The stall was set up in the centre of town, next to a monument of some great war leader long since passed. The leaflets were being handed out left, right and centre to anyone that would take them and in the middle of it all was a hardened activist speaking words of wisdom through the ubiquitous megaphone. But this was no typical street stall. Time and time again, and despite the lunchtime rush, when they spied the stall passing members of the public changed direction not to avoid it but to approach it and sign the petition, find out more, take a pamphlet.

This was last year and yet the stall was not about Iraq, the war on terror or the occupation. It was about Star Wars. The reason they came in their droves to sign up and ask questions was displayed in big white letters on one simple poster by the stall. It read "Keep Space for Peace". Until the moment they read that, most passers-by had no idea that peace in space was even under threat.

But it is, and if we don't act now, space will become the host of the next arms race, the site of the next war for supremacy and the ultimate military high-ground.

Star Wars is due to launch itself from the pages of fiction to a frightening reality on October 1^st this year. On that date, George W Bush will unveil phase one of his Missile Defence system. Of course, whether the system will work is another matter but a line will have been crossed and coming back will be hard indeed. That day will see the ambitions of George W and Donald Rumsfeld born into reality.

The Star Wars dream has been around for decades and was first brought to prominence by Ronald Reagan when he launched the Strategic Defense Initiative in March 1983. That hugely ambitious project aimed to set up a network of interceptor missiles, space-based weaponry and monitoring systems and ground-based radar and control centres to produce a system capable of intercepting hundreds of nuclear missiles fired at the US at once by the Soviet Union. On that scale, it couldn't be done then and it can't be done now, but Bush' system - the son of Star Wars as some call it - has similar ambitions and its scaled down size does not automatically mean a scaled-down threat.

A popular view is that Reagan's dream collapsed under the weight of technological complexity and spiralling budgets to fester in the back rooms of the Pentagon until George W Bush came to power. In fact it never went away. As Reagan rightly predicted in his Star Wars speech of March 1983, "It will take years, probably decades of efforts on many fronts".

George Bush senior kept the dream alive, if in the background a little, with research continuing throughout his premiership and when Clinton came to power the US hawks were getting impatient for more action. Heavy lobbying pushed Clinton to launch a three year feasibility study in to Missile Defense, which he later extended to five years. Those five years came to an end only months before his presidency did, so he put the decision off for his successor. Enter George W Bush.

In no time at all the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty was dead - killed by US withdrawal. That treaty forbade the development of National Missile Defense systems and the subsequent withdrawal from the treaty allowed the US to push full steam ahead. They wanted the Fylingdales radar base in Yorkshire for the system and they got it after a disgraceful and undemocratic government process. They wanted the Thule radar base in Greenland and Denmark gave it. They wanted Pine Gap in Australia and the Australian government gave it. They want Menwith Hill in Yorkshire. They haven't officially asked for it yet.

They wanted missile silos in Alaska and they built them. They needed missiles to put in the silos, and they built them too. And now the world finds itself in a spiralling Star Wars fantasy where Japan, Australia and Germany are working with the US on Star Wars systems and the UK, Greenland, Australia, Poland, Japan, Canada and more are offering (succumbing to demands for) their services or military bases.

Bush knows he has a maximum of five years in office before he loses control of the Star Wars project. If, in that time, development can move at such a rapid pace and on such a global scale to appear unstoppable then perhaps the project will continue after he's gone. That, at least, is the plan.

So far so good - a system for defending the country against lots of nasty incoming missiles. Who could scoff at that? The answer is anyone who can read between the lines and see beyond the spin. Missile Defence has as much to do with defence as the war on Iraq and as much to do with promoting stability as the War on Terror. Sold to us as a benign defensive shield it is nothing short of a strategic system for control, first-strikes, dominance and space weaponry.

A shield that can be used for defence is a shield that can be used for attack. An effective Missile Defence shield would give the United States "first strike ability". In other words, the United States would be able to strike a country, knock out the majority of its Inter-Continental Ballistic Missiles (ICBMs) and then use the Missile Defence shield to mop up the limited response that the attacked country could muster with what’s left. This is an ability to strike a country first and defend against retaliation, and gives the owner of that ability a huge military advantage. Lt Col Robert Bowman – former US Air Force Director – called Missile Defence "The Missing Link to a first Strike". Missile Defense makes the Bush doctrine of pre-emptive war easier to practice, more often, in more places.

Statements by Donald Rumsfeld – US Defence Secretary – back this up. In a document co-written by him for the Project for the New American Century, he states that Missile Defence will "provide a secure basis for US power projection around the world."

And even if this first strike threat is just perceived it doesn't matter. So long as nuclear states perceive a threat to their military defences and offensive capabilities, they will take measures to be able to pierce the shield. If there is one country that worries the US more than any other it's … No, not Iraq, not North Korea, not Syria, Libya … It's China. China has an enormous population, a sizeable nuclear arsenal and it is developing fast. It has joined the WTO and its wealth and ability to challenge the US is increasing by the month. China, probably quite rightly, sees the Star Wars system as aimed primarily at its interests. In its 2003 annual report to Congress on Chinese military power, the Pentagon admitted that one of the key reasons that China is increasing its arsenal of nuclear weapons is that it wants to maintain the "credibility" of its nuclear weapons in the face of US Missile Defence. The US, then, recognises the instability that Star Wars is causing.

