roof and i want to thank you so much for your analysis of all of this that's going on with former cia intelligence officer michael scherer that's a to do it for now for more on the stories we covered go to r.t. dot com slash usa or you tube page youtube dot com slash r t america you can follow me on twitter at lauren lyster and please do until then i will see you right back here and going half hour. space is one of our national security there is no subs and there is no. military space. bombs on target little time element that's one of them us will be able to deliver through a space ship. to better. frame.

the film her mad cow or her. and we must. be. several hundred. years of investment in the peaceful uses of outer space. just incredible investment from the united states and from the european union and canada other countries like this this is completely in jeopardy if we start putting we haven't seen outer space.

thirty eight. times do it. at present it is not known if weapons capable of striking targets on earth are already deployed in space however orbiting assault systems are being researched.

the u.s. military is developing what the air force in particular has called prompt global strike that is basically currently we have nuclear missiles that could strike anywhere on earth within thirty minutes. what the military is talking about is a similar conventional capability that could be used to knock out say a chinese anti-satellite weapons launcher in a matter of minutes. a number of concepts are being studied with this notion of prompt strike. in two thousand and eight fifty million dollars was allocated to project a supersonic plane capable of reaching any point on the globe in only a few minutes and drop the six tons of bombs. orbiting space satellites that would actually have missiles on it that could be fired from space

and reach a target in literally five to ten minutes as opposed to the current thirty minutes . military doctrine also for seize deploying batteries of missiles that orbit the planet striking at over seven thousand miles an hour these projectiles would be capable of making i would. two hundred targets on the ground with the destructive power of a nuclear device. identify a target. communications between military decision makers and then guided precisely enough to destroy the target with one shot would it really be that big a step or for projectile itself were also launched from space there's no practical difference and i'd venture to say that the person on the receiving end wouldn't see the distinction either.

with all our technology we know bloody well that we cannot be assured absolutely one hundred percent that our bombs so-called think bombs smart bombs are hitting the targets we know from afghanistan and iraq alone in the last few years that that that's a fallacy you ought to think civilian people you are not seizing the iraqi bases what you are doing is one how much worse with the probability of hitting the wrong target or hitting ourselves from outer space would be we have no way of calculating that it's not possible. at least one weapon could go a riot and land in iowa or new york city or god knows where you know that that's

a reality and if if we don't accept that we just whistling in the dark and we're going to be victims of our own technology. has said that moving the arms race into space will be the largest industrial project in the history of the planet earth they can't take any chances they have to have an enemy they have to make the people afraid someone's going to attack us with nuclear weapons we've got to have missile defense in order to protect us from attack iraq. one of the rogue states iran north korea and now they throw china into that equation. for the last three years the pentagon has been trying to make china the new bogeyman and china unwittingly played into the united states' hands with its anti-satellite test and.

according to some experts this anti-satellite test didn't come as a surprise to american officials. at the time i was at a conference in colorado springs and the military officers in the room actually left to watch the test in real time so they were observing the actual chinese any satellite that we know about every space launch we know about every rocket launch we have reconnaissance and surveillance satellites that can detect all these we detected the chinese test for example in fact we detected to two previous chinese tests that failed so we know about this it's extremely difficult to hide this space tests they're one of the most observable weapons tests you can possibly imagine.

everything indicates that china's anti-satellite test was intended to make the world aware of the united states intention to dominate space by doing so is china also show the united states that any orbiting weapon can be shot down. we wouldn't really want to see in the future and surrounded by. weapons which will make many times even more vulnerable than the situation today. at the united nations china with many other nations has since the 1980's and trying to expand the one nine hundred sixty seven outer space treaty. presently the treaty

prohibits placing nuclear weapons in space but doesn't prohibit conventional weapons. each year this desire not to initiative is rejected by the united states. it is one hundred sixty two one hundred seventy one united states is the only nation actually fought against this war isolated on this issue. while we john has pushed our allies into consideration of more strategic independence from the united states in space and some people would argue perhaps in europe that that's a good thing maybe it's better that europe has strategic independence and space because they can serve as a counterweight but from a a us viewpoint it would seem to me that she would want your allies integrated into

your system. of russia dollars by the european military equipment self with a wider array of military space systems in support of telecommunications navigation and information for ground troops. there are only as i thought. we don't have them which certainly weakens the european armed forces credit on a nato makes them very dependent on the american spirit. is going to what does one need when one is in gauged in a military. operation in europe or more precisely in front. because let me tell you europe does not yet exist in a military sense. the europeans still rely on the american g.p.s. . during periods of diplomatic tension access to the american g.p.s.

