of real Soviet objectives, flight by flight. If this is not possible on the day of launch, particularly with new variations, this usually can be ac complished within a year or two by painstaking analysis of all the evidence which finally enters the public domain. It is partly a sub jective judgment in the end, without Soviet cooperation, whether we have really explained all flights or whether there is a remnant where even our guestimates and intuitive feelings may be mislead ing us. In general, experience seems to demonstrate that our more conservative views about mysterious flights in the end find better support than the more speculative guesses that a particular new event is about to lead immediately to quantum jumps in ambitions and achievements.
The Russians have maintained they must pursue policies of se crecy over some aspects of their flight program because they do not want to boast in advance of concrete accomplishments—which is just another way of saying they hate to tarnish their contrived image of superiority by admitting to failures which inevitably occur in all space programs pushing into new technology. They also admit that most of their launch vehicles have also been used as military missiles, and hence, they reason, their characteristics must be protected against disclosure to their foreign rivals if their strategic deterrent against aggression by imperialists is to be preserved. This is hard to understand when Moscow parades have included the Shyster, Sandal, Skean, Sasin, Scarp, Scrag, and Savage, among others, while they have held back pictures of the complete D- and G-class vehicles, as well as details on some or all upper stages of A-, D-, and F-class launch vehicles. The Russians have routinely made clear that all their launches are conducted by the Soviet Strategic Rocket Forces, a military organization.
The Soviet claim is that all of their space flights are peaceful and scientific, while in earlier years it was common for them to attribute aggressive motives and see complete military domination in the U.S. program. Currently, Soviet propaganda is focusing upon the military potential of the shuttle. The problem of penetrating political semantics for scholars in a truly neutral setting, looking at claims and counterclaims, is not necessarily difficult, but is partly a matter of philosophy rather than absolutes. For some years, the United States has stated that its own space program is wholly peaceful—using space through NASA and other civilian de partments to help us live better in peace, and using space through DOD to guarantee the peace. The United States seems at least as reticent as the Soviet Union in disclosing real details about mili tary missions in space, although it acknowledges that it does with hold such information, while the Soviets pretend they have no mili tary space program on which to withhold information. The Soviet claim that their space program is wholly scientific is valid only to the extent that science and technology can be treated as synony mous.
Perhaps the real tests of peacefulness or aggression lie not in labels or organizations but in intentions. Some specific acts in the space field are viewed as warlike. These include placing weapons of mass destruction in orbit—now banned by treaty—and direct inter ference with the flights of other nations. Beyond that, classifica tions become more nebulous. The bulk of space flights with mili tary characteristics in both the programs of the United States and the Soviet Union are passive in character and neither violate any treaty nor pose any threat in themselves to other nations.
When one tries to sort out individual space flights into categories which are predominately civil or military, it quickly becomes ap parent that it cannot be done by responsible agency alone because a simple administrative change in titles of government depart ments could upset classifications. The inherent peaceful or warlike character of flights is not easily answered by the hardware and flight path, because this depends partly on states of mind and in tended end objectives, which are not always apparent. For example, when is a weather report just an economic fact for a farmer, and when is it a guide to the commander of a strategic bomber force? When is an observation flight one to gather economic data to raise the world standard of living, and when is it a safeguard against surprise attack to keep the world peaceful, and when is it a means for up-grading target information for future conflict? This chapter does not try to settle such philosophic issues nor does it offer judgments as to what is inherently good or bad.
Both the United States and the Soviet Union have been reason ably aware of trends in each other's military doctrine, hardware, and policies. They have developed whatever space systems they have from the same fountain of worldwide technology, although some parts of this knowledge and know-how have advanced at dif ferent rates depending upon the concentration of manpower and resources in particular areas. The DOD began its Discoverer flights as early as 1959, while the Soviet Union introduced the Kosmos label for many of its flights beginning in 1962, thus possibly signal ing military activities. Even so, both countries must have started developing the technology for the military use of space long before these dates in order to be able to meet the lead time requirements of such flights. Whereas the Soviet Union was first into orbit with Sputnik 1 in 1957, the United States was first in orbiting satellites for military and civil applications as opposed to pure scientific re search.
Soviet Statements on Space for Military Purposes
This section reviews Soviet statements on military uses of space to a degree sufficient to supplement other analytical techniques in understanding the development of their military space program.
