National Space Policy: evolution by stealth?

In recent years, Pentagon advocacy for pursuing a strategy of "space control" that includes war-fighting "in, from and through space" (1) has reached a fever pitch. Top Pentagon and Air Force space officials have repeatedly testified to Congress and made public speeches about the need for the U.S. military to establish "space dominance" to counter enemies of the future. Some officials, such as General Lance Lord, chief of Air Force Space Command, have even declared that "war in space has begun." (2)

What remains uncertain, however, is whether such a strategy actually has been politically endorsed at the White House level and is consistent with national space policy.

Officially, the National Space Policy promulgated by President Bill Clinton in 1996 still stands, a policy that had previously been interpreted as eschewing the deployment of anti-satellite (ASAT) weapons and weapons in orbit, reflecting more than 40 years of informal restraint both by Republican and Democratic administrations.

National security adviser Condoleezza Rice in 2002 launched a review of space policy, but that review is still pending. Indeed, in the four years since the inauguration of President George W. Bush, no new public documents that explain overarching administration (or Department of Defense) policy toward space weapons have been released. The single new policy paper relating to the issue was approved at Pentagon level, "DoD Policy on Space Control," signed by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld in January 2001. That policy, however, is classified as secret.

Meanwhile, there has been a steady trickle of lower-level military planning and doctrine documents…