27. Space and Missile Systems Center and SMC History Office, “Evolution of GPS: From Desert Storm to Today’s Users,” US Air Force News, Mar. 24, 2016, www.af.mil/News/ArticleDisplay/tabid/223/Article/703894/evolution-of-gps-from-desert-storm-to-todays-users.aspx; “Desert Storm: The First Space War,” Gray Space and the Warfighter, Project 1997-0563, www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/grayspc/dstorm/dstorm.htm; James Drew, “Boeing B-52 Evolves Again with Guided Weapons Launcher,” FlightGlobal.com, Jan. 15, 2016, www.flightglobal.com/news/articles/boeing-b-52-evolves-again-with-guided-weapons-launch-420874/; “AGM-86C/D Conventional Air Launched Cruise Missile,” Federation of American Scientists, fas.org/nuke/guide/usa/bomber/calcm.htm; Benjamin Raughton, “Desert Storm: 2nd Bomb Wing Leads the Air War,” Barksdale AFB News, Jan. 14, 2016, www.barksdale.af.mil/News/ArticleDisplay/tabid/2668/Article/641881/desert-storm-2nd-bomb-wing-leads-the-air-war.aspx; Kris Osborn, “Stealth, GPS, ‘Smart Bomb’ and More: How Desert Storm Changed Warfare Forever,” National Interest, Nov. 21, 2016, nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/stealth-gps-smart-bombs-more-how-desert-storm-changed-war-18477. (All accessed May 1, 2017.)
Regarding the hit rate, the historian of the 37th Tactical Fighter Wing writes, “Statistically the [37th TFW] compiled a record that is unparalleled in the chronicals [sic] of air warfare: the ‘Nighthawks’ achieved a 75 percent hit rate on pinpoint targets (1669 direct hits and 418 misses) while crippling nearly 40 percent of enemy strategic targets.” See Harold P. Myers, “Nighthawks over Iraq: A Chronology of the F-117A Stealth Fighter in Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm—Special Study 37FW/HO-91-1,” Office of History, Headquarters 37th Fighter Wing, Twelfth Air Force, Tactical Air Command, Jan. 9, 1992, 3–4, nsarchive.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB39/document9.pdf (accessed Jan. 17, 2017). The Department of Defense, in its title V report to Congress, put the hit rate at 80 percent. In 1993 the contractor, Lockheed Martin, went so far as to say “one bomb = one kill.” As a follow-up to such claims, in mid-1997 the National Security and Internal Affairs Division of the Government Accountability Office produced an unclassified version of its report to Congress in which it summarizes its overall finding regarding the F-117A as follows: “[T]he F-117 bomb hit rate ranged between 41 and 60 percent—which is considered to be highly effective, but is still less than the 80-percent hit rate reported after the war by DOD, the Air Force, and the primary contractor.” The report subsequently presents an extremely detailed breakdown of claims, corroborations, and conclusions. The 41–60 percent figure was derived as follows: “[T]he expected probability of a target’s being damaged to the desired level would be based on the number of bombs tasked, reduced by the proven probability of bomb release (75 percent), and reduced further by the demonstrated hit rate (between 55 and 80 percent). Therefore, in Desert Storm, the probability of a target’s receiving damage from a scheduled F-117 strike (that is, the probability of bomb release times the demonstrated hit rate) was between 41 and 60 percent.” See Government Accountability Office, Operation Desert Storm: Evaluation of the Air Campaign, GAO/NSAID-97-134, June 1997, 1, 110, 125–38, 225–26, and passim, www.gao.gov/archive/1997/ns97134.pdf (accessed Jan. 17, 2017).
For a recent, on-the-ground investigation of other issues associated with hit rates—such as civilian deaths and the identification of targets—see Azmat Khan and Anand Gopal, “The Uncounted,” New York Times Magazine, Nov. 16, 2017, which examines Coalition air strikes intended to push ISIS out of Iraq and Syria during 2014–17. While a spokesman for Central Command characterized the campaign as “one of the most precise air campaigns in military history,” Khan and Gopal found that 20 percent of the 103 air strikes they exhaustively investigated resulted in civilian deaths, a rate more than thirty times that acknowledged by the Coalition. They suggest two primary sources of civilian deaths: proximity to an actual ISIS target and questionable intelligence. “[I]n about half of the strikes that killed civilians,” they write, “we could find no discernible ISIS target nearby. Many of these strikes appear to have been based on poor or outdated intelligence.”
