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U.S. 'negation' policy in space raises concerns abroad

By Loring Wirbel

EE Times
May 22, 2003 (1:26 p.m. ET)

While much of the talk around the Pentagon these days focuses on "transformation" of the military, some of the United States' closest allies worry about another buzzword being used in subtler ways at the National Reconnaissance Office: "negation."

The nation's largest intelligence agency by budget and in control of all U.S. spy satellites, NRO is talking openly with the U.S. Air Force Space Command about actively denying the use of space for intelligence purposes to any other nation at any time, not just adversaries, but even longtime allies, according to NRO director Peter Teets.

At the National Space Symposium in Colorado Springs in early April, Teets proposed that U.S. resources from military, civilian and commercial satellites be combined to provide "persistence in total situational awareness, for the benefit of this nation's war fighters." If allies don't like the new paradigm of space dominance, said Air Force secretary James Roche, they'll just have to learn to accept it. The allies, he told the symposium, will have "no veto power."...

...After the administration renounced the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty last year, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld made it clear that the abrogation of treaty constraints in the use of radar and tracking devices was not just for the benefit of fielding a missile-defense system, but to build better unilateral networks to manage the planet from space....