The potential for the development of effective defenses against missile attack has been a hot-b.u.t.ton issue ever since the signing of the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty (ABM) in 1972. Back in the Cold War, both sides worried overtime about the possibility that the other would develop a "first strike capability," which would allow it to attack first and get away with it. As intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) became more accurate, arms control advocates worried that they had become a first-strike weapon. So precise was the ability to target these weapons that they could literally travel five thousand miles and actually enter the silos of enemy missiles poised to retaliate, and destroy them before they could be launched.
Compounding this worry was the chance that one side or the other (most likely the US) would develop an effective defense against incoming missiles, which would give it the ability to attack with impunity and without worrying about being wiped out in a retaliatory strike.
These fears led the US and the Soviet Union to sign the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty in 1972, sharply limiting the development, testing, and deployment of defensive weapons systems.
Reagan danced to the edge of the limits of the ABM Treaty as he developed his Strategic Defense Initiative, dubbed Star Wars by his opponents. Exploiting America"s vast lead in computer technology, he sought to develop a shield to protect us from incoming missiles.
The left throughout the world was outraged by Star Wars and, although it was never really developed, fighting against defensive weapons became a cause celebre on the left.
George W. Bush opted out of the ABM Treaty (the doc.u.ment allowed this) in 2002 and announced that we would not be bound by its provisions any longer. The Bush administration noted that the real threat was no longer a ma.s.sive Soviet missile strike, but terrorist or rogue states like Iran or North Korea launching missiles to hit the US or Israel. While Star Wars was never able to stop twelve thousand Soviet ICBMs from hitting American targets, it has developed to the point where it can be relied upon to shoot down smaller numbers of missiles.
American plans to base defensive missiles in postcommunist Eastern Europe raised Russian hackles and rallied the European left to oppose the deployment. But, to be truly effective, anti-missile systems need to be based in outer s.p.a.ce, where they can hit enemy missiles during their slow-moving launch phase. This strategy has the added advantage that the radioactive debris would fall on the aggressor nation.
Now the European left has devised a backdoor way to stop defense deployments of outer s.p.a.ce weapons-the Code of Conduct.
But, as John Bolton points out, we have vital security interests in s.p.a.ce that the proposed code may hobble. Bolton writes, "Outer s.p.a.ce has become the next frontier for American national security and business. From s.p.a.ce, we follow terrorists and intercept their communications, detect foreign military deployments, and monitor a proliferation of unconventional weapons. Our Global Positioning System gives us targeting and tactical advantages, s.p.a.cecraft create image-rich maps, and satellites beam data around the world."3
And, we hope, we can deploy satellites and anti-missile missiles to shoot down whatever Tehran and Pyongyang are prepared to launch against us.
The Europeans have been at work on a Code of Conduct for four years. In January 2012, Hillary announced that the US would not join the EU code as a signatory, but would promise to abide by its provisions even as we proceeded to negotiate an international code of conduct for s.p.a.ce. Bolton calls this maneuver "a transparent end run around the const.i.tutional requirement that the Senate ratify all treaties."4
Bolton explains that "Obama is eroding American sovereignty on the sly. He knows that an arms-control treaty for s.p.a.ce is unlikely. He barely managed to push the new strategic arms reduction treaty with Russia-a bad deal-through the Senate."5 So, Bolton argues, he and Hillary are cooking up a "code of conduct" to limit US activities without requiring Senate approval.
The administration argues that the code exempts security activities that are for self-defense, but Bolton points out that this "term [is] often defined narrowly to include only cross-border attacks. We should not take the unnecessary risk that our rivals will exploit such ambiguity to prevent legitimate American actions. Taken literally, the European Union code would interfere with our ability to develop antiballistic missile systems in s.p.a.ce, test antisatellite weapons and gather intelligence."6
ADVANTAGE: CHINA
And, of course, our adversaries won"t give the code a second thought. In 2007, China created about half of the outer s.p.a.ce debris currently encircling the earth when it shot down a weather satellite. The code would do little to stop Iran, North Korea, Russia, or China from using outer s.p.a.ce to counter US technological advantages.
