Star Wars: Why did the U.S. shoot down a satellite?

It was a story that could have ended very badly, said Mona Charen in National Review Online. Some 153 miles overhead, the “bus-size” American spy satellite USA-193 was trapped in a decaying orbit. Soon the 5,000-pound craft would streak to a fiery re-entry into the atmosphere—with a very real risk of landing in a populated area and exposing thousands of people to half a ton of toxic hydrazine fuel. But fear not! The Navy cruiser Lake Erie was ready for action, “pitching and rolling in heavy seas west of Hawaii.” With only a 30-second firing window, the ship sent an SM-3 missile rocketing skyward last week at 17,000 mph. “A fireball and vapor cloud testified to success.” By “hitting a bullet with a bullet,” the U.S. provided ample proof that the $100 billion we’ve invested to develop a missile-defense program was well spent. And how did the liberal media and arms-control advocates react? With plenty of hand-wringing that the U.S. was “militarizing” space, and starting a new arms race over our heads.

When I first heard about this “shooting-before-it-impacts strategy,” said Gail Collins in The New York Times, I was enthusiastic. I’d seen it work in Bruce Willis’ films, and besides, “who among us wants to be hit by a falling bus?” But upon reflection, I wonder if saving the planet was the Bush administration’s real agenda in ordering the missile attack. The odds against any earthlings being hit by falling debris or breathing too much hydrazine were astronomical. As it happens, the SM-3 missile used in shooting down the errant satellite will also be used in the U.S.’s missile-defense system—the so-called Star Wars program first proposed by Ronald Reagan 25 years ago, and now in development. “Some people think the whole poison-gas story [was] just an excuse to give the Pentagon a chance to test its hardware.”

And what’s wrong with that? said National Review in an editorial. Last year, in a blatant step toward weaponizing space, the Chinese shot down one of their satellites, orbiting 528 miles above Earth. That was “a wake-up call,” because both the U.S. economy and the military now depend heavily the real-time data provided by orbiting satellites. If blasting our own satellite warns certain countries that we can play this game, too, it will have served its purpose. “Like it or not, we live in an age of space warfare.”

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Perhaps so, said Fred Kaplan in Slate.com, but as “remarkable” as it was, this shoot-down proved nothing about the feasibility of missile defense against a nuclear attack. A reliable missile-defense system cannot simply be capable of hitting “a bullet with a bullet.” It must be able to intercept multiple incoming warheads, launched from surprise locations, all in a matter of minutes. Last week’s exercise involved a single missile and a single wobbly target whose whereabouts were no mystery. All it has succeeded in doing is giving our enemies, such as China, Iran, and North Korea, good incentive to have many missiles at the ready, with multiple nuclear warheads, so as to overwhelm our defenses. Does providing that incentive make strategic sense?

It makes a lot more sense than the Left’s preferred option, which is an international treaty banning space arms, said Rich Lowry in the New York Post. Such a treaty would be not only unverifiable but unenforceable. Above our heads right now are hundreds of satellites used not only for intelligence but for military command and control purposes. “Space isn’t a pristine last frontier unsullied by human competitiveness and ferocity.” It’s already “an extension of our flawed world down here below.”