Not surprisingly, a primary journal for articles of analysis of the military aspects of the U.S. space program has been Red Star (Krasnaya Zvezda). In 1965, retired Maj. Gen. Teplinskiy wrote a long diatribe on U.S. activities, in which he claimed that the Apollo program aimed at prestige was a disappointment to Pentagon lead ers, and then he developed the theme that most of the associated work of Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo really served military ends. He further attributed to the United States a long list of military missions ranging beyond military support work to space interceptors and orbital bombs. 1
This was followed by a more detailed analysis of U.S. military space activities about 2 weeks later in the same paper. It traced work in geodesy, photographic observation, infrared detection of missile launchings, weather reporting, military communications, navigation—all reflecting a detailed familiarity with the spate of stories carried over the years in the American trade press. But the author went on to ascribe to U.S. planners schemes for stationing nuclear bombs in orbit, and armed interceptors for battle against other spacecraft. Dyna-Soar was discussed, with the Gemini-derived Manned Orbiting Laboratory [MOL] identified as an even more for midable successor. The article concluded that no matter how ambitious U.S. military plans were, they would always be exceeded in space by the combat might of the Soviet armed forces. 2
Attacks on U.S. policy were extended in October 1965, contrast ing the purported scientific idealism of the Soviet Union with the claimed determination of the United States to pursue aggression by unleashing a new world war which would include war in outer space. Samos, Transit, and Secor (experiments related to observation, navigation, and geodesy respectively) were singled out for special criticism, together with experiments conducted by the crew of Gemini 5 of infrared observation of a missile launch, and especially the threat of the Manned Orbiting Laboratory [MOL]. 3
Although these quotations are illustrative of the general tone of Soviet pronouncements over the years, other quite interesting statements also have been made by Soviet authorities in other set tings. Pravda quoted Party Chairman Brezhnev himself at a recep tion for Soviet military academy graduates at the Kremlin on July 1, 1966:
A host of all kinds of fabulous stories is now in vogue in the United States—that it has the most "all-seeing" spy satellites, the "greatest possible number of rockets," the most "invulnerable submarines" and so forth and so on. But to put it mildly this does not agree with the facts, since the authors of such stories rely on those simpletons, who have never considered what rockets, sputniks, subma rines, and other technical equipment the Soviet Union has. 4
The text of a 1970 article on the intelligence services, which ap peared in Moscow, seemed to give tacit approval for the use of reconnaissance satellites:
Let us repeat, the division of labor within the intelli gence service in no way signifies a desire on the part of its leaders to have clean hands; on the contrary they use secret agents to fulfill the most serious and profound tasks which cannot be solved by satellites, reconnaissance aircraft, or information centers using fast electronic equip ment. 5
The distinction was being drawn between human spies (neces sary, but dirty) and modern technology (necessary and correct, if not applauded).
The advent of the U.S. Space Transportation System [STS] or space shuttle produced a steady flow of statements from the Soviets concentrating on military aspects of its proposed usage. This is an example from International Affairs.
What alarms the world public most is the plans of the Pentagon strategists to use the Shuttle in implementing their new far-reaching military programs in outer space. In addition, it can put in orbit many "cheap" spy satellites as well as satellites concerned with military communica tion, navigation, weather and geodesy and other military purposes. The Shuttle provides the basis for a new anti- satellite system. It is believed that special devices will enable it to "inspect" space objects on orbit, and destroy them or take them down to Earth in the cargo compart ment. The spaceship is supposed to be equipped with laser weapons. U.S. military experts are considering using it for placing nuclear devices in outer space. The Pentagon also pins great hopes on the Shuttle in the matter of deploying a space-based anti-missile defense system. With this aim in view it plans to build 10 permanent orbital stations over the next 15 years and arm them with powerful chemical lasers to destroy the warheads of the "enemy's" ICBMs in night. 6
An article contrasting the peaceful Soviet-French space pro grams, following the visit of Jean-Loup Chretien to Salyut 7, with American militarization of space made capital of the secrecy surrounding the Department of Defense's payloads on the STS-4 mis sion.
Can one regard as a mere coincidence the fact that while the Soviet and French cosmonauts have been working for peaceful purposes aboard the orbital station (Salyut 7), the American space shuttle Columbia was completing its fourth consecutive test flight for the needs of the Pentagon? A military cargo aboard the Columbia had been labelled "top secret" by the Pentagon. According to available data, this applies to a telescope and scanning sensors for detecting "hostile" missiles and space devices. This is the Reagan administration's obvious step along the path of militarization of outer space. 7
These selected quotations demonstrate the point that the Soviet Union has tried to make the United States look as bad as possible while keeping its own freedom of action in this regard. In the late 1950s and early 1960s, the Soviet charges were close to hysterical against the U.S. military involvement in space. In the middle 1960s, they continued to point with disapproval, and to charge that the United States would move beyond support work to space weap ons. During the early 1970s, the general tone was more muted and there was more indirect acknowledgement that space defense work is useful to both nations. This even advanced to the point where SALT talks on limits to weapons referred to use of "national tech nical means" (unspecified, but not excluding space) as a method for each nation to verify the conformance of the other to whatever limits are agreed to in construction and deployment of weapons and defenses. Now, in the 1980s, the wheel has turned full circle.
division or overlap, civil and military activities
It is difficult to pinpoint military use of satellites when the same kinds of missions are normally carried out for civil purposes as well. Consequently, no attempt can be made here to quantify what part of the hardware or the usage of shared hardware is for mili tary purposes. The primary purpose of this section is to discuss in more general terms what military uses do lie within some catego ries of flights.
References:
1. Teplinskiy, B. "The Pentagon, the Mad Men, and the Moon." Red Star, Jan. 10, 1965.
2 Glazov, Col. V. "Cosmic Weapons." Red Star, Jan. 26 and 27, 1965.
3. Golyshev, Col. M., "Military Review—The Pentagon Is Pushing."
4. Pravda, Moscow, July 2, 1966.
5. Nedelya, Moscow, No. 46, Nov. 9-15, 1970, pp. 14-15.
6. Stashevsky, S. International Affairs in English, No. 7, July 1981, pp. 62-69.
7. Dad'yants, G. Sotsialisticheskaya Industriya, July 1982, p.
