U.S. intelligence is inadequate to assess the real risk to U.S. space assets from foreign space weapon programs. In addition, analysts often make the "mirror imaging" mistake by assuming that other countries will make their security decisions in the same way that the United States does.
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Assessing the PRC's intentions and current state of its space program is difficult at best; the challenge is equally hard for most other nations as well. Gen Richard B. Myers, former commander in chief, US Space Command, believed the US intelligence community currently has a gap in tracking the abilities of countries, especially developing ones, to create ASAT weapons. This deficit has created some uncertainty about the threat facing our nation's space forces. ( More ... ) Chun, Clayton K. S. Shooting Down a Star: Program 437, the U.S. Nuclear ASAT System and Present Day Copycat Killers. Maxwell AFB, AL: USAF Air University, April 2000. [ 11 quotes ] [ page 67-8 ]
All modern states must assume that potential adversaries have studied the allied use of space-based resources in the Gulf War and the war on terrorism, and will seek to counter these military information resources by any means necessary. The allies could -- and, some would argue, already do -- face a symmetric threat to space resources from the global proliferation of space-based ISR, communications and navigation systems. The allies might also face a range of asymmetric attacks on space-related resources: physical and electronic attacks on space resources, lines of communication or ground segments; denial of services through electronic jamming; or deception by camouflage, spoofing or decoys. The space-based segments of military information assets are particularly vulnerable to attack by a range of weapons, including space-to-space and earth-to-space anti-satellite weapons. ( More ... ) Deblois, Bruce M. "The Advent of Space Weapons." Astropolitics. Vol. 1, No. 1 (Summer 2003). [ 15 quotes ]
As a nation with space superiority prepares to meet and defeat an emerging space denial counterstrategy, it is critical to recognize the full scope of disparities and asymmetries at work, and plan accordingly. As Azriel Lorber elucidates in Misguided Weapons, throughout history one of the most consistent and deadly mistakes made on the battlefield has been the tendency to project one's own practices, constraints, and value system on the adversary. This was Napoleon's fatal flaw in his Russian campaign the assumption the Russian army would play by the battlefield rules of "war by annihilation." The "projection" syndrome also plagued the air campaign in Vietnam. US national leadership "subconsciously assigned the enemy western values and translated a guerilla war into a conventional conflict they could better understand." Where might the dangers of self-projection manifest themselves in the space arena? The continued adherence by some to space sanctuary theory is a strategic-level example. Projecting one's own acquisition and fiscal restraints or levels of acceptable risk onto an adversary. A potential adversary may be less risk averse in the demonstration of a new technology than the US, or less deterred by world opinion, or less concerned with loss of life. Whatever the differences may be, defeating a counterstrategy of space denial will require recognizing the dissimilarities in potential adversaries. Shaw, John E. "On Cossacks, Subs, and SAMs: Defeating Challenges to U.S. Space Superiority." High Frontier Journal. (Winter 2005): 23. [ 6 quotes ] [ page 26 ]