Evidence: Recently Added
The lopsided exchange ratios are magnified by another disadvantage to defense. Since the attacker selects the mod of attack, satellites must be defended against all choices available to the attacker. Many satellite defenses, however, compete with one another. For example, defeating a co-orbital interceptor requires hardening a satellite and adding fuel. This will add size, making the satellite a larger target for direct ascent weapons that are too fast and destructive to be defeated by hardening or maneuverability. Miniaturizing satellites and distributing functions across a network requires that the constrellation fly in formation, compromising maneuverability.
Technology and cost concerns are entirely reasonable and should factor prominently into any US decision on how to proceed with our space program. Having said that, the arguments space weapons opponents make regarding technology and costs bear a strong resemblance to those that were made in opposition to the early space and missile programs. In his Pulitzer Prize winning history of the space age, Walter McDougal writes that The decision to shelve the ICBM reflected at least four mentalities current at the time: the need for rigorous economy, which dictated that scarce funds be put into bigger bombers and eventually jet aircraft; the assumption of American superiority in aviation; the preference of 'blue sky' air officers for manned bombers; and scientific pessimism about the technical problems. Vannevar Bush reflected the last trait in December 1945: "I say technically I don't think anybody in the would know how to do such a thing [build an accurate ICBM] and I feel confident it will not be done for a long period of time to come." Vannevar Bush's prediction proved inaccurate. The development of the thermonuclear warhead increased the ICBM's lethality, decreased the accuracy requirements, and compelled the Air Force in 1951 to give highest priority to a program that had been effectively abandoned just four years earlier. It is not hard to imagine changes in either the technical or political landscape that could create similar shifts in the US commitment to space weapons.
Indian scientists believe today that, by 2025, global power will be defined by a nation's access to information, and that it will be in the national interest to develop new technologies for launching satellites (such as hypersonic missile technology). Indian air chief marshall Satish Kumar Sareen knows that "success in future wars will depend on the ability to deploy space-based resources for surveillance, battlefield management and communications." Indeed, the integrity military satellites can provide to national C3I architecture makes space indispensable to a strategy for deterrence. Some Indians believe that it is also in their best interests to stay at the forefront of technological development, where new-era warfare integrates space and electronic warfare. Yet, wrote Lt. Comdr. V.W. Karve, "history teaches us that better technology alone does not necessarily lead to victory. Rather, victory goes to the side that uses technology better or who can deny the enemy the use of his own technology."
Still other states favor intermediate steps in the form of confidence-building measures believing that such measures would constitute a constructive move towards the prevention of an arms race in outer space. The process of building confidence between states involves step-by-step reductions in perceptions of threat or conditions of uncertainty. In connection with military operations in space, the purpose of confidence-building measures is to obtain greater transparency and predictability through activities such as notification, verification, and monitoring, in order to reduce suspicion and tension between nations while enhancing international peace and stability. Specific examples of confidence-building proposals in the CD have included: establishment of an international monitoring agency using space assets for verification of arms control agreements and to monitor crisis situations; creation of a small international satellite constellation to identify the function and purpose of other satellites using non-intrusive means; broadening the Registration Convention to include sharing of additional information on orbit changes, satellite maneuvers and drifting; identification of keep-out zones assigned to each satellite to order to prevent accidental collisions, co-orbital tracking and close range passes by other satellites; establishment of an international ballistic missile and space launch notification center; on-site inspection of satellites prior to launch; annual exchanges of data, meetings of experts, briefings, visits to laboratories, and observations of tests; and sharing of imagery and space technology.
The flight-testing and deployment of space weaponry has been inextricably linked to the dangers associated with weapons of mass destruction. The initial prohibitions on space weaponry, after all, were expressly tied to weapons of mass destruction. During the Cold War, space warfare was widely considered a harbinger of nuclear warfare, given the connectivity of satellites most likely to be attacked with the command, control, and targeting of nuclear forces. This linkage has not disappeared with the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the advent of extreme forms of asymmetric warfare and terrorism. States possessing nuclear weapons that might become adversaries to the United States could view U.S. initiatives to weaponize space as an attempt to negate their deterrents. Space-to-ground warfare initiatives to further extend U.S. military advantages could therefore prompt compensatory steps by weaker states, including the accelerated pursuit of unconventional weapons.
To these examples we may add a long list of tactical blunders growing out of ambiguous circumstances and faulty intelligence, including the U.S. bombing in 1999 of the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade during Kosovo operations. Yet though these tragic actions occurred in near-war or tinderbox situations, they did not escalate or exacerbate local instability. The world also survived U.S.-Soviet "near encounters" during the 1948 Berlin crisis, the 1961 Cuban missile crisis, and the 1967 and 1973 Arab-Israeli wars. Guarded diplomacy won the day in all cases. Why would disputes affecting space be any different?
When evaluating a threat to U.S. space-based military and commercial assets, it is important to note that possession of a technology by a potentially hostile power does not mean that the country will be able to translate the technology into an effective military system. During the Cold War, the Soviet Union had scientists and engineers doing cutting-edge work, but it often found it extremely costly and difficult to produce in quantityor sometimes prototypethe most cutting-edge systems, equipment, or devices. The race to the moon was a case in point. The Soviet Union produced many space firsts but ultimately could not produce refined, quality systems that could be launched successfully, time after time. America had its major mistakes as well, such as the fire on the launch pad of Apollo 1 in 1967. But America learned from its mistakes and constantly improved its systems, even ones run by the American government. In the late-1960s, the Soviet Union built what for some years was the worlds largest telescope, the Bolschoi Teleskop Azimultalnyi. The problem was that it rarely worked properly. At a more basic and humble level, the Soviet Union was not able to produce quality consumer products in quantity. China, the country often feared as threatening U.S. space-based assets, has quality problems similar to those of the old Soviet Union. For example, it has never been able to produce in quantity a quality fighter plane, which would be far more important to its military needs than exotic space weapons. Thus, the fact that a country possesses a technology that could be developed to threaten U.S. space assets is a reason for attention and concern, but it is not a reason for new, costly programs to counter phantom threats.
With the right mix of intellectual firepower and political muscle, the United States could achieve what Dolman calls "hegemonic control" of space. The goal would be to make the heavens safe for capitalism and science while also protecting the national security of the United States. "Only those spacecraft that provide advance notice of their mission and flight plan would be permitted in space," writes Dolman. Anything else would be shot down. That may sound like 21st-century imperialism, which, in essence, it would be. But is that so bad? Imagine that the United States currently maintained a battery of space-based lasers. India and Pakistan could inch toward nuclear war over Kashmir, only to be told that any attempt by either side to launch a missile would result in a boost-phase blast from outer space. Without taking sides, the United States would immediately defuse a tense situation and keep the skies above Bombay and Karachi free of mushroom clouds. Moreover, Israel would receive protection from Iran and Iraq, Taiwan from China, and Japan and South Korea from the mad dictator north of the DMZ. The United States would be covered as well, able not merely to deter aggression, but also to defend against it. National security always has been an expensive proposition, and there is no getting around the enormous costs posed by a robust system of space-based weaponry. It would take a supreme act of national will to make it a reality. We've done it before: Winning the Cold War required laying out trillions of dollars, much of it on machines, missiles, and warheads that never saw live combat. Seizing control of space also would cost trillions, but it would lead to a world made immeasurably safer for America and what it values.
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. The United States' ability to observe the testing, launch, orbit, and use of satellite communications between surface and space is within the realm of today's capabilities. However, if foreign countries take steps to shield or disguise their space activities, then our intelligence-gathering agencies will face a difficult challenge in detecting and assessing those capabilities.