Arms Control Wonk Jeffrey Lewis and Gregory Kulacki of the Union of Concerned Scientists gave a talk at the Carnegie Endowment on China’s ASAT test in January. They argued, in a preview of a forthcoming paper, that the test was not meant as a show of force and could possibly have been averted if the U.S. had demarched the Chinese government for previous attempts (a point that was hinted at in an earlier New York Times article). From a summary on the Carnegie site:
The unpreparedness of Chinese officials in the aftermath of the ASAT test is not inconsistent with the statements of technocrats, who framed the development of the ASAT as part of a general drive to improve China’s military capabilities in space, not as an effort to provoke the U.S.
In other words, many Chinese feel the test was a mistake, and was bad for Chinese security, and that there are problems with the Chinese decision-making process. People in the general armaments department pursue military technologies for different reasons than policy makers; often, the goals of these groups may be rival.
There is also a writeup in Global Security Newswire, and an apparently less than accurate writeup forthcoming in Space News.
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