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Alan W. Dowd is a Senior Fellow with the American Security Council Foundation, where he writes on the full range of topics relating to national defense, foreign policy and international security. Dowd’s commentaries and essays have appeared in Policy Review, Parameters, Military Officer, The American Legion Magazine, The Journal of Diplomacy and International Relations, The Claremont Review of Books, World Politics Review, The Wall Street Journal Europe, The Jerusalem Post, The Financial Times Deutschland, The Washington Times, The Baltimore Sun, The Washington Examiner, The Detroit News, The Sacramento Bee, The Vancouver Sun, The National Post, The Landing Zone, Current, The World & I, The American Enterprise, Fraser Forum, American Outlook, The American and the online editions of Weekly Standard, National Review and American Interest. Beyond his work in opinion journalism, Dowd has served as an adjunct professor and university lecturer; congressional aide; and administrator, researcher and writer at leading think tanks, including the Hudson Institute, Sagamore Institute and Fraser Institute. An award-winning writer, Dowd has been interviewed by Fox News Channel, Cox News Service, The Washington Times, The National Post, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation and numerous radio programs across North America. In addition, his work has been quoted by and/or reprinted in The Guardian, CBS News, BBC News and the Council on Foreign Relations. Dowd holds degrees from Butler University and Indiana University. Follow him at twitter.com/alanwdowd.

ASCF News

Scott Tilley is a Senior Fellow at the American Security Council Foundation, where he writes the “Technical Power” column, focusing on the societal and national security implications of advanced technology in cybersecurity, space, and foreign relations.

He is an emeritus professor at the Florida Institute of Technology. Previously, he was with the University of California, Riverside, Carnegie Mellon University’s Software Engineering Institute, and IBM. His research and teaching were in the areas of computer science, software & systems engineering, educational technology, the design of communication, and business information systems.

He is president and founder of the Center for Technology & Society, president and co-founder of Big Data Florida, past president of INCOSE Space Coast, and a Space Coast Writers’ Guild Fellow.

He has authored over 150 academic papers and has published 28 books (technical and non-technical), most recently Systems Analysis & Design (Cengage, 2020), SPACE (Anthology Alliance, 2019), and Technical Justice (CTS Press, 2019). He wrote the “Technology Today” column for FLORIDA TODAY from 2010 to 2018.

He is a popular public speaker, having delivered numerous keynote presentations and “Tech Talks” for a general audience. Recent examples include the role of big data in the space program, a four-part series on machine learning, and a four-part series on fake news.

He holds a Ph.D. in computer science from the University of Victoria (1995).

Contact him at stilley@cts.today.

Space weapons to counter China, Russia ‘coming’

Friday, August 28, 2020

Categories: ASCF News Bipartisianship Missile Defense

Comments: 0

To say that officials at the newly established US Space Command face a clear and present danger, is an understatement.

America’s adversaries now have the ability to use jammers, ground-based lasers, ground- and space-based kinetic weapons, attack ground facilities that support space operations or even carry out a nuclear detonation in space.

China has already tested anti-satellite missiles, while Russia has deployed on-orbit systems that could threaten US satellites.

But according to Army National Guard Major General Tim Lawson, new capabilities are on the way to mitigate the threat — he just can’t tell you about them, because they are classified under the umbrella of “black budget” projects.

“As a geographical combatant command focused on the space domain, those are the things that keep us up at night,” said Lawson, who made the remarks at the National Defense Industrial Association’s Space Warfighting Industry Forum, which was held virtually due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

“I would love to sit behind some closed doors and have this discussion on some of the things we really think we need,” Lawson said when asked about the types of capabilities Spacecom is seeking.

“A lot of times you listen to that threat picture and you kind of get a little dismayed at what you’re seeing, but then you look at our side and — trust me — we’ve got some things coming. So, it’s good news.”

Significant portions of the US military’s space programs are classified, making it difficult for outside observers to know what’s coming down the pike.

Meanwhile, Lawson highlighted the need to have resilient space architectures that utilize large networks of small communications and intelligence-gathering satellites that would be less vulnerable to enemy attacks

“If you had hundreds of small satellites up there in a constellation … the enemy can take out quite a few of those and it will really never have an impact on us,” he said. “That really is the resiliency piece that we’re seeking out there and we need.”

The command is also interested in developments in space logistics such as on-orbit refueling or servicing of satellites.

“If we could ever figure that out to where it is an economic way to do business, it would be a gamechanger, absolutely,” he said. “No doubt about it. And we would fully support a capability that would allow us to do that. And I think we would be very open to having some very good candid conversation on where industry is at in that piece of it.”

Lawson’s remarks came near the one-year anniversary of the re-establishment of US Space Command. The organization is a full-fledged geographic combatant command responsible for military operations that occur 100 kilometers or higher above the Earth’s surface.

The Pentagon — with the backing of President Donald Trump — now considers space to be a warfighting domain on par with land, air and sea.

But it’s not the first time a US president has launched a major military defense project in space.

According to History.com, President Ronald Reagan saw the proposed Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) as a safeguard against the most terrifying Cold War outcome — nuclear annihilation.

It was a plan that read like science fiction: A system armed with an array of space-based X-ray lasers would detect and deflect any nukes headed toward the US.

When Reagan first announced SDI on March 23, 1983, he called upon the US scientists who “gave us nuclear weapons to turn their great talents to the cause of mankind and world peace: to give us the means of rendering these nuclear weapons impotent and obsolete.”

From the start, politicians and scientists argued that SDI was overambitious. 

The technical hurdles required to achieve SDI (which included a number of proposed designs and weapons — not just space-based lasers) seemed so incredible at the time that Massachusetts Senator Edward Kennedy referred to it as ”reckless ‘Star Wars’ schemes.”

The “Star Wars” moniker stuck. Over the course of 10 years, the government spent up to US$30 billion on developing the concept, but the futuristic program remained just that —futuristic.

It was formally scrapped by President Bill Clinton in 1993.

Photo: While the US military is concerned about Chinese and Russian advances in space weaponry, new technology to counter these weapons is being developed, US officials said. Credit: Handout.

Link: https://asiatimes.com/2020/08/new-space-weapons-to-counter-china-russia-on-way-official/

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