Push back against Trump's 'offensive' space proposal

Members of the UK's Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament hold signs at their recent annual conference

Trump boasts that his latest proposal to station orbiting battle stations in space would enable the Space Command to pick-off any nuclear missile attack against the US.  

The new Trump space proposal is a key element in Pentagon first-strike attack planning sold to the public as ‘missile defense’.  The system is not actually designed to protect the U.S. from every nuclear missile launched at us—that would be a mathematical impossibility. This Star Wars system would only work as the ‘shield’ to be used to pick off Russian or Chinese retaliatory responses after a U.S. first-strike sword is thrust.

We know this because the Space Command has been computer war gaming such a scenario for years—they call it the ‘Red team’ versus the ‘Blue team.

These words below give an indication that so-called 'missile defense' is in fact about developing a budget line that would enable the research, development, testing and deployment of offensive space systems.  See for yourself and you decide what the agenda really is:
 

We are not interested in keeping pace with the emerging threats. We want to outpace them. This requires not just defensive weapons, but a host of enabling technologies that will allow us to integrate the missile defense mission across our department." - Acting Secretary of Defense Pat Shanahan, 01/17/2019

The kicker is that the costs would be colossal—what the aerospace industry has long said would be the largest industrial project in human history. The only way the U.S. can pay for it is by cutting Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and by twisting the arms of NATO members to pony up more money.  We've repeatedly heard the calls in Congress for cutting 'the entitlement programs' and we've seen Trump going to Europe demanding that NATO member states pay more to the 'alliance'.

All of this of course punches huge holes in any hopes of negotiating the PAROS (Prevention of an Arms Race in Outer Space) Treaty at the United Nations.  For many years Russia, China and Canada have led efforts at the U.N. to bring forth such a new treaty - to close the door to the barn before the horse gets out.  But the US (through successive Republican and Democrat administrations) has blocked the development of such a treaty despite massive global support for a ban on a new arms race in space.

One must wonder what the Democrats (now in control of the House of Representatives) will do when Trump requests funding for these dangerous and destabilizing space warfare programs.  We all recognize the power of the aerospace industry in Congress. Most of the members of Congress from both parties get campaign donations from the space weapons corporations. 

It is high time for the American people to realize that this program, that I've long called Pyramids to the Heavens (see art below from Florida friend Will Park), can only be funded if all programs of social progress are defunded and the $$$$ gets moved into Pentagon coffers.

New York-based journalism professor Karl Grossman has been writing about the Star Wars program for many years.  See his latest article on Trump's proposal here.

Bruce