The Commission to Assess United States National Security Space Management and Organization, frequently
called the Rumsfeld Space Commission or simply the Space Commission, was established in 1999 by an
amendment to the Fiscal Year 2000 Defense Authorization bill. The commission is perhaps most well known
for suggesting that unless the United States took threats of space attack seriously, it could not avoid
a "Space Pearl Harbor."
Sen. Bob Smith (R-NH) was the point-person in Congress for creating the Space Commission. Explaining
the motivation for the commission's creation, Smith told a Center
for Security Policy (CSP) forum, only days before the commission released its report: "The
annual [Defense Department] budgets repeatedly shortchange space programs. ... People without space background
are promoted ahead of space officers, and treaties have negotiated away our space advantage" (CSP,
January 9, 2001). At the time, Smith was one of more than a dozen congressional representatives who
sat on CSP's advisory board.
Donald Rumsfeld chaired the Space Commission,
which released its report on January 11, 2001. Rumsfeld served on the commission until December 28,
2000—the date George W. Bush nominated him as defense secretary. Rumsfeld's staff director for the
commission was Stephen Cambone, who later
became the first-ever undersecretary of defense for intelligence in March 2003, and who was also staff
director of the Rumsfeld Missile Commision,
a congressionally mandated commission that Rumsfeld chaired in 1998. The Space Commission is often
referred to as the second Rumsfeld Commission. Like the first commission, the Space Commission echoed
the alarmism about national security threats propagated by right-wing groups such as the CSP.
The commission concluded that it is "possible to project power through and from space in response
to events anywhere in the world. ... Having this capability would give the United States a much stronger
deterrent and, in a conflict, an extraordinary military advantage." The commission argued in Orwellian
style that because the United States is without peer among "space-faring" nations, the country
is all the more vulnerable to "state and non-state actors hostile to the United States and its
interests." In other words, U.S. enemies would seek to destroy the U.S. economy together with
its ability to fight high-tech wars by attacking global-positioning satellites and other "space
assets," which would effectively result in a "Space Pearl Harbor" (Report of the Rumsfeld
Space Commission, Executive Summary, pp. vii-viii).
"We know from history that every medium—air, land, and sea—has seen conflict. Reality indicates
that space will be no different. Given this virtual certainty, the United States must develop the means
both to deter and to defend against hostile acts in and from space" (Report of the Rumsfeld Space
Commission, Executive Summary, p. x).
The 13 members of the commission include several space weapons enthusiasts, military hardliners, and
military-industrial complex insiders. Indeed, the commission embodied what William Hartung and Michelle
Ciarrocca of World Policy Institute call the "military-industrial-think-tank complex," and
of the 13 commissioners, at least eight were consultants or board members for high-tech Pentagon contractors
(see "Axis of Influence," World Policy Institute, July 2002). Six commissioners were retired
flag officers, including Gen. Ronald Fogleman,
who served on the boards of directors of several firms that collectively received more than $900 million
in contracts in 2002. When Rumsfeld became Bush's defense secretary, Fogleman together with fellow
Space Commission members Gen. Charles Horner and
Adm. David Jeremiah were tapped to serve
on the Pentagon's Defense Policy Board.
Examples of the representation from right-wing think tanks on the commission include three members
of the CSP advisory board: Horner, former Republican Sen. Malcolm
Wallop of Wyoming (who was a Heritage Foundation senior
fellow), and the military-industrial insider William
Graham. The Jewish Institute for National
Security Affairs was represented by two close associates, Jeremiah and Lt. Gen. Jay
Garner. Other right-wing think tanks whose associates were on the commission included the National
Institute for Public Policy, and Frontiers of Freedom.
Commenting on the two Rumsfeld commissions, Theresa Hitchens, vice president of the Center for Defense
Information, said they were "part of the same tradition as some of Team
B" due to their strategy of undermining official threat assessments. Summarizing the Rumsfeld
commissions' results, Hitchens said: "One of the striking things about the reports from both commissions
was that threats were no longer being assessed on the basis of what people were currently capable of
doing, or capable of doing in the near future, but of what they could potentially be capable of. And
there was no thought about intent. You know a threat is defined as being based on capabilities, intent,
and ability to implement. The last two have been thrown out the window, and the first one is totally
perverted by both these commissions. And I find that to be totally weird. This sort of paranoia thing ... is
wacky because then everything can be a threat" (Flynn interview, June 12, 2003).