can be denied by its owner. like russia and china europe is developing its own global navigation satellite alternative known as the galileo system. you create enemies you terrify your friends. and you really didn't mean to do that was not what you know if you if you're a strategic thinker you certainly do not want to be terrifying your allies that's the way to go and you don't want to be provoking your enemies into taking actions to counter you. so i think we've stepped way over the rhetorical line here. in the united states anyway and we have to figure out how to back away from that because we're actually creating negative consequences and more spurring other people to do things that will challenge us and has. for a number of decades the united states has been pursuing

a military doctrine of space control however even without a treaty in place many weapons in space the u.s. congress alone apply the brakes to such developments it would be nice to think that space weaponization is prevented not because there's a huge outcry against it although that would be an interesting prospect too because no one including our own nation has the money to spend on this anymore but in an era when the united states still maintains a five hundred billion dollar military budget every year i don't think we can count on. when that happens it's really him saying oh we are willing to spend hundreds of billions of dollars over the years to develop strays control means that a treaty would take care of would make unnecessary if we had the world to negotiate such a treaty if we took them freed. we could go on it wouldn't be easy it would be

a very difficult thing to do but it could be done. we're. going to treat and all anti-satellite weaponry in ground based lasers conventional missiles and most orbiting systems can be used to destroy satellites. couldn't truly guarantee that kill vehicles would only target missiles not satellites or burst down objects. and. opponents of a new treaty argue such promises are untenable and too late. weaponization of space as happened a long time ago. this idea that it's a pristine environment that if only we stop where we are right now all will be well is simply nonsense for certain experts a wider range of international understandings will be needed to guarantee the

peaceful uses of space we do indeed need a united nations treaty this is not enough this is only step one step two says ok space has been militarized there are military networks in space many of them like g.p.s. are useful but we should work on international treaties to make those military space networks used for multilateral purposes do i think that's going to happen i'm very doubtful but i have to keep hoping and believing that there is a prospect for that. those fearing the weaponization of space could find hope in veronica obama's election ogata tens of billions of dollars in wasteful spending cut investments in other proven missile defense systems will not weaponized space.

as soon as he took office the white house announced that it would be seeking a worldwide ban on weapons that interfere with military and commercial satellites. however it proved difficult to change decades of entrenched military policy and programs to weaponize space. history suggests that nations do not voluntarily disarm they disarm because they're defeated or they make small adjustments in the way they buy and build and deploy their weapons but no superpower says you know it would be better if we were weaker i don't recall that ever happening.

obama went on to allocate billions of dollars for a full range of space control systems including a program called offensive counter space. the pentagon define this new program as offensive measures to disrupt. degrade or destroy any adverse or is peacekeeper abilities. yet. the air force academy in colorado springs for the doctrine of space control and its possible consequences. it's hard to change space period already without attacking so i'm afraid that if we want space appear you already are going

to have to attack and resistance which i don't know if you know much about all mechanics but if you created debris and space that would just be in the way for you as well and it kind of started chain reaction and pretty soon you just have a cloud of debris surrounding earth. about six hundred thousand fragments flying through space at ten times the velocity of a rifle bullet. all these objects are travelling at fourteen thousand miles an hour so even an object the size of a pea traveling at that speed has more force than a. cannonball. right now the problem with space junk is so high that nasa is worried that if there is never another watch of anything into space it is every launch creates a little bit of debris. in fifty years time. certain orbits will be

still polluted that nobody can operate there because the stuff that's already out there will start breaking up and creating more and more countries. as satellites destruction unleashes a storm cloud of debris that space and threatens everything in orbit. the point really is the creation of debris in this manner a good idea or bad idea and clearly it is a very bad idea because there is no way to go up and clean that up. the more times you go into space and you begin to practice destroying other satellites you create so much space junk that you literally create the very likely possibility that at some point in time you will not be able to get a rocket off the planet earth because it'll be like a minefield around the planet and you won't be able to escape