28. Jamming adds noise to the already weak signals. Iraqi forces installed jammers atop palaces and other landmarks. Larry Greenemeier, “GPS and the World’s First ‘Space War,’ ” Scientific American, Feb. 8, 2016, www.scientificamerican.com/article/gps-and-the-world-s-first-space-war/ (accessed Apr. 30, 2017).
29. Figures for deployed GPS receivers are from US Department of Defense, Conduct of the Persian Gulf War, 678. Other figures are from US Central Command, “Operation Desert Shield/Desert Storm: Executive Summary,” 1, and US General Accounting Office, “Desert Storm: Air Campaign,” 14. Source of quotation: Space and Missile Systems Center, “Evolution of GPS.”
30. Greenemeier, “GPS and First ‘Space War’ ”; Sam Jones, “Satellite Wars,” Financial Times, Nov. 20, 2015, www.ft.com/cms/s/2/637bf054-8e34-11e5-8be4-3506bf20cc2b.html#ixzz3tDtUkpkq; Marcia S. Smith, “Military and Civilian Satellites in Support of Allied Forces in the Persian Gulf War,” Congressional Research Service, Feb. 27, 1991, www.hsdl.org/?view&did=712697 (accessed Apr. 30, 2017); Bruger, “Not Ready for ‘First Space War,’ ” 13; Andrew Pollack, “War Spurs Navigation by Satellite,” New York Times, Feb. 6, 1991.
31. Malcolm W. Browne, “New Space Beacons Replace the Compass,” New York Times, Nov. 8, 1988.
32. Extended quotation from Colin S. Gray, “The Influence of Space Power upon History,” Comparative Strategy 15:4 (1996), 303. Several years later, Gray published a response, as it were, to our comment about weakening: “Clausewitz Rules, OK? The Future Is the Past: With GPS,” Rev. Int. Studies 25 (Dec. 1999), 161–82. Here he asserted the primacy of strategy over technology and thus the minor contribution of all technological innovation: “[T]he game of polities (or security communities) does not change from age to age, let alone from decade to decade. . . . Whether humans navigate by the stars or via the satellites of the US Global Positioning System (GPS), and whether they communicate by smoke signals or via space vehicles, matters not at all for the permanent nature of strategy” (163, 182).
33. “[George W.] Bush’s Speech on the Start of War,” transcript, New York Times, Mar. 20, 2003. Notwithstanding Bush’s statement of purpose, no evidence for so-called WMDs had been detected, even after extensive satellite reconnaissance and extensive searches by UN weapons inspectors. “Nuclear Inspection Chief Reports Finding No New Weapons,” transcript, New York Times, Jan. 28, 2003.
34. GPS.gov, “Selective Availability,” www.gps.gov/systems/gps/modernization/sa/; “Data from the First Week Without Selective Availability: GPS Fluctuations Over Time on May 2, 2000,” www.gps.gov/systems/gps/modernization/sa/data/. Reported maximum accuracy varies from 2.66 meters (just under nine feet) to 2.2 meters (just over seven feet); Bob Brewin, “Pentagon Tweaked GPS Accuracy to Within Three Meters During Iraq War,” Computerworld, June 24, 2003, www.computerworld.com/article/2569842/mobile-wireless/pentagon-tweaked-gps-accuracy-to-within-three-meters-during-iraq-war.html (accessed Apr. 30, 2017); William B. Scott and Craig Covault, “High Ground over Iraq,” Aviation Week & Space Technology 158:23 (June 9, 2003), 44–48.
35. Phillip Swarts, “SpaceX’s Low Cost Won GPS 3 Launch, Air Force Says,” SpaceNews, Mar. 15, 2017, spacenews.com/spacexs-low-cost-won-gps-3-launch-air-force-says; GPS.gov, “Space Segment,” www.gps.gov/systems/gps/space; GPS.gov, “Program Funding,” www.gps.gov/policy/funding (accessed Apr. 30, 2017). The Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2016 allocated $937 million to the DoD (for procurement and development) and some $130 million to the DoT (for support of civilian R&D programs such as the Wide Area Augmentation System and Alternative Positioning, Navigation, and Timing).
