How Space Became the Next ‘Great Power’ Contest Between the U.S. and China
By William J. Broad Jan. 24, 2021 Beijing’s rush for antisatellite arms began 15 years ago. Now, it can threaten the orbital fleets that give the United States military its technological edge. Advanced weapons at China’s military bases can fire warheads that smash satellites and can shoot laser beams that have a potential to blind arrays of delicate sensors. And China’s cyberattacks can, at least in theory, cut off the Pentagon from contact with fleets of satellites that track enemy movements, relay communications among troops and provide information for the precise targeting of smart weapons. Among the most important national security issues now facing President Biden is how to contend with the threat that China poses to the American military in space and, by extension, terrestrial forces that rely on the overhead platforms. The Biden administration has yet to indicate what it plans to do with President Donald J. Trump’s legacy in this area: the Space Force, a new branch of the military that has been criticized as an expensive and ill-advised escalation that could lead to a dangerous new arms race. Mr. Trump presented the initiative as his own, and it now suffers from an association with him and remains the brunt of jokes on television. But its creation was also the culmination of strategic choices by his predecessors, Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama, to counter an emboldened China that raised bipartisan alarm. “There’s been a dawning realization that our space systems are quite vulnerable,” said Greg Grant, a Pentagon official in the Obama administration who helped devise its response to China. “The Biden administration will see more funding — not less — going into space defense and dealing with these threats.” The protective goal is to create an American presence in orbit so resilient that, no matter how deadly the attacks, it will function well enough for the military to project power halfway around the globe in terrestrial reprisals and counterattacks. That could deter Beijing’s strikes in the first place. The hard question is how to achieve that kind of strong deterrence. Lloyd J. Austin III, a retired four-star Army general who was confirmed last week as Mr. Biden’s secretary of defense, told the Senate that he would keep a “laserlike focus” on sharpening the country’s “competitive edge” against China’s increasingly powerful military. Among other things, he called for new American strides in building “space-based platforms” and repeatedly referred to space as a war-fighting domain. “Space is already an arena of great power competition,” Mr. Austin said, with China “the most significant threat going forward.” Editors’ Picks She Thought the Grizzlies Wanted Hiring Advice. They Wanted Her. Adoption Used to Be Hush-Hush. This Book Amplifies the Human Toll. Everybody Loves Fran. But Why? Continue reading the main story The new administration has shown interest in tapping the innovations of space entrepreneurs as a means of strengthening the military’s hand — what Mr. Austin in his Senate testimony called “partnerships with commercial space entities.” The Obama and Trump administrations both adopted that strategy as a uniquely American way of sharpening the military’s edge. Experts clash on whether the United States is doing too little or too much. Defense hawks had lobbied for decades for the creation of a military Space Corps and called for more spending on weapons. But arms controllers see the Space Force as raising global tensions and giving Beijing an excuse to accelerate its own threatening measures. Some go further and call it a precipitous move that will increase the likelihood of war. In decades past, especially during the “Star Wars” program of the Reagan administration, conflict in space was often portrayed as shootouts in orbit. That has changed. With few exceptions, the weapons are no longer seen as circling the planet but as being deployed from secure bases. So, too, the targets are no longer swarms of nuclear warheads but fleets of satellites, whose recurring, predictable paths while orbiting the Earth make them far easier to destroy. A main question is whether the antisatellite moves and countermoves will lower or raise the risks of miscalculation and war. That debate is just beginning. < - > https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/24/us/politics/trump-biden-pentagon-space-missiles-satellite.html _______________________________________________ Infowarrior mailing list Infowarrior@attrition.org https://attrition.org/mailman/listinfo/infowarrior
