(Henry Spencer) wrote:
MrPepper11 wrote:
They think that "the United States doesn't own space - nobody owns
space," said Teresa Hitchens, vice president of the Center for Defense
Information ... "Space is a global commons under
international treaty and international law."

So are the oceans, but few people protest the existence of the US Navy.

Well - countries can and do protest the presence of the U.S. Navy near or
in their waters - "In March 1996, the United States sent a task fleet
composing of two aircraft carriers towards areas close to the Taiwan
Straits...The Chinese Government made solemn representations and
struggled resolutely against the United States for its above wrong
doings."
(http://www.fmprc.gov.cn/eng/wjb/zzjg...441/t17320.htm)

Few people protest the U.S. Navy if the ships are sailing out in deep
ocean, but if a U.S. carrier task group sailed uninvited into the
Murmansk seaport or the Bohai Sea, I'm sure that there would be a great
deal of diplomatic screaming - and hopefully not worse.

So yes, people do protest the US Navy - depending on where it's sailing.

Folks taking this line need to explain why they think space is
different.

Placing weapons in deep space is one thing, but placing them in near
earth orbit should be another matter. Putting conventional weapons in
orbit might be considered analogous to, say, having the Russian fleet
sailing its ships a half mile off the east coast and into the mouth of
the Potomac. That's too damn close for anyone's comfort, even neglecting
the issue of territorial waters. The fear of enemy weapons close at hand
(in Turkey and Cuba) yielding insufficient response time was probably
what nearly precipitated WWIII during the Cuban Missile crises. For these
reasons I think it exceedingly unwise to deploy even conventional weapons
in orbit, since the very characteristic that makes them appealing to the
military is the same characteristic the makes them outrageous
provocations to everyone they orbit over.

I don't consider warships a few hundred miles off a coast to be in the
equivalent strike position of war-satellites orbiting a few hundred miles
up, and I don't expect anyone else will either, if or when such things
are deployed.