A space weapons race is not the answer for America

By Michael O'Hanlon

January 22 2007 02:00

China's recent test of an anti-satellite weapon that pulverised an old weather satellite was a big mistake. The move makes a mockery of China's long-standing opposition to such capabilities in the hands of other powers. More significantly, it threatens to undermine an uneasy moratorium on the development of space weapons that has largely endured since the end of the cold war.

Worrying though this is, the US must not overreact. Rushing into a space weapons competition would not serve American strategic interests. But neither are sweeping controls on the military uses of space plausible or desirable. To develop an effective space policy, the US and its allies must bear several principles and realities in mind.

First, the US increasingly uses space for military purposes, particularly for tactical war-fighting. Real-time data links and GPS-guided bombs are only the latest manifestations of this trend. The dependence on reconnaissance, targeting and communications satellites will surely grow.

Second, although the US in particular has militarised space in such ways, space has yet to be weaponised. That is, hardly any weapons have been put into orbit or deployed to attack satellites. The Chinese test works against this generalisation, of course, but does not yet repudiate it.

Third, those countries that rely on space systems cannot expect them to remain almost invulnerable. The nuclear powers already have ballistic missiles that have latent anti-satellite capabilities. The US, in particular, is also pursuing several ballistic missile defence programmes that also could be modified for anti-satellite weapon purposes; other countries may soon have similar, if less technically advanced, capabilities. For US armed forces, inherent vulnerabilities in low-altitude imaging satellites are of particular concern. They could be attacked by the type of weapon China has just tested, or microsatellites or lasers.

While regrettable, the Chinese anti-satellite test is a partially understandable step by a rising military power. China's test was more blatant than America's ongoing efforts in space but, if one can forgive the pun, it has not occurred in a vacuum.

Fourth, other countries will gradually become more able to use space for offensive military purposes. In particular, they are likely to gain the capacity to find and target large mobile assets such as ships and big formations of ground forces.

Basic technological and strategic realities support the argument for a moderate and flexible US military space policy. These realities also refute the extreme positions that have been espoused by prominent US policymakers in recent years. The late 1990s report of the Commission on Outer Space, for instance, warned of a possible space "Pearl Harbor". It implied that the US needed rapidly to take many steps - including offensive ones - to address such a purportedly imminent threat.

Most US satellites are not vulnerable to attack today nor are they likely to be in the years ahead. Thereafter, threats may often be handled through relatively passive measures and through redundant systems rather than an all-out space weapons competition. The Chinese anti-satellite test does put lower-altitude reconnaissance systems in greater jeopardy, but not higher-altitude communications and targeting satellites.

By racing to develop its own space weapons, the US would cause two unfortunate consequences. Militarily, it would legitimate a faster space arms race than is otherwise likely - something that can only hurt a country that nearly monopolises military space activities today.

Second, it would reinforce the current prevalent image of a unilateralist US, impervious to the stated will of other countries (as reflected in the huge majority votes at the United Nations in favour of negotiating bans on space weaponry).

For all its popularity, a wide-ranging ban on space weaponry is unjustified. Such an accord would be generally unverifiable and unable to reverse the simple fact that many ballistic missile defence systems can be transformed into anti-satellite weapons with relatively modest adjustments.

So the right policy for the US in space remains hedging and going slow. Extreme solutions can be more rhetorically appealing. But they fail to address the technical and strategic realities of the day and should not be adopted. That said, a few more such Chinese tests and we may have little choice.

The writer is a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and author of 'Neither Star Wars Nor Sanctuary'

China's Missile Message

By Elizabeth Economy

Thursday, January 25, 2007; Page A25

China's successful anti-satellite missile test has sparked a political firestorm, as analysts have tried to ascertain who in China knew what when and to what end. Were China's diplomats in the dark about the missile strike? Was it all a gambit to force a reluctant United States to the negotiating table for a ban on space-based weapons? While interesting to China watchers and nonproliferation experts, this discussion risks obscuring the real message of the test: Chinese rhetoric notwithstanding, China's rise will be as disruptive and difficult as that of any other global power.

Officials in both Beijing and Washington have worked hard to sketch out an alternative reality. China's leaders have traversed the globe, preaching the gospel of the country's peaceful rise, often to great effect: China will do things differently than the United States and earlier European powers did, not polluting the environment, not colonizing countries to gain access to their natural resources and not infringing on the sovereignty of other countries. For their part, senior U.S. officials, with a growing list of challenging issues on their China agenda, are reluctant to focus for too long on the reality of China's rise. Doing so would only make cooperation more difficult and provide support to an often obstreperous anti-China lobby in Congress. It is easier to paint China's rise as a work in progress -- one that the United States has the ability to influence.

Yet the truth is that China, with its rapidly growing economy and large population, already exerts an unsettling and often negative impact on the world. China is the largest or second-largest contributor to many of the most vexing global environmental problems, including climate change, the illegal timber trade, ozone depletion and marine pollution in the Pacific. It is squeezing manufacturing industries from South Africa to Thailand to Mexico, placing stress on economies ill-equipped to compete. And its weak public health infrastructure but strict media regulations rank it at the top of potential incubators for the next global health pandemic.

While such effects might be excused as unintentional consequences of China's rapid growth, others cannot be so easily dismissed. China's insistence that it doesn't mix business with politics in its foreign relations, while sounding benign, has the perverse effect of contributing to violence and repression throughout much of the world. Its political and financial support for regimes in Sudan, North Korea, Zimbabwe and Burma, among others, cannot in any way be construed as contributing to global peace and stability. Moreover, China's export of unsavory environmental and labor practices in countries where it is aggressively extracting natural resources has contributed to anti-Chinese demonstrations from Peru to Zambia.

The missile strike also underscores perhaps the greatest challenge of China's rise as a global power: The lack of transparency, official accountability and rule of law that defines China on the domestic front plays poorly on the international stage. Chinese leaders' inability to be forthcoming on matters of international importance -- whether SARS, the Harbin pollution disaster or this missile strike -- erodes whatever goodwill and trust they earn from their tireless sojourns abroad and suggests that they are not ready for prime time.

If this is the reality of China's rise, then the United States has work to do, the most important being to change the way it does business. If we want China to be a responsible world power on issues such as energy security, climate change, human rights and even space-based weapons, we need to step up and lead. We can and should condemn China for not respecting the international rules governing these issues or negatively affecting other countries' well-being, but we must be prepared to play by the same rules. While other powers may have granted American exceptionalism in the past, China is not inclined to do so. Indeed, China is more likely to seek its own "exceptional" status.

Even if we get that far, there will still be a tough road ahead. The transparency, accountability and rule of law that responsible world leadership entails are nascent and under constant threat in China. This is where Washington has it right. We need a strong commitment -- from the federal government as well as the private sector -- to helping, if not pushing, China in the right direction, and we need to do so with a long-term perspective.

If there is a silver lining to this missile strike, it may be that we can finally stop talking about China's peaceful rise or the Washington consensus vs. the Beijing consensus. The only consensus that matters is one rooted in a clear understanding of China's rise and the urgency it brings to the need for real U.S. leadership.

The writer is director of Asia studies at the Council on Foreign Relations.

中國衛星殺手曝光時機

本月11日，中國發射一枚陸基導彈摧毀了一顆本國廢棄的氣象衛星。美國《航空週刊》在16日首先披露了這條新聞，美國參、眾兩院軍事委員會在19日分別召開會議緊急討論中國從事太空戰的能力。

薛理泰2007/1/22蘋果日報

這件事在日本、加拿大和澳大利亞等國也引起了強烈的反響，以被擊毀的衛星碎片可能在太空存在多年，會威脅其他國家的衛星為由，紛紛表示不滿。

早在1960年代末，毛澤東已經批准啟動反導彈工程了。國防科技委員會和第七機械工業部（導彈工業）獲准為此立項為「六四○工程」，授權七機部第二研究院（地對空導彈）組織精兵強將從事反導彈技術的預研。反導彈工程上馬以後，反衛星成為該工程預研子項目之一，是不足為怪的。

文革結束以後，中國軍隊百廢待舉。1978年6月，鄧小平在主持中央專門委員會的一次會議上指出：「進攻是最好的防禦。我們應該集中力量加快進攻性核武器的研製。」此後，「六四○工程」下馬，第二研究院獲准將技術人員和資金轉移到「○九工程」（導彈核潛艇），重點研究導彈核潛艇攜帶的「巨浪」型號的潛射導彈的總體設計和制導系統。

評估兩岸關係惡化

1992年1月，北京領導人批准載人航天工程立項，代號是「九二一工程」。其後，工程進展順利，神舟系列宇宙飛船成功地在地球和太空之間接連穿梭往返。當中國航天專家在載人宇宙飛船項目上獲得進展之際，在同導彈、反導彈或反衛星相關的一些技術問題上也獲得突破，自是題中應有之義。

問題在於：那顆廢棄衛星是中國在1999年發射的風雲一號C型環極軌道氣象衛星。太空中有若干廢棄衛星，各國均不待於今日去清除。中國卻通過發射導彈擊毀了那顆廢棄衛星，擁有的反衛星亦即空間軍事對抗的能力終於曝光，無異為國際上甚囂塵上的「中國威脅論」推波助瀾。北京領導人對此應該有所估計，為何在此時讓自己的衛星殺手曝光呢？

實際上，這個行動同北京對兩岸關係可能在今年內趨於惡化的評估有關。11日，中國導彈擊毀那顆廢棄衛星；16日，《航空週刊》透露這則新聞；17日，國台辦新聞局副局長楊毅警告，台北通過憲改謀求法理獨立的活動在今年將進入實質階段，兩岸關係將面臨嚴峻的挑戰。由此可見，北京是著眼於中、美、台三角關係今年內可能出現異動的趨勢，有意讓其衛星殺手面世的，目的是向美國、日本發出告誡，在即將到來的兩岸軍事攤牌時刻，不要錯打了算盤。從客觀效果來看，中國衛星殺手面世，是給國台辦對台北發出的警告作後盾的，警告的間接對象是美國。

危及美軍優勢基礎

美軍對其他軍隊的優勢是建立在其衛星體系的基礎上的。美軍暫時指揮和控制主要靠通訊衛星，精確打擊主要靠全球定位系統，戰場對美軍顯得透明化主要靠偵察衛星。哪怕美國衛星體系失去部份功能，則美軍通訊、定位及偵察等手段必受重創，美軍打一場高科技局部戰爭的能力，同其他大國軍隊相比，就退回到1960、70年代雙方旗鼓相當的狀況了。美國人異乎尋常的反應，即反映了美軍的擔憂。

筆者積研究中國軍事20餘年之經驗，應該說，中國反衛星或從事空間軍事衝突的能力，還有後手。撒手鐧絕不是陸基導彈，而是陸基強激光設施。據判，哈爾濱工業大學和上海光學精密機械研究所在高功率半導體激光器的應用研究方面早已取得了突破，空軍防空部隊已獲得了必要裝備。可認為，在軍事強激光設施上，對美國而言，中國已捷足先登了。