The threats posed by Star Wars are not simply Chinese proliferation however, Chinese proliferation may provoke instability in India leading to Indian proliferation. Such a move would no doubt provoke Pakistani proliferation. Russia too is re-considering its nuclear weapons policy and only recently deployed six new nuclear weapons and Indonesia has recently said that it believes Star Wars will provoke an arms race. It's no longer just that Star Wars might cause nuclear proliferation. It's that it is causing it.

That's not it though. Not by a long shot. Star Wars isn't called Star Wars for nothing.

The proponents of Star Wars have another term for their ambitions - "full spectrum dominance". This dramatic term first rolled off the forked tongues of the US Space Command. It means the complete military dominance of land, sea, air, information and space. If you have first strike ability, you can control warfare better. If you have satellites that spy on troop movements, intercept state secrets and record the layout of other countries, military GPS systems, an air-force and navy that dominates over all others, the highest high tech weaponry and an enormous army, you are a little closer still to full spectrum dominance. If you dominate space and can fight from, in and through space, then, perhaps, you have full spectrum dominance. So goes the ideology anyway.

Missile Defence, with its space-based lasers, space-capable ICBM interceptors, space-based kinetic kill technology, ground-based space radars and space surveillance satellites is a massive step not only towards the further development of military uses of space, but towards the actually placing of weaponry in space. Missile Defence is key to the development of space weaponisation and many see Missile Defence as nothing more than an excuse to develop space weapons under the tag of "defence".

"The risk of weaponisation of outer space is mounting"

Efforts are now underway to "control and occupy outer space"

So the Chinese envoy Hu Xiaodi told the UN Conference on Disarmament at the end of July 2003. His remarks were directed towards US plans for a Missile Defense system. The remarks are highly significant and add weight to the arguments of organisations like Yorkshire CND.

As soon as the Chinese sent a man in to space in 2003, so the US shepherded out their generals to argue that space will soon be the next battleground. Just as Missile Defense is supposed to be inevitable, so Space weapons are supposed to be inevitable. The argument goes a little like this:

China can't be trusted. They, along with Russia, are calling for a UN treaty banning the placing of weapons in space. Yet they have just shown us their space potential and ambitions by sending a man in to space. Clearly they are trying to buy time so that they can catch up with US space weapons development and beat the US to space dominance. The only responsible course of action therefore, is for the US to dominate space with the weapons, before they do. For the sake of peace.

Don't buy it. The US administration roundly rejects any attempts by any country to ban weapons from space because they want to dominate space. They want to dominate space because they are already so dependent on space. Modern US war-fighting depends on space systems (the first Gulf War was called the first Space war) and the US owns well over half of all satellites in orbit. Western civilisation is increasingly dependent on space and the US feels vulnerable. However, the US also recognises the clear military advantage to domination of space.

The US plans in the future to integrate space-based lasers in to the star wars system and either way, they are planning on taking control of space as a war-fighting spectrum. Statements like "space dominance is essential", "control of space and the ability to deny others access to space", "space is recognised as the fourth medium of warfare" are there for all to read.

It would seem, in the eyes of US military planners, the sky is no longer the limit. This has serious implications. Will states like China, Russia and others try to challenge US dominance of space? If so, Star Wars may provoke not only proliferation on Earth but a full scale arms race in space. If research and development of anti-satellite systems and space lasers increases will we see battles in and from space? As the threat of space weapons becomes reality, it is likely that other states unable to create their own military space systems will resort to the cruder, traditional arsenals and styles of attack and further proliferation may occur down here too. These are the very real consequences of creating a whole new military spectrum in space.

Despite the overwhelming threats and the loudly and repeatedly voiced concerns of NGOs, individuals and countries across the world, the UK government is sticking to its current policy of doggedly and blindly supporting all US foreign policy objectives and has thrown its weight behind Missile Defence. In January this year they gave the US permission to use the "RAF" Fylingdales Ballistic Missile Early Warning Radar in North Yorkshire for the system. No doubt as soon as the US asks to use Menwith Hill's Space satellite relay facilities, they will be given the go-ahead there too.

It doesn't end there though. Geoff Hoon - the Defence Secretary (for now) - has signed special agreements with the US to lobby for UK arms Industry involvement. Whilst the UK government hasn't said they're considering creating a UK Missile Defence system, they are quite clearly looking at getting a slice of the US system for UK industry.

So keen are they that they have just opened up a "UK Missile Defence Centre", the aims of which are to establish a key role for UK arms companies in the project, establish a lead role in Missile Defence for the UK, provide information for policy decisions and to build a UK Missile Defence team. In other words the centre will be a key Missile Defence think-tank and lobby group for the UK government - and it's made up of UK MOD officials and arms corporations.

As yet, there is no working Missile Defence system and there are no weapons in space. Action can help to keep it that way. Find out more from some of the information sources below. Contact your local CND or peace group and get them involved. Join the demonstrations at Menwith Hill and Fylingdales, visit your politicians, write to your papers, sign the petitions, take part in the NVDA. The US administration is currently using the peace movement's attention on Iraq as an excuse to slip this through. It is important now more than ever that we focus too on these issues because with Star Wars, attacks like that on Iraq will be more common.

So yes, things are moving quickly. But nothing is inevitable and if the US military tells you it is, it's because they're scared that it isn't.

Neil Kingsnorth is Development Worker at Yorkshire CND