Air University

Allen G. Peck, Lt Gen, Commander

Air Force Research Institute

John A. Shaud, Gen, PhD, USAF, Retired, Director

School of Advanced Air and Space Studies

Gerald S. Gorman, Col, PhD, Commandant

John B. Sheldon, PhD, Thesis Advisor
AIR UNIVERSITY

AIR Force RESEARCH INSTITUTE

The US Response

to China’s ASAT Test

An International Security Space Alliance

for the Future

Anthony J. Mastalir

Lieutenant Colonel, USAF

Drew Paper No. 8

Air University Press

Maxwell Air Force Base, Alabama 36112-5962

August 2009
Disclaimer

Opinions, conclusions, and recommendations expressed or implied within are solely those of the 

author and do not necessarily represent the views of Air University, the United States Air Force, 

the Department of Defense, or any other US government agency. Cleared for public release: 

distribution unlimited.

This Drew Paper and others in the series are available 

electronically at the Air University Research Web site 

http://research.maxwell.af.mil and the AU Press Web 

site http://aupress.au.af.mil.

ii

Muir S. Fairchild Research Information Center Cataloging Data

Mastalir, Anthony J.

The US response to China’s ASAT test : an international security space alliance 

for the future / Anthony J. Mastalir.

 p. ; cm. – (Drew paper, 1941-3785 ; no. 8)

Includes bibliographical references.

ISBN 978-1-58566-197-8

1. Astronautics—International cooperation. 2. Astronautics and civilization. 

3. Astronautics and state. 4. United States—Foreign relations—China. 5. China—

Foreign relations—United States. 6. Anti-satellite weapons—China. I. Title. II. Series.

333.94—dc22
iii

The Drew Papers

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iv

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v

Contents

Chapter	 Page

DISCLAIMER . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ii

FOREWORD . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . vii

ABOUT THE AUTHOR . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xi

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xiii

1 INTRODUCTION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

2 EXTREME DIMENSIONS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15

Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22

3 POLITICAL/DIPLOMATIC DIMENSION . . . . . . . 25

Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42

4 INFORMATION DIMENSION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47

Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59

5 ECONOMIC DIMENSION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61

Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71

6 MILITARY DIMENSION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75

Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86

7 FINDINGS/CONCLUSION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89

Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98

ABBREVIATIONS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101 

BIBLIOGRAPHY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103 

Illustrations

Figure	

1 Adaptation of Edward Luttwak’s model

of horizontal and vertical harmony . . . . . . . . . . 9

2 Notional space surveillance architecture . . . . . . 82
Table

Notional space rules of engagement defining

hostile intent/hostile acts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40

CONTENTS

vi
vii

Foreword

Lt Col Anthony Mastalir has done policy makers a welcome 

service by exploring the enigma wrapped in a conundrum which 

is Chinese space policy, focusing on the Chinese kinetic energy 

antisatellite (KE-ASAT) test of January 2007. That test ended a 

de facto moratorium on KE-ASAT tests which the United States 

and Russia had observed for over two decades. It also announced the arrival of a new player in strategic space, forcing 

a reevaluation of US capabilities in space as well as Chinese 

intentions there. Colonel Mastalir examines both that reevaluation and those intentions, relying on open-source material, 

particularly from Chinese strategic and military analysts. 

Of chief interest, of course, are the motives of the People’s 

Republic of China (PRC) leadership for demonstrating a technology—kinetic kill of satellites in low-earth orbit—which is so 

destructive to the common environment of space. This in particular is something PRC spokesmen themselves have never 

adequately explained. Still, what emerges from the documents 

the author examines is the picture of an intellectual framework 

of deterrence strikingly similar to that which the United States 

developed in the 1950s and thereafter. The fathers of US deterrence strategy—Thomas Schelling, Albert Wohlstetter, and Herman Kahn, among others—would certainly recognize People’s 

Liberation Army (PLA) space strategists as their intellectual 

heirs. Chinese determination to counter strategic “hegemony” 

on earth and in space, and the apparent conviction of PLA strategic planners that a robust and demonstrated ASAT capability 

is necessary to offset what they see as the offensive potential of 

programs like missile defense, would be instantly recognizable 

to those US strategists who developed the doctrines of countervalue deterrence, escalation dominance, asymmetric warfare, 

and assured second-strike capability.

Nor is there anything essentially alien about what the author 

concludes is China’s use of space as a symbol of status in the 

international community. It is we and the Soviets who made 

space capability a marker of international prestige, and that 

tradition continues in the commentaries of those who imagine 

a reignited race to the Moon and Mars, which the United States 

must win in order to demonstrate national power and superior-
ity. In short, the Chinese, as they emerge from the public documents the author has relied on, are less inscrutable than we 

might imagine. On the contrary, they seem to have come to the 

same conclusions as we that no Great Power can afford not to 

have a human spaceflight capability, to ignore the military force 

multiplier effects that space provides, or to discount the possibility of hostilities in space.

These are, of course, the motives of any great national power 

in any realm of potential strategic competition. The question 

for policy makers—in space as within the atmosphere—is not 

how to prevent China’s rise, but rather how to protect US interests and avoid conflict as this process unfolds. 

This is not the first time the problem of maximizing interests 

while avoiding hostilities has arisen in the space age. It was the 

prevailing theme of space policy in the Cold War. Both the 

United States and the Soviet Union planned for hostilities in 

space, both developed and tested ASAT systems, and both unilaterally abandoned those systems while the Cold War was still 

at its height. Indeed, in the face of great international tension 

and the threat of nuclear war, the relations between the two 

Great Powers in the Cold War remained characterized by what 

might be called grudging cooperation. Clay Moltz and others 

have argued that the absence of overt hostilities in space during the Cold War resulted from the perception on the part of 

both nations that maintaining their own systems was of greater 

value than threatening the systems of the other side. Whatever 

the cause, space was one of the first areas to witness steps toward Cold War détente with Richard Nixon’s proposal for a joint 

Apollo-Soyuz mission in the early 1970s. 

The rise of the PRC presents US policy makers with a new 

strategic challenge. But the circumstances of China’s arrival as 

a space power are—as the author points out—far more propitious than those that reigned during the Cold War. Then, Soviet 

actions were informed by a permanent ideological hostility to 

capitalism in general and the United States in particular. Now, 

ideology is in retreat in both the PRC and the United States. 

After all, what enables the Chinese to challenge US predominance in space is economic and technological strength based 

on the principles which US entrepreneurs both recognize and 

admire. The Soviets were geographically expansionist. The ChiFOREWORD

viii
nