A 1994 U.S. Navy War Game Showed that China could Devastate U.S. by Attacking U.S. Space Assets
Some instruction on these points may be found in a simulated war against the People's Republic of China conducted at the Naval War College in the spring of 1994. The war game, set in the year 2010, was a part of the Pentagon's ongoing study of the revolution in military affairs. In the scenario, Beijing provokes the U.S. Navy into patrolling China's shores, luring vulnerable aircraft carriers and other surface ships within range of precision-guided cruise missiles. The Chinese begin their ambush by attacking U.S. satellites, which confounds American targeting abilities and precludes any significant counter-offensive by the U.S. Navy. The Chinese also use space-based assets to enhance the effectiveness of their own forces. U.S. players in this war game were routed, their forces hit before they could throw up adequate defenses.
This military simulation taught the participants that U.S. military technologies may be neutralized by a resourceful, technically innovative country, and that the United States must make the effort to preserve its relative technological advantage. Military innovation may allow an enemy to reduce or overcome current U.S. military advantages (especially in the area of information warfare) and to challenge the adequacy and flexibility of existing mindsets and doctrines. A further noteworthy point to be taken from this exercise is that space is the one environment that can afford an imaginative Chinese leadership of fifteen years hence the opportunity to achieve a manifold increase in military leverage over a once-formidable foe. The simulated American failure to prevent China from using space led to projections of the largest numbers of U.S. casualties in the Pacific since World War II.
Lambakis, Steven. "Space Control in Desert Storm and Beyond." Orbis. Vol. 39, No. 3 (Summer 1995). [ 6 quotes ]