Space Imagery and Democratic Debate about Foreign Policy

Consider The Case of the North Korean Missile Site at North 40°51'17" East 129°39'58"

Every time North Korea threatens to test a missile, Washington goes berserk. North Korea surprised the world in August 1998 when they launched a three-staged missile that flew over Japan. Recent reports estimate that in the coming years North Korea will develop the capability to hit Alaska or Hawaii with a long-range missile.[1] The potential missile threat from North Korea is very high on the US foreign policy agenda and cited as among the most dangerous to the United States by Pentagon and CIA officials. In the current debate about a National Missile Defense System North Korea is put forward as one argument, why such an anti-missile shield would be necessary. Now, new commercial space imagery available to the public might suggest that a more sober analysis of the North Korean missile threat is necessary. The political implications of commercially available space imagery are even broader. Images taken from space will dramatically enhance democratic debate about crucial foreign and security policy issues from now on. Yet, they can also pose risk to your privacy as critics point out.

Launch Pad. A bigger picture of the missile launch pad in North Korea

Information Monopoly and Analyzing Threats

While not much is know publicly about the scope and extend of North Koreas' opaque nuclear and missile programs, the Pentagon itself has never offered much help to enlighten and discuss the real threat openly. Until now, independent defense analysts lacked detailed information about test sites, facilities or launch pads, to make sound and critical judgements on the status of the missile program. What was missing was high-resolution satellite imagery to get a clear picture of the facts on the ground, which was only available to the intelligence community.

The National Reconnaissance Office, responsible for designing, building and operating U.S. reconnaissance satellites, has taken numerous pictures of the missile site but never has released them.[2] This is true not only for North Korea, in many other cases as well, be it India, Pakistan, Libya, or Syria or other countries allegedly developing missile technology. Until recently independent analysis depended on what the Pentagon released. All that will change - to a certain extend - dramatically. The cause for this change is commercial space imagery that comes close to the resolution provided by military spy satellites.

Assembly Building.

A Mouse that Roared

The Federation of American Scientist (F.A.S.), a Washington based civil arms-control group, purchased pictures of the North Korean test site on the open market. Space Imaging Inc., a Colorado based company sold the pictures for $2000. Their new IKONOS satellite, launched last fall took the pictures.

The words of Carl Marchetto, president of Kodak's Commercial & Government Systems which developed the image sensors, became true when he said, "one meter imaging technology, (...) will significantly change the way governments, businesses, and individuals look at, analyze, and manage the world around them."[3]

What the arms controller saw on their newly acquired pictures of the test-site located North 40°51'17" East 129°39'58" struck them. The ominous and threatening launch site consisted merely of minimal infrastructure. It lacked, as their analysts discovered, paved roads, transportation links, propellant storage, and staff housing or supporting industries that would be needed to conduct an extensive missile program. This discovery immediately caused a battle of interpretations, when the pictures went up on their website and were shown on CNN. John Pike of F.A.S. called it, "the mouse that roared, (...) if we're worried about North Korea attacking us, this won't do it. The missile will get stuck in the mud before it gets to the launch pad. (...) It is fittingly paradoxical that tens of billions of dollars should have been spent [for a National Missile Defense system], and a range of national policies reoriented, on account this distressing modest and underwhelming missile test facility."[4]

Others like Frank Gaffney of the Center for Security Policy in Washington and a former Pentagon official criticized this account; "did they expect Cape Canaveral? The fact that the roads aren't paved misses the point that North Korea, has tested a missile at sufficient range (...) That is all that matters."[5] Pentagon speaker Kenneth Bacon replied similarly at a Press Briefing, "We have always known that North Korea has primitive facilities that is far behind us technologically. But it devotes an enormous amount of money (...) to developing weapons of mass destruction. It is a military state (...) favoring its military over providing for its people. (...) It is not surprising that (...) have been able to produce long-range missiles and to fire them from such primitive spots."[6] Yet, Pike insisted to evaluate the threat. He concludes that the missile program is not so much an offensive program to actually attack the U.S., but rather to deter the U.S., which has over 38 000 soldiers stationed in South Korea. The group plans to further purchase images of test sites in India and Pakistan, both conducted nuclear test in 1998 and have extensive missile programs running.

Spy Pictures on the Free Market: International Relations, the Military and Privacy

Whatever the real threat from North Korea is, this case shows, that in the future the military and policy makers are not in the position to monopolize their information any longer. Access to cheap high-resolution will make it easier for Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) and humanitarian agencies to verify arms-control agreements, confirm the existence of mass graves, track massive refugee movements or to locate polluters. International implications will be high, when pictures of Russian troops in Grozny, Indonesian Military in East Timor, Israel's nuclear facilities or burning Kurdish villages will appear in press conferences.

All this will trigger controversial public debate about foreign policy, when new or contending information from space is suddenly available. NGOs now have their own "eye in the sky", which can give them almost the same 'information edge' as their counter players in governments and administrations. The image of the North Korean test site was the first effective demonstration of how to initiate debate and make the Pentagon move. The access to space images is a powerful and democratizing tool.

Satellite images for civilians is not a new phenomena and were sold by American (Aerial Imagery Inc.) French (SPOT), Russian (SOVINFORMSPUTNIK), or Indian companies. Though the images available in the past were of low resolution, extremely expensive and it took months to obtain them. The privately owned satellite IKONOS provides images with a resolution of one-meter coming close to the capabilities of military spy satellites. "You can count the cars in a parking lot," said the company's spokesman. Customers can easily download the images from the Internet as soon the satellite passed over the desired location and transmitted the data. The satellite surrounds the earth 14 times per day.[7]

Not only NGOs are going to profit from free market imagery, one of the biggest customers will be the U.S. military itself. Commercial images are high on the strategic priority list of the "National Imagery and Mapping Agency". Commercial imagery is delivered faster to its troops and allies because it does not need to go through the process of declassification. In 1994 after years of legal restrictions, the Clinton Administration licensed 12 U.S. companies to operate satellites with resolution close to one meter.

A sharp one-meter resolution picture from IKONOS of the Washington Monument

However, there are many in the national security community who see commercial imagery as a threat to U.S. national security. Not so much because the NGOs now have a powerful tool to create "public noise" as was written in an Airforce paper. U.S. military will not be the only military in the world to go shopping. Especially foreign militaries that do not posses their own surveillance system are keen to have a closer and cheap look their neighbors' fighters, tanks and warships. Furthermore, no law prohibits taking pictures from 400 miles above the earth of U.S. military facilities or other sensitive areas. Let alone that foreign companies would bother. Currently the U.S. still has a back door. American companies who offer the best quality are required to keep track of the customers and register their desires. So at least the U.S. military knows what the others want to know about them.

In the coming years when even higher resolution will be on the market, you will be able to count the cars in the parking lot but also see who is driving. Then we are entering a world, where privacy ends with space image resolution of less than 85 cm. This will have even more dramatic military and privacy implications. Oliver Morton writing for magazine Wired concluded, "The world's spy satellites are going commercial and the national security control freaks are freaking out. Watch for the next big First Amendment battle over who can see what. And if you look up, smile."

Free & Commercially available Photos and Galleries

Space Imaging Inc.
U.S. company operates ist own Satellite IKONOS with resolution of one meter

Terraserver
Joint project by SOVINFORMSPUTNIK, Digital Equipment, Microsoft, Kodak, US Geological Survey and Aerial Images Inc. runs a database of former soviet spy pictures.

Olivier Minkwitz is a founder of the German Research Unit on Information Society and Security Policy (FoG:IS) and a research assistant at the Center for Transatlantic Foreign and Security Policy Studies at the Free University of Berlin.

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