ALBUQUERQUE, NEW MEXICO U.S. President George W. Bush is proposing a nearly $380 billion Pentagon budget that helps overhaul Americas military might, including strengthening U.S. capabilities in space.
Details of the U.S. Defense budget are to be released today, a budget that will include a transformation of the U.S. military, enabling it to project force over long distances and also fend off enemy attacks of Americas growing armada of space capabilities.
Details of the 21st century transformation of the U.S. Armed Forces were outlined by Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld, in remarks January 31 to the National Defense University in Washington, D.C.
Project and protect
Rumsfeld said that a major transformation process is underway within the Defense Department, focused on a set of goals, including maintaining "unhindered access to space" and protecting U.S. space capabilities from enemy attack."We need to prepare for new forms of terrorism, to be sure," Rumsfeld said, but also attacks on U.S. space assets, cyber attacks on our information networks, cruise missiles, ballistic missiles, and nuclear, chemical and biological weapons. At the same time, we must work to build up our own areas of advantages, such as our ability to project military power over long distances, precision-strike weapons, and our space, intelligence, and under-sea warfare capabilities."
Earth-penetrating weapons
While not specific on technological details, Rumsfeld pointed to one objective in sharpening Americas military space skills."Hardening U.S. space systems and building capabilities to defend our space assets could dissuade adversaries from developing and using small killer satellites to attack and cripple U.S. satellite networks. New earth-penetrating and thermobaric weapons could make obsolete the deep underground facilities where today terrorists hide and terrorist states conceal their weapons of mass destruction capabilities," Rumsfeld said.
Space technologists, such as those here at the Air Force Research Laboratory, Los Alamos National Laboratory, and Sandia National Laboratory, have been busy at work on a range of advanced space capabilities. According to SPACE.com sources, one new space-based weapon is dubbed a "thunder rod" a non-nuclear device hurled from Earth orbit that damages select targets on the ground.
Reorganized and revitalized
The change in investment priorities, Rumsfeld told the National Defense University last week, will begin to shift the balance in our arsenal between manned and unmanned capabilities, between short- and long-range systems, stealthy and non-stealthy systems, between shooters and sensors, and between vulnerable and hardened systems.
The Department of Defense has been "reorganized and revitalized" to move forward on missile defense research and testing "free of the constraints" of the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, Rumsfeld said, and "to better focus on space capabilities."
Rumsfeld said "defending the U.S. requires prevention, self-defense and sometimes preemption."
Little or no warning
"It is not possible to defend against every conceivable kind of attack in every conceivable location at every minute of the day or night. Defending against terrorism and other emerging 21st century threats may well require that we take the war to the enemy. The best, and in some cases, the only defense, is a good offense," Rumsfeld said.
In concluding remarks, the Secretary of Defense said the transformation of the U.S. military is needed to prepare for new and unexpected challenges. "We must be prepared for surprise. We must learn to live with little or no warning," he said.
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