rabahy%castor.DEC@decwrl.ARPA (10/25/84)
From: rabahy%castor.DEC@decwrl.ARPA (David Rabahy)
Associated Press Thu 25-OCT-1984 04:32 Space Wars
Book Says War in Space Could Trigger War On Earth
Eds: Embargoed by source for release at 7:00 a.m. EDT
By KARIN STRAND
Associated Press Writer
STOCKHOLM, Sweden (AP) - The science fiction image of wars
confined to outer space masks the possibility that a war in space
could trigger nuclear war on Earth, says a new book by a Swedish
research institute.
The book ``Countdown to Space War,'' published today, says there
could even be a disaster by accident if enough of the sophisticated
space hardware envisioned for military use were put into orbit.
With military forces relying more and more on satellites as
their eyes and ears, accidental damage to or the failure of a spy
satellite ``could, in a crisis situation, lead to war,'' said
Indian space expert Bhupendra Jasani, one of the book's authors.
``The killing of satellites that gather vital military
information would make a nuclear holocaust more likely,'' he said.
Jasani and Christopher Lee, defense correspondent of the British
Broadcasting Corp., co-authored the book for the Stockholm
International Peace Research Institute, where Jasani is a research
fellow.
Space weapons and space-war scenarios became a topic of
international interest in March 1983 with the ``Star Wars'' speech
by President Reagan. He said he wanted the United States to develop
technology to shoot down intercontinental ballistic missiles in
flight, thus making them obsolete.
Jasani told a news conference that he and Lee wrote their book
in order to spread knowledge of how space is being used today and
what is likely to follow in this decade.
He said satellites have many positive applications ranging from
weather-forecasting to monitoring peace agreements.
However, he contended that three out of every four satellites
have a military application. By using them for command, control,
communications and intelligence, he warned, military commanders are
nearing a point where they would be ``struck deaf, dumb and blind''
if the satellites failed.
To avoid disaster, the authors suggested treaties banning
testing or possession of antisatellite weapons, along with a
declaration that neither side would be the first to use them.
Also, they suggested a mandatory and detailed registration of
all spacecraft, and limits on the number of military satellites a
country could launch each year.
They urged establishment of an international agency to ``use
satellites to verify multilateral arms treaties as well as to
monitor crisis areas.''