Son of Star Wars
Will Hawai'i become the center of a new arms race?

by John Lasker

In January, a Chinese missile snarled and flashed its fangs 500 miles above the earth's surface. China, in a show of its space-war fighting capabilities, had obliterated one its own weather satellites with a ground-based missile interceptor. Later that month, while still in the fall-out of China's provocative action, the United State's Missile Defense Agency (MDA) shot down a dummy ballistic missile as it skirted the edge of space, 70 miles above the Pacific and not far from Kaua'i.
For the MDA and many of its private contractors from the aerospace industry, it was reason to stand up and cheer. This was the first time the Pacific Missile Range Facility (PMRF) had showcased the THAAD (Terminal High Altitude Area Defense) system since the MDA had moved it from a New Mexico desert in October. THAAD is, in military parlance, a mobile ballistic missile interceptor.
But, while the MDA unit and their peers at PMRF celebrated, it was more bleak news for island peace activists and those worried about the militarization of Hawai'i.
There is no doubt that MDA "star wars" tests are on the upswing in the Pacific and Hawai'i. Some peace activists and arms control experts believe this is a sign of a new arms race, a chess match of space-combat prowess between China and the United States, brewing in the Pacific.
This arms race has far greater implications than what nation can build the more powerful laser or be the first to launch a "killer satellite" constellation. It signals to the international community that a future war between China and the U.S. may be inevitable. A war between an emerging superpower and the current champion that could be sparked by the skyrocketing demand for energy resources. A war fought on traditional battlescapes, such as land, water and air, and, not so traditional, cyberspace and outer space. Such a conflict could easily engulf the islands.
"If you think about it," says a U.S. Navy officer from the islands who spoke on the condition of anonymity, "the threats we're facing are going to be coming from space."
In the mean time, some are speculating on what China was trying to accomplish by turning a satellite no bigger than a refrigerator into a thousand little floating pieces.
"The ASAT [anti-satellite weapon] test could have been a strategic move by the Chinese to bully the United States into actually discussing (a space weapons) treaty," states space-weapons expert Theresa Hitchens. The current White House is telling the world there's no need for a treaty, says Hitchens, who directs the left-leaning Center for Defense Information, a Washington-based think tank.
"There certainly are many in U.S. policy and military circles who believe that China is the new threat, and that the United States must ready itself for an eventual military conflict in the Pacific," she says.
Space Hawks
Bruce Gagnon, coordinator for Global Network Against Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space, has traveled the world to warn peace activists and university crowds about the Missile Defense Agency [MDA], which he calls the "son of Star Wars."
Since President Ronald Reagan called for a space shield in the early 1980s, the Pentagon and their "space hawks" have spent over $100 billion on its research. Twenty-plus years later, then-Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld promised to revive missile defense. He and others managed to double funding for missile defense and make it the premiere research quest for the Pentagon.
All U.S. missile defensive capabilities, however, have an offensive application as well, says Gagnon. That is why he calls Star Wars a ruse, a "Trojan horse."
"It has always been my contention that the Missile Defense Agency is in fact creating an offensive program that includes anti-satellite weapons and other first-strike space weapons programs," he says.
Gagnon, a veteran of the Air Force, has kept a close eye on the Pacific. He has traveled to Japan to rally peace activists there as that nation spends more and more on U.S. missile defense. Citing Pentagon documents and major newspaper reports, the Global Network coordinator says the Pentagon is slowly doubling its military presence in the Asian-Pacific region. The Pentagon says over 50 percent of its "forward looking" war games took place in Asia during the last decade.
Like other observers, Gagnon agrees a Sino-American war could erupt over the global competition for oil. But he also believes this: The U.S. may try to manage China's development before it even comes to this. "China, if left alone, will become a major economic competitor with the U.S.," he says. "The U.S. wants to control the keys to China's development."
To do so, the U.S. will arm the Pacific with a high-tech arsenal, such as space weapons that can, among other things, knock out satellites and thus blind a modern war force. "China imports much of its oil through the Taiwan Straits and thus, if the U.S. can militarily dominate that region, then the Pentagon would have the ability to choke off China's ability to import oil," he states. "The U.S. could then theoretically hold them hostage to various political demands."
Some of Gagnon's peers in the arms-control field have labeled him a "chicken little" and his theories "too far out there." But after what the national office of the American Civil Liberties Union [ACLU] uncovered, he's being tagged less and less these days with negative monikers. Two years ago, the ACLU discovered that "agents" from NASA and the Air Force were secretly monitoring him and his family.
Full Spectrum Dominance
Just hours after China blew up its own weather satellite, calls were made on Capital Hill to ramp-up the U.S.'s space war fighting arsenal.
Peace activists and arms-control experts could only shake their heads.