36. The angle of GLONASS is 64.8 degrees; that of GPS is 55 degrees. Up-to-date GLONASS status is at Information and Analysis Center for Position, Navigation and Timing, “GLONASS Constellation Status,” www.glonass-iac.ru/en/GLONASS/ (accessed Apr. 30, 2017).
37. RIA Novosti, “GLONASS: Dispelling the Myths Around Russia’s GPS,” inte
rview, Jan. 10, 2014, Russia Behind the Headlines, rbth.com/science_and_tech/2014/01/10/glonass_dispelling_the_myths_around_russias_gps_33183.html. The US position on denial is publicly stated as follows: “It is U.S. policy to prevent hostile use of GPS through localized denial (i.e., military jamming) that does not unduly disrupt civil and commercial GPS access outside the battlefield.” GPS.gov, “United States Policy,” www.gps.gov/policy. See also Beebom, “What Is GLONASS and How It Is Different from GPS,” Aug. 25, 2016, beebom.com/what-is-glonass-and-how-it-is-different-from-gps (accessed Nov. 7, 2016).
38. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, “About DARPA,” www.darpa.mil/about-us/about-darpa; Robert Lutwak, “Atomic Clock with Enhanced Stability (ACES),” DARPA, www.darpa.mil/program/atomic-clock-with-enhanced-stability (accessed Apr. 30, 2017).
39. European Space Agency, “Atomic Clock Ensemble in Space (ACES),” flyer, Sept. 2011, wsn.spaceflight.esa.int/docs/others/aces_flyer.pdf; European Space Agency, “Atomic Clock Ensemble in Space (ACES),” fact sheet, wsn.spaceflight.esa.int/docs/Factsheets/20%20ACES%20LR.pdf (accessed Apr. 30, 2017); Greenemeier, “GPS and First ‘Space War.’ ”
40. Anson and Cummings, “The First Space War,” 45.
41. Bruger, “Not Ready for ‘First Space War,’ ” 7; Anson and Cummings, “The First Space War,” 45–48. See also, e.g., “Desert Storm: The First Space War—Gray Space”; US Space Command, “Desert Shield and Desert Storm,” 47–54; Smith, “Military and Civilian Satellites,” CRS-1–3; US Department of Defense, Conduct of the Persian Gulf War, 873–75; James A. Walker, Lewis Bernstein, and Sharon Lang, Historical Office, US Army Space and Missile Defense Command, Seize the High Ground: The Army in Space and Missile Defense (Washington, DC: US Government Printing Office, 2003), 156–57; Stephen Cass, “Legendary U.S. Satellite Put Out to Pasture,” MIT Technology Review, Oct. 14, 2009, www.technologyreview.com/s/415716/legendary-us-satellite-put-out-to-pasture/ (accessed Feb. 7, 2017). Cass makes the point that NASA was not in fact the Tracking and Data Relay Satellite system’s priority user: “Although it was never advertised, the biggest users of the TDRS constellation weren’t NASA astronauts and scientists, but the military and the National Reconnaisance Office, who had priority use of the system for keeping in touch with their spy satellites. This occasionally caused frustration for scientific users of the system, especially during tense geopolitical moments [such as] the first Gulf War.”
42. Smith, “Military and Civilian Satellites,” CRS-10.
43. US Department of Defense, Conduct of the Persian Gulf War, 219–20, 871–73; US Space Command, “Desert Shield and Desert Storm,” 33–38; Smith, “Military and Civilian Satellites,” CRS-6; Anson and Cummings, “The First Space War,” 51–52; Walker et al., Seize the High Ground, 153.
