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Notwithstanding the 2007 test, the anti-weaponisation discourse is consistent with the deeper motivations that have underpinned China’s broad policy objectives and the space program specifically that China’s government is pursuing parallel goals of securing the country against external threats and humiliations, developing an advanced information-based economy, consolidating Chinese national unity and regaining China’s historic place among the great powers. For these objectives to be attained, China needs a peaceful external environment which is not dominated by a hege- monic power opposing its ‘peaceful rise’. From this perspective ‘China cannot accept the monopolisation of outer space by another country’23.
In official pronouncements China emphasises a consistent adherence to a policy of opposing the weaponisation of space. In March 2011 the People’s Republic of China issued a White Paper on defence. Chapter 10 covered arms control and disarmament policy and reiterated the long-standing Chinese position that China ‘op- poses any weaponisation of outer space and any arms race in outer space’ and believes that a formal arms control treaty covering space is the best mechanism for avoiding both24. When China pub- lished its third Space White Paper in December 2012, it contained similar wording and, perhaps recognising the diplomatic damage done by the 2007 exo-atmospheric ASAT test, hinted that this test technique would not be repeated by stating that ‘the country takes effective measures to protect the space environment’25.
While the 2007 ASAT test runs counter to China’s arms control diplomacy, the program of which its part makes sense within the overall framework of Chinese security and space policy, where the interlinked goals of economic development, national unity, defence security and regained international status are sometimes in tension with one another. While there are several rationales for the space program, the pursuit of pride and prestige, understood in a spe- cifically Chinese framework, offers a better explanation for it than a simple ‘China threat’ conceptualisation. The functions it serves can be seen by examining the way in which the Chinese government uses the successes of the space program to support its broader political, social and economic goals.
If China were indeed committed to the long-term goal of being able to achieve effective space control in wartime, an ASAT capa- bility would clearly be required. It is therefore seen as significant that on 11 January 2007, China launched a two-stage medium- range ballistic missile from a mobile launcher which successfully intercepted and destroyed an ageing Chinese weather satellite at an altitude of 537 miles. The successful test indicated that China now effectively possesses an operational ASAT capability capable of destroying targets in Low Earth Orbit.
An argument can be made that in pursuing such technologies, China is simply exercising its legitimate right to self-defense with the most effective technologies that it can deploy. Compared for example with American studies of the US program however, Chi- nese analysts are much less likely to seek to justify their program in these terms, though there are occasional exceptions and the wording used is significant. The statement that, ‘China is modernising its national defense to satisfy its most basic needs to avoid being at the mercy of others’15, is revealing because the language used is a reminder that China’s terrible experiences at the hands of brutal foreign invaders in the 19th and 20th centuries e the so- called ‘century of shame’ e remains a powerful factor in shaping Chinese security perceptions, even if it is rarely voiced in international dialogue. The historical experience of lost status and power, and the enormous human suffering imposed by more technologically advanced invaders in these centuries have left a profound legacy in terms of China’s pursuit of military and political security as well as underpinning the determination to regain a central and unique cultural and political status in the world. This is reflected in an increasing willingness among Chinese academics to argue that military space capabilities are legitimate and that their acquisition is a normal behaviour for major powers such as the United States and Russia16.
The world economy is so intrinsically linked to support from space that should a major outage of satellite capacity occur, financial and trade markets could collapse. A recession spanning the globe would ensue, and security tensions would exacerbate. The increasingly chaotic international environment would be further destabilized by the disastrous incapacitation of U.S. military power. Without the assuredness of space-based surveillance, communications, and navigation support, American and allied military forces would be ordered to hunker down in defensive crouch while preparing to withdraw from dozens of then-untenable foreign deployments.
Such a scenario is not only possible—given the growing investment and reliance on space as a national power enabler—it is increasingly plausible. An attack against low-Earth orbit from a medium range ballistic missile adapted for detonation in space could cause inestimable harm to the national interests of developed and developing states alike. Without a space- based defense against such events, the world as we know it exists on borrowed time.
The use of space assets is quickly growing and represents an important sector of the world's economy, e.g., sales of GPS receivers alone reportedly exceed $20 billion annually. Space is also used for humanitarian missions, like forecasting floods in Bangladesh or droughts in Africa. The U.S. cannot allow space to be forever barred to use for what turns out to be a minor military advantage. If the military utility of attacks in space is so minor, if the active defense of space assets is impractical, counterproductive, and unnecessary, and if the danger resultuing from the consequent debris affects all space faring nations, it is clear that diplomacy is in every state's interest.
The first step the U.S. should take is a simple declaration of a guarantee of the continued flow of information to any country whose satellite is destroyed by an ASAT. The U.S. could do this using either military or civillian-owned satellites. After all, if the space assets of the U.S. are not vulnerable to attacks because of the inherent redundancy, the same cannot be said of China's other potential regional competitors, such as Australia, India, or Jpan. Each of these countries has only a handful of satellites that could be quickly destroyed if China chooses to attack them.
This declaration would effectively eliminate any military advantage that a country might get from attacking its neighbors limited fleet of satellites. Beyond that simple declaration, the U.S. should adopt a code of conduct that establishes "rules of the road" for responsible spacefaring nations. Finally, the U.S. should work toward a treaty banning the future testing of the most dangerous of anti-satellite weapons, i.e., the "kinetick kill interceptors" that crete large amounts of orbital debris. U.S. guarantees of the continued flow of information, "rules of the road," and a treaty banning kinetic ASATs are all essential steps towards containing the worst effects of a war in space, and can serve as a deterrent to any war in space to begin with.
When it warned of a space Pearl Harbor, the Rumsfeld space commission was afraid that a lesser power could launch a surprise attack that would wipe out key U.S. strategic assets and render the U.S. impotent. This is what Japan tried, but failed, to do at the start of World War II. And much like Japan's failure to destroy the U.S. carrier fleet, a Chinese attack on U.S. satellites would fail to cripple our military, China's strategic goal in launching a space war.
If the short-term consequences to the U.S. were not that bad, the long-term consequences to all spacefaring nations would be devastating. The destruction of the nine satellites hit during the first hour of the attack considered here could put approximately 19,000 new pieces of debris over 10cm in diameter into the most populated belt of satellites in LEO. Even more debris would be put into GEO, if China launched an attack against communication satellites. In the immediate aftermath of the attack, the debris from each satellite would continue to clump togheter, much as the debris from China's 2007 test. Over the next year or so, and assuming the space war with China was resolved welll before that, the debris fields would fan out and eventually strike other satellites. These debris fields could cause a run-away chain of collisions that renders space unusable from hundreds to thousands of years.
The short-term military consequences of an attack by China on U.S. space assets are limited. Even under the worst-case scenario, China could only reduce the use of precision-guided munitions or satellite communitions into and out of the theater of operations. They would not be stopped. China could destroy a large fraction of strategic intelligence gathering capabilities but not all of it. With a greater than normal expenditure of fuel, the remaining U.S. spy satellites could continue to survive their crosses over China and photograph Chinese troop movements, harbors, and strategic forces, although at a reduced rate.
The war would also quickly move into a tactical phase where the U.S. gathers most of its operational photographs using airplanes, instead of satellites. U.S. ships and unmanned vehicles might have difficulty navigation, theoretically, during certain hours of the day. Most of the time, they would be free to function normally. China's space strike would fail to achieve its war aims even if the U.S. failed to respond in any way other than moving its LEO satellites.
When it warned of a space Pearl Harbor, the Rumsfeld space commission was afraid that a lesser power could launch a surprise attack that would wipe out key U.S. strategic assets and render the U.S. impotent. This is what Japan tried, but failed, to do at the start of World War II. And much like Japan's failure to destroy the U.S. carrier fleet, a Chinese attack on U.S. satellites would fail to cripple our military, China's strategic goal in launching a space war.
At that point, the U.S. could effectively stop China's attack simply by changing the remaining satellites orbital speeds by as little as 300km per hour. This very small change will have a large effect in the position of the satellite the next time it crosses over China effectively putting the satellite out of range of the preopositioned ASAT launcher. This is not an excessive change in speed an, unless the satellite is very close to the end of its operational life, is well within the capability of its onboard fuel supply. Furthermore, it does not have to change it speed very rapidly the way a satellite would have to in order to avoid collision in its final moements. Instead, this relatively small velocity change has tens of minutes or even hours to change the position of the satellite before the next time it crosses over China. During htis time, it is steadily moving away from its original position so that it could be hundreds of km from where China thought it was going to be.
Throughout the history of the Cold War, the U.S. has had a policy of only launching a "retaliatory" nuclear strike if an incoming attack is detected by both early warning system, the odds of the U.S. misinterpreting some radar-detected missile launch as a nuclear attack would be greatly increased -- even if the U.S. did not view the satellite destruction as a sufficiently threatetning attack by itself. Such a misinterpretation is not without precedent. In 1995, Russia's early warning radars viewed a NASA sounding rocket launch off the coast of Norway and flagged it as a possible Trident missile launch. Many analysts believe that the only reason Russia did not respond is that it had a constellation of functioning early warning satellites. Any Chinese attacks on U.S. early warning satellites would risk both intentional and mistaken escalation of the conflict into a nuclear war without a clear military goal.
Based on the orbits of U.S. military satellites determined by the world-wide network of amateur observers, there appears to be periods of time where a large number of LEO military satellites cross over China several times each week. To hit them, China would have to preposition its ASAT-tipped missiles and their mobile launchers in remote areas of China, one position for each satellite. If reports of low reliabilities for these missiles are correct, tow or more missiles might be assigned to each satellite. Furthermore, these positions are really only suitable for a particular day. If China's political and military planners have any uncertainty at all about which day to launch their space war, they would need to pre-position additional launchers around the country. Thus, attacking nine LEO satellites could require as many as 36 mobile launchers -- enough for two interceptors fired at each satellite with a contingency day if plans change -- moved to remote areas of China; areas determined more by the satellite orbits than China's network of roads.
However, China could not launch the massive attack required to have anything like a significant effect on U.S. ability to utilize space without months of careful planning and pre-positioning of ASAT carrying missiles around the country. It would also have to utilize its satellite launch facilities to attack any U.S. assets in deep space, i.e., the GPS navigation satellites and communications satellites in GEO orbit. Most importantly, it would have to time the attack to hit as many U.S. satellites as simulataneously as possible. And despite all that movement, China would somehow have to keep the whole thing secret. Failure to do so would undoubtedly result in the U.S. attacking the large, fixed facilities China needs to wage this kind of war before the full blow had been struck. Even if the U.S. decided not to attack, China would undoubtedly plan for that contingency.