Star Wars, Tools of US Space Supremacy
By Loring Wirbel
Loring Wirbel’s Star Wars: US Tools of Space Supremacy is a “must read” for activists who wish to be informed about the nature of modern war and the politicians in and out of uniform who promote it. The book does us a great favor by pointing out that the many space-based tools of warfare make Star Wars a program in progress, not merely a development yet to come. It is true that an even more advanced use of space for earthly wars, with both conventional and nuclear weapons, is still around the corner, but in a real sense it is already here in the blitzkrieg campaigns that initiated the yet unfinished wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. What is yet to come is ominous however, and the author addresses that fully.
A historical approach is used to set the context for the policies and actions of today’s U.S. Space Command. As the author points out, space control, space domination, and space force have been the goals from the beginning. Several times in my reading of the book a quote from Jack Manno’s Arming the Heavens (1983) came to mind. Air Force General Bernard Schriever, who is referred to often in Wirbel’s book and whose spirit lives on in the Colorado Air Force base named after him issued a comment on his perspective of the Outer Space Treaty: “Space for peaceful purposes – what a bunch of goddamned bullshit that was.” That mentality has underpinned the U.S. military space program from its earliest days as it incorporated the Nazi space scientists alongside General Schriever and others in U.S missile and satellite development.
There is a lot of technical detail in the text and the reader will find the glossary of acronyms and abbreviations most helpful in keeping up with the narrative. The book does flow with the aid of the author’s writing style. The vital role of secret information systems in bringing real time intelligence to the war fighter and thus increasing the killing and destructive power of modern killing devices is explained in detail. Subjective judgments are inserted in the text throughout. The sources for the information provided are there to be checked out. One theme pursued by the author is the unfortunate bipartisan acceptance of the notion of the U.S. as dominator of the world. “In the final analysis, both major U.S. parties perceived global management of all nations by the surviving superpower as right and proper, because the US was seen by all in the Washington power elite as the only nation qualified to own the rule books” (p. 81).
Even those who do not share the author’s viewpoint will find plenty of food for thought in this book. It is true that this work will make a lot more sense to one who has read some of the material in the extensive bibliography but it will be enlightening to those with limited background as well. The book digs deep into the secret information channel that is so often referred to in today’s world as “intelligence.” That is the material that we dumb citizens are supposed to accept at face value after it is presented to us in its “spin” version. This book challenges us all to probe behind the press releases and propaganda speeches of our current crop of politicians. We all need to know more about spying, the black budget, secret memos, weapons research, etc. etc. Only then will we be up to the task outlined in the last chapter: “Reclaiming Multilateralism and Peace in Space.” As the author puts it:
“The unilateralists in the Bush administration have made clear their plans for conducting war around the globe using the medium of space. It is high time the anti-nuclear, global justice, civil liberties, anti-BMD and anti-war communities catch up with these plans by uniting their own efforts at exposing and opposing space domination.”
Bill Sulzman
Pluto Press, February 2004, 174 pages, ISBN 0-7453-2114-3, £ 19,95, paperback; or 192 pages, ISBN 0-7453-2115-1, £ 65, hardcover.