44. US Space Command, “Desert Shield and Desert Storm,” 40.
45. US Space Command, “Desert Shield and Desert Storm,” 39–46; Craig Covault, “Recon Satellites Lead Allied Intelligence Effort,” Aviation Week & Space Technology, Feb. 4, 1991, 25–26; Anson and Cummings, “The First Space War,” 50–53; Smith, “Military and Civilian Satellites,” CRS-7–10; US Department of Defense, Conduct of the Persian Gulf War, 877–78, 652–53; “Desert Storm: The First Space War—Gray Space”; Walker et al., Seize the High Ground, 154; Alan Riding, “After the War; France Concedes Its Faults in War,” New York Times, May 8, 1991.
46. Craig Covault, “Desert Storm Reinforces Military Space Directions,” Aviation Week & Space Technology, Apr. 8, 1991, 42–47; Vice President’s Space Policy Advisory Board, “The Future of the U.S. Space Industrial Base: A Task Group Report,” Nov. 1992, vi, history.nasa.gov/33081.pt1.pdf (accessed May 1, 2017).
47. Anthony H. Cordesman, The Iraq War: Strategy, Tactics, and Military Lessons (Westport, CT: Praeger/Center for Strategic and International Studies, 2003), 8, 184, 199–200; William B. Scott and Craig Covault, “High Ground over Iraq,” Aviation Week & Space Technology 158:23 (June 9, 2003), 44; Paul Wolfowitz, “Testimony on U.S. Military Presence in Iraq: Implications for Global Defense Posture,” as prepared for delivery to the House Armed Services Committee, Washington, DC, June 18, 2003, available at GlobalSecurity.org, www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/library/news/iraq/2003/06/iraq-030618-dod03.htm (accessed Feb. 18, 2017).
48. Cordesman, Iraq War, 199, 195–96.
49. Fred Kaplan, “The End of the Age of Petraeus: The Rise and Fall of Counterinsurgency,” Foreign Affairs 92:1 (Jan.–Feb. 2013), 85, 88; Phil Klay, “Money as a Weapons System,” in Redeployment (New York: Penguin, 2014; winner of the 2014 National Book Award for Fiction), 78; Cordesman, Iraq War, 235, 217. Re “victory,” see, e.g., Max Boot, “The New American Way of War,” Foreign Affairs 82:4 (July–Aug. 2003), 41–58. For Boot as for Rumsfeld and so many others at the time, the entire war was over and done with. The Western allies “won so quickly”; it was “one of the signal achievements in military history . . . a spectacular success” (44). His article ends on a celebratory note: “the victory in Iraq shows that the military is making impressive progress toward making the American way of war more effective and more humane” (58). For an ongoing account of documented violent incidents, see Iraq Body Count, www.iraqbodycount.org/. The issues re Iraq’s schools are exemplified by the situation in the city of Mosul: a decade and a half after the supposed victory, National Public Radio and UNICEF had grounds to celebrate the reopening of seventy—less than one-fifth—of Mosul’s four hundred public schools, all of which had been closed for two years; report by Alice Fordham, All Things Considered, NPR, Feb. 16, 2017. For archaeological uses of satellite data on Iraq, see, e.g., Kristin Romey, “Iconic Ancient Sites Ravaged in ISIS’s Last Stand in Iraq,” National Geographic, Nov. 10, 2016, news.nationalgeographic.com/2016/11/iraq-mosul-isis-nimrud-khorsabad-archaeology/ (accessed Feb. 16, 2017).
50. Craig Covault, “Fade to Black,” Aviation Week & Space Technology 164:20, May 15, 2006, 24–26; David Talbot, “How Technology Failed in Iraq,” MIT Technology Review, Nov. 2004, www.technologyreview.com/s/403319/how-technology-failed-in-iraq/ (accessed Feb. 19, 2017).
51. Space Report 2017, 1–2, 9, 14; Space Report 2016, 1–24; World Bank, “World Development Indicators Database: Gross Domestic Product 2015,” Oct. 11, 2016, 1, 4, databank.worldbank.org/data/download/GDP.pdf (accessed Nov. 20, 2016). Examples of 2016 civil space spending by the space agencies of countries with struggling economies: Argentina ($125 million), Brazil ($50 million), Bolivia ($31 million), Nigeria ($31 million).
