Weaponizing space

Amid the detritus of the twenty-four hour news cycle, every now and then an event occurs that demands some serious attention. This past week saw one such event as the People’s Republic of China (PRC) test-fired a missile that destroyed an orbiting satellite. The ramifications of this test are huge, as previous to this week only the United States and the Soviet Union had demonstrated the capability of striking a target in orbit. The last such test occurred in 1986 during the Reagan administration.

According to Jane’s Intelligence Watch Report, the likely target was the low Earth orbit (LEO) Feng Yun-1C meteorological satellite. It was reportedly destroyed by impact—or, as Jane’s would have it, by a ‘kinetic impact missile’ (spooks have a language all their own)—rather than with an explosive warhead. The article went on to assert the value of such a weapons program to the Chinese:

The utility of such anti-satellite measures to China is evident. An anti-ballistic missile system utilised by the US may rely on LEO satellites for early warning capabilities. Moreover, any military action in China’s near abroad by the US or its allies would rely on US satellite information for surveillance and intelligence.

The newsworthiness of this event is not so much the fact that China has such a program (our intelligence community already knows this), but rather, its willingness to demonstrate the fact. In others words, this is ultimately a political statement inasmuch as it is a military one—an overt act meant for the consumption of the Western press. After all, the cloud of debris left behind is impossible to conceal, and the Chinese were very aware of this, or as The New York Times reported today:

Michael Krepon, co-founder of the Henry L. Stimson Center, a group that studies national security, called the Chinese test very un-Chinese.

“There’s nothing subtle about this,” he said. “They’ve created a huge debris cloud that will last a quarter century or more. It’s at a higher elevation than the test we did in 1985, and for that one the last trackable debris took 17 years to clear out.”

So what is it that the Chinese are telling us by blowing up a weather satellite?

As one would imagine, it is at this point that opinions diverge. Some feel that the test represents a warning shot from the Chinese whose goal is to compel the Bush administration to change its adamant position against further treaties limiting the militarization of space and/or the development of anti-ballistic missile technology. Perhaps. But such an opinion cuts both ways. On the one hand, why would the Chinese be so hot to embrace a treaty that would essentially lock into place their technological inferiority? Besides, it had been over 20 years since the last test of this kind, hardly a track record of US space-based saber-rattling.

The opposite view would say that the Chinese are very aware of their space-based inferiority and harbor no delusions of catching up any time soon; therefore, by banning further R&D on militarizing space, they seek to focus on catching and surpassing the US’s terrestrial war-making capabilities, a much cheaper strategy that plays to China’s strengths.

This latter perspective does seem plausible. After all, the PRC has rapidly increased its spending on more traditional weapons systems, such as recent substantial upgrades to its blue-water navy. The rate of military spending in China currently outstrips its annual economic growth of 10%. Combine these and future upgrades to the PRC’s conventional weaponry with its stockpile of nuclear weapons, and China can reasonably assume that its military capabilities will reach some kind of parity with those of the US in the not too distant future…unless space-based weapons allow the US to leap ahead one generation of weapons systems.

Further to the point, consider that the ‘militarization’ of space is a broad term covering satellites used to enhance a terrestrial army’s ability to fight (via remote sensing) as well as potential future space weaponry. In the case of the former, the military use of satellites is nothing new, but in the case of space-based weapons—many of which are currently banned under the 1967 Outer Space Treaty—perhaps there is some unease in Beijing over reports of American R&D into space-based weapons, weapons that could negate the recent Chinese build-up of conventional weapons systems and/or its nuclear arsenal.

The language of the Outer Space Treaty is very much a product of its time. Specifically, it sought to ban “nuclear weapons or any other kinds of weapons of mass destruction,” leaving open the possibility of developing laser-based weapons that target, say, ballistic missiles, satellites, or even terrestrial military assets. The most relevant article of the Treaty addressing the weaponization of space, from Section A, reads as follows:

States Parties to the Treaty undertake not to place in orbit around the Earth any objects carrying nuclear weapons or any other kinds of weapons of mass destruction, install such weapons on celestial bodies, or station such weapons in outer space in any other manner.

The Moon and other celestial bodies shall be used by all States Parties to the Treaty exclusively for peaceful purposes. The establishment of military bases, installations and fortifications, the testing of any type of weapons and the conduct of military manoeuvres on celestial bodies shall be forbidden. The use of military personnel for scientific research or for any other peaceful purposes shall not be prohibited. The use of any equipment or facility necessary for peaceful exploration of the Moon and other celestial bodies shall also not be prohibited.

Upon reading the language above, one should readily grasp that the text does not ban all space-based weapons, and if the US is developing space weaponry that conforms to the treaty language, perhaps the idea of such weaponry is spooking the Chinese.

The Chinese have been predictably opaque regarding this latest act in outer space, venturing neither an explanation for nor cognizance of the test. Foreign Ministry spokesmen have denied knowledge of the event. In this regard, the Chinese might already be in violation of Section D (Convention on Registration of Objects Launched into Outer Space), Article 2, of the 1967 Outer Space Treaty, which stipulates:

When a space object is launched into Earth orbit or beyond, the launching State shall register the space object by means of an entry in an appropriate registry which it shall maintain. Each launching State shall inform the Secretary-General of the United Nations of the establishment of such a registry.

If the lack of registration—or at this point, cognizance—is a violation of the Outer Space Treaty, it seems a very strange way to compel the US to sign on to yet another treaty. The 40,000-foot view is not altered by the Chinese test—ultimately, the Chinese want their investment in defense technology to count for something; the Americans want to maintain their global military superiority. I would think there is plenty of room between those two positions for negotiation over the long term, but rash actions, such as China’s unannounced anti-satellite weapon test, is not helpful to the process.