They know the Pentagon has quietly been making the case for "full-spectrum dominance" for the last ten years. Besides rising missile defense budgets, numerous defense papers have called for the U.S. to militarize the ultimate high ground, even the moon.
Why the Pentagon desires to weaponize space, while also shifting much of their global war fighting focus and missile-defense research from Europe to Asia-Pacific, is a subject of a contentious debate. China does have a small cache of intercontinental ballistic missiles that could reach the United Space. The world's fastest growing economy has also made overtures to regain its "lost province," Taiwan.
But Beijing isn't the only Asian tiger keeping the Pentagon on edge. North Korea has threatened to strike Hawai'i with ballistic missiles and in the late 1990s fired a ballistic missile over Japan. Last year the regime detonated a nuclear weapon underneath a mountain and test-fired several ballistic missiles.
Kyle Kajihiro is one of Hawai'i's most notable peace activists. He directs the Honolulu-based DMZ Hawai'i and believes there may be a simpler reason as to why missile defense research is on the rise around the islands.
The increasing militarization of Hawai'i has coincided with two significant events, the National Missile Defense Act of 1999 and the election of President Bush in 2001, says Kajihiro. What's too easy, he adds, is targeting the current wave of Republican leadership in Washington for allowing defense funding to pour into the islands. You also have to blame the gatekeeper, the peace activist says: the gatekeeper who has the keys to the Pentagon's money.
"Senator Daniel Inouye wants the money to pour in. They (Inouye and allies) want defense contractors to set up shop here," Kajihiro says. "The Congressional earmarks are not necessary. That's my gut feeling. The North Korean threat has been completely exaggerated."
Sixty years after Inouye's exploits as a soldier in World War II, Inouye's influence and power as one of Washington's veteran Senators has allowed Hawai'i to become a "destabilizing" factor in the Pacific, says Kajihiro.
Fifteen years ago, the Navy's Pacific Missile Range Facility (PMRF) at Barking Sands was on the Pentagon's hit list for being downsized, possibly even closed. In 1999, Inouye sought to rejuvenate the facility by co-sponsoring the National Missile Defense Act, Kajihiro claims.
The Clinton administration, which significantly cut missile defense funding during the 1990s, criticized the bill, but it passed anyway, and Inouye secured nearly $50 million to upgrade the missile range. "It was the beginning of the flood gates opening for a lot of these missile defense projects around Hawai'i," says Kajihiro.
Inouye is the Senate's third most senior member. He chairs the Senate Defense Appropriations Committee and has declared many times that his position has helped Hawai'i economically. Indeed, according to Taxpayers for Common Sense, a non-partisan think-tank, 60 to 65 percent of all military-related earmarks during the last several years went to the states of senators who sit on the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee.
As Christmas neared in 2001, a time Congress worked furiously in the wake of 9/11 to beef-up 2002's defense budget, Inouye's committee quietly doubled Hawai'i's defense budget for that year. The islands would receive a total of $850 million, which doesn't include payroll or day-to-day expenses.
Of the $400-million plus in new 2002 appropriations, $150 million would go directly to missile defense research. Other millions were added to ambiguous projects that peace activists claim could someday contribute to space weapons.
For instance, $6 million was given to the Silicon Thick Film Mirror Coating program, an ongoing research project on Kaua'i. Peace activists say the coating will someday be applied to space-based mirrors that will relay ground-based or space-based lasers around the globe.
Twenty million also went to the Air Force's Maui Space Surveillance System, located on the summit of Haleakala. There, the U.S. military operates their largest telescope, the Advanced Electro-Optical System. They say one of its responsibilities is to monitor asteroids that may strike earth.
"I'm not buying any of it," says Kajihiro, who believes the ultimate missions for the telescope are missile defense and space combat. The military says the telescope can also track satellites, and admits that laser-beam research continues at the site.
During this decade, Hawai'i has annually ranked among the top five for states receiving defense funding. According to Kajihiro, the militarization of Hawai'i "is really driven by the appropriations." He adds, "Sen. Inouye says it's about defending Hawai'i. Our stance is the increasing missile defense tests are a destabilizing factor. The tests are provoking an arms race in the region between nuclear powers."
And while Sen. Inouye has the key to defense funding in his pocket, he himself is in a figurative pocket, the peace activist says.
The millions that are being spent on missile defense research around Hawai'i do not entirely go to military personnel. Take, for example, the THAAD system, which was moved from New Mexico to Kaua'i. THAAD is managed by the MDA, but its primary contractor and researcher is aerospace giant Lockheed Martin.
Between the years 2001 and 2006, five of 20 Inouye's top campaign finance contributors were defense contractors, says Kajihiro, citing Opensecrets.org. Inouye's biggest contributor among defense contractors was Lockheed Martin, he adds.
"Sen. Inouye has said he's anti-war, but at the same time he's pro-military build-up, pro-military pork. It's kind of weird. It's hypocritical," says Kajihiro.
Sen. Inouye's office did not return several phone requests for comment on this story.

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