52. Johnson-Freese, Space as a Strategic Asset, 232.
53. Pollpeter et al., China Dream, 4, 8; Sheehan, International Politics of Space, 142, 147–52, 161; Wu Ji et al., “Prospect for Chinese Space Science in 2016–2030,” Bull. of Chinese Academy of Sciences 30:6 (2015), English abstract at www.bulletin.cas.cn/publish_article/2015/6/20150601.htm. The abstract elaborates on the agenda thus: “a series of scientific satellite programs and missions in frontier scientific fields, such as the formation and evolution of the universe, the exploration of exoplanets and extraterrestrial life, the formation and evolution of the solar system, solar activities and their impact on the earth’s space environment, the development and evolution of the earth’s system, new physics beyond the current basic physics theories, the law of matter motion and the law of life activity in space environment, etc; and to drive the great-leap-forward of aerospace and related high technologies.” See also, e.g., Edward Wong, “China Launches Quantum Satellite in Bid to Pioneer Secure Communications,” New York Times, Aug. 16, 2016; Mike Wall, “China Launches Pioneering ‘Hack-Proof’ Quantum-Communications Satellite,” Space.com, Aug. 16, 2016, www.space.com/33760-china-launches-quantum-communications-satellite.html (accessed May 1, 2017) .
54. “Dr. Vikram Ambalal Sarabhai,” Indian Space Research Organisation, www.isro.gov.in/about-isro/dr-vikram-ambalal-sarabhai; T. S. Subramanian, “An ISRO Landmark,” Frontline 18:23 (Nov. 10–23, 2001), www.frontline.in/navigation/?type=static&page=flonnet&rdurl=fl1823/18230780.htm (accessed
Nov. 23, 2016); Ellen Barry, “India Launches 104 Satellites from a Single Rocket, Ramping Up a Space Race,” New York Times, Feb. 15, 2017; Kai Schultz and Hari Kumar, “India Tests Ballistic Missile, Posing New Threat to China,” New York Times, Jan. 18, 2018.
55. United Nations Development Programme, “Table 1: Human Development Index and Its Components,” Human Development Report 2015: Work for Human Development, 2015, 208–211, hdr.undp.org/sites/default/files/2015_human_development_report.pdf. Life expectancy at birth: Japan 83.5, Canada 82.0, China 75.8, India 68.0. Average years of schooling: Canada 13.0, Japan 11.5, China 7.5, India 5.4. For military spending, see SIPRI Military Expenditure Databases, “Military expenditure by country as percentage of government spending, 1988–2016” and “Military expenditure by country as a share of GDP, 2003–2016,” Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, 2017, www.sipri.org/databases/milex (accessed Nov. 26, 2017). SIPRI’s exact figures for 2016 military spending as a percentage of government spending were Canada 2.4%, Japan 2.6%, China 6.2%, India 8.9%, USA 9.3%, and Russia 15.5%. Re US 36% share of global military spending, see Niall McCarthy, “The Top 15 Countries for Military Expenditure in 2016 [Infographic],” Forbes, Apr. 24, 2017, www.forbes.com/sites/niallmccarthy/2017/04/24/the-top-15-countries-for-military-expenditure-in-2016-infographic/#2036c07843f3 (accessed Nov. 27, 2017).
56. Canadian Space Agency, “Canadian Space Milestones,” www.asc-csa.gc.ca/eng/about/milestones.asp, “Canadarm and Canadarm2—Comparative Table,” www.asc-csa.gc.ca/eng/iss/canadarm2/c1-c2.asp, “History of the Canadian Astronaut Corps,” www.asc-csa.gc.ca/eng/astronauts/canadian/history-of-the-canadian-astronaut-corps.asp, “Canadian Science on the International Space Station,” www.asc-csa.gc.ca/eng/iss/science/default.asp (accessed Dec. 7, 2016). The Canadian Space Agency falls within the portfolio of the Minister of Industry. More physicians than military personnel have served as Canada’s astronauts. Among Canadarm’s notable achievements were retrieving the Hubble Space Telescope for five servicing missions between 1993 and 2009 and the connection of the first two modules of the International Space Station in 1998. In 2008, Canadarm2 transferred one module of the Japanese ISS space lab Kibo from the space shuttle to the space station, a maneuver celebrated in a popular poster.
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