a minefield with that rocket because it would be destroyed by all the space junk there so we've got to begin to look at space as an environment. we have several hundred billion dollars of investment in the peaceful uses of outer space i'm talking about weather satellites positioning satellites. a scientific satellite. the entire growth communication network is all satellite oriented. all this incredible investment from the united states and from the european union and canada other countries like this all this is completely a jeopardy if we start putting weapons in outer space would our world change if we lost the use. satellites they want six fifteen am communication satellites hovering

over the americas fall mute over a swath of the globe with g.p.s. coverage collapses atomic clocks on g.p.s. satellites can transmit universal standard time the synchronization of massive infrastructure has failed three hundred fifty million cellphones are disabled. hundreds of millions of internet connections vanish around the world card payments and bank accounts freeze billions of dollars are sucked from the industries and businesses triggering a financial crash new services are crippled city streets relying on g.p.s. for traffic management are in chaos electrical grids are disrupted wide zones of codons are blinded by black efforts. coastguards are deaf the ships distress calls . from dozens of aircrafts are missing air traffic controllers are fighting panic worldwide flights are grounded or called back by midnight there's been

a cascade of traffic train both in the aircraft accidents. so far a world is awarded such a catastrophe. but a space war would kill satellites and blast tons of wreckage into orbit. the system we rely on would shatter and be impossible to restore. every nation would suffer the consequences of armed conflict in space still some maintain that being the first to place weapons in space remains the best of off. the time six twenty five and this is especially as part of the conference on world affairs we're discussing the militarization of space there is a point in time and maybe rapidly closing your eyes is a dominates those as such or where there would be no arms race frankly i don't think it's doable i think the march of technology will mean that even if we get a lead on other nations in attempting to do that sooner or later. we will again be challenged it's correct what happened after world war two we get the atomic bomb

nobody else our viewers are drawn we thought we had a bigger explosive and with our tomic weaponry. we would be able to dominate the earth. didn't last very long the soviets out of our time across the chinese and on the top. right wisest raised to think that we can move up there with weaponry and be allowed to be the king on. the throne of space is a tragic miscalculation. everybody thinks that when things is a dangerous idea that old problems other countries to also develop space weapons mr . india has been discussing whether or not it needs to build its own. and you can be sure if india does it pakistan will be thinking about it in a heartbeat as well israel has also been discussing this issue so what you see now

is a potential for domino that if some nations would yield to american domination others would attempt to counter the united states think and cast the control of space by a single superpower all nations most stable and unstable will be dragged into a new arms race. the european union has been up until now opposed to the weaponization of space. but for how much longer soon is immunity for the us continues to develop come out on the military satellites but also space based weapons people who will have to think about it and find ways to defend ourselves from them merican friends and the arms race that trigger people will be quickly. russia has declared that if the united states goes on pursuing its doctrine it will have no choice but to destroy the orbiting threats. if americans deploy. phase based antibodies theek new style defenses then could you imagine

interceptor raised on the space station is needed three stations would longer fly thirty thore or thirty two orioles will try and not their food because he did it as are quite unacceptable as she called russians. seriously when it is used star wars is no longer a fantasy it is a reality for the good of course such a policy is a catalyst of an arms race. the media domination of the factor of force is nursing the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction my solution. to that is that it will since in russia's opinion more of the militarization of outer space could have

unpredictable consequences for the international community he could provoke nothing less than the beginning of a new nuclear iran. besides the negative environmental impacts in outer space the policy of space domination could also have a destabilizing effect on earth. the weaponization of space could be the trigger that unleashes nuclear war. signy anxiety and just by putting weapons in space or launching weapons from space downed worth. cording juice by accident by human fallibility by design by a terrorist take on the launching up to nine thousand hydrogen bombs inducing a short ice age in the death of my screeches on the planet. we're on the edge of a nuclear precipice about been alesha. the

military use of space seems inevitable the rabidly valving technology and the mark of a strong treaty these the door open to the most bellicose instincts and space. every year the air force academy adds its most brilliant graduates to the ranks of the masters of spades the chances for preserving outer space for peaceful ends remains the challenge of the world at large usually we're trying to bring back weapon systems after they've been deployed nuclear missiles we're trying to bring them back here's an opportunity one of the first times in history actually that we have a chance to be proactive we have a chance to stop a new arms race before it actually happens that's right this moment is so crucial.

that a better response what. is the most critical debate for the next century and we're on the verge. of making decisions and nations around the world about which path to choose.

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