Bolton says that "in a war, China could potentially destroy our satellites and still retain its own GPS capabilities."7 An a.n.a.lysis prepared by the Joint Chiefs of Staff and submitted to the House Armed Services Committee says that "if the United States were to make a good-faith effort at implementing the requirements of the draft Code, it would most likely have an adverse impact on military operations."8
Because it could not hope to get the Code of Conduct through the Senate, the Obama administration maintains that it is not a binding treaty, but only a voluntary guideline for conduct. Michael Listner, of s.p.a.ce Safety Magazine, explains that "the administration a.s.serts that since both the European Code of Conduct and the proposed International Code of Conduct are not intended to be legally binding treaties, the administration is not required to seek the advice and consent Congress, nor does it require Congressional intervention while negotiating it."9
But, while technically the code is not legally binding, congressmen have been quick to note that it would guide the writing and implementation of regulations that would govern NASA, the Defense Department, and commercial firms operating in s.p.a.ce.
Congressmen Michael Turner (R-OH) and Joe Heck (R-NV) and Senators John Kyl (R-AZ) and Jeff Sessions (R-AL) argue that while the code would be nonbinding, it would nonetheless "require the Department of Defense and the intelligence community to implement regulations, which would be binding and could influence both the national and economic security of the United States."10 The letter also warns that the regulations could impede the "growing commercial s.p.a.ce market and the jobs that are created from it."11
Dr. Robert Zubrin, president of Pioneer Astronautics and the author of Energy Victory, gives a fuller explanation of why the code would be de facto binding on the US:
Imagine you are a Pentagon colonel, trying to advance your program to develop an anti-satellite weapon system. You need to conduct an in-s.p.a.ce test to validate it. You will be told by the bra.s.s above you to forget it, because such a test would violate the Code, and it"s far above their pay grade to do anything to alter the rules. Now imagine that you are a scientist or engineer doing defense work. You have a new idea for an anti-satellite system, but its development would require in-s.p.a.ce testing that might create s.p.a.ce debris. Your proposal to start development will be rejected on sight, should you be so intemperate as to not censor the idea yourself.12
Zubrin cites as an example of how such a code can become binding in fact, the "planetary protection" agreements reached by the international nongovernmental Committee of s.p.a.ce Research (COSPAR), which have "crippled NASA efforts to mount a mission to Mars to retrieve samples of its soil." He explains that
a few bureaucrats meeting together at COSPAR come to an agreement imposing all sorts of difficult requirements on any sample return mission in order to avoid the (nonexistent) threat of back-contamination of Mars. For example, COSPAR requires that the MSR mission "break the chain" of contact between the Mars surface and Earth, which means that instead of directly returning the sample from Mars, there will need to be an autonomous rendezvous and dock in Mars...o...b..t (which has never been done), and the mission will have to be done with two s.p.a.cecraft, instead of one, increasing costs and greatly adding to mission risk (since BOTH s.p.a.cecraft need to succeed in order for the mission to succeed). As a result of such imperatives, current NASA designs for the MSR mission are excessively complex and expensive, so much so that the program is now dead in the water. But if you challenge the engineers involved on why they incorporated such irrational features into their design, they will answer that they had to do so, because our COSPAR agreements require it. Thus the mission is killed in the design phase, because it is far above the pay grade of the engineering teams attempting to make it a reality to change the rules. The same dynamic would take hold to block the work of those seeking to develop s.p.a.ce defense systems should the Code be put in place.13
The fact is that the Obama administration is using the Code of Conduct for Outer s.p.a.ce Activities to shift momentum away from a robust development of s.p.a.ce defense, even at a time when it has had little success in curbing the missile programs of Iran and North Korea. s.p.a.ce-based interceptors and satellites are our best protection against these threats and Obama seems intent on giving it away.
But the broader point of the Code of Conduct is that it takes yet another sphere of activity now dominated by the United States and attempts to subject it to global regulation and governance. With the complicity and outright a.s.sistance of the Obama administration, we are giving the global community control of the seas and now of s.p.a.ce.
PART EIGHT
TAXING THE US WITHOUT OUR APPROVAL
The radical globalists and their environmentalist allies are determined to get their hands on America"s wealth any way they can. Recently, the European Union decreed that it would levy a tax-without US approval-on airline flights to and from the United States. The tax-in addition to that permitted by international treaty on all air tickets-would be to compensate for the carbon emitted by airline fuel.
The EU would give this money to give to third world nations to help them deal with climate change.
Officially, the EU demanded that the US and other nations report to Europe on the level of greenhouse gas emissions from their airplanes flying to and from Europe. If the airplanes did not reduce their emissions, the EU would impose a tax on them equal to an estimated $57 on a one-way ticket from New York to London. Collection of the tax is slated to begin in 2013. Once fully enforced, it will cost American air carriers more than $3 billion between now and 2020.
China and India have refused to comply with the reporting requirements and the US and twenty-five other countries are threatening retaliation.
The US attacked the EU tax. " "The European Union is imposing this on US carriers without our agreement," Wendell Albright, director of the Office of Aviation Negotiations at the State Department, said... . "It is for the US to decide on targets or appropriate action for US airlines with respect to greenhouse gas emissions." "1
The United States airline industry vigorously challenged the EU"s legal right to regulate and tax a US company for conduct that is not connected to the EU and filed suit in the European Court of Justice, the European Union"s highest court.
However this dispute is resolved, the essential fact remains: Europe is claiming the power to tax the United States without our consent.
We already, of course, require airlines to collect taxes, but these levies spring from international agreements, not from unilateral actions.
For example, the US currently imposes a tax of $16.70 on all international flights originating or terminating in the United States. But our taxing powers are sharply limited by international treaties.
The EU tax is unilateral, without asking for consent from the US or other nations.
But it is a panacea for the globalists and environmentalists. Here they can tax the United States and distribute the money to the third world as they see fit!
Obviously, the tax will reduce the flow of American tourists, with their much-desired dollars, to Europe. Countries like Italy, France, Spain, and Britain, which heavily depend on American tourist money, will suffer. But to the globalists, the ability to tax America is irresistible.
This tax is being imposed despite the fact that most of a New YorkLondon flight is over international waters, not EU countries. So where does the EU get the jurisdiction to tax American companies for greenhouse gas emissions over the ocean? When questioned, the bureaucrats at the EU don"t really provide any legal defense for their unprecedented actions. Instead, they simply claim that someone had to do it. Someone had to save the planet. So they stepped up to the plate-and they"re not backing down. But legalities have not stopped the EU bureaucrats from doing whatever it wants to do, including enacting aggressive environmental protection legislation with extraterritorial implications.
The global community, however, has its eye on much broader taxes to reap a bounty for the third world from American efforts and hard work. Nile Gardiner, writing in the Telegraph, explains that "a group of United Nations "independent experts" is pushing the European Union to back a global financial transactions tax to "offset the costs of the enduring economic, financial, fuel, climate and food crises and to protect basic human rights." "2
The UN continued to press the case for the new tax:
"Where the world financial crisis has brought about the loss of millions of jobs, socialized private debt burdens and now risks causing significant human rights regressions through wide-ranging austerity packages, a financial transaction tax (FTT) is a pragmatic tool for providing the means for governments to protect and fulfill the human rights of their people," said the rights experts on extreme poverty, food, business, foreign debt and international solidarity. EU countries must take bold leadership now to pave the way towards what should eventually be a global FTT.3
The UN doesn"t hide its goal, income redistribution, noting that "it is high time that governments re-examine the basic redistributive role of taxation to ensure that wealthier individuals and the financial sector contribute their fair share of the tax burden."4
The demerits of the global tax aside, the idea that an international ent.i.ty-the EU, the UN, or the G-20 group of nations-would impose a tax on American citizens and banks is outrageous. Our most fundamental sovereign right is the power of Congress to tax us. Ever since the Magna Carta, the principle has been honored in democracies of "no taxation without representation." To backslide on this rule in order to line the pockets of third world dictators is a very dangerous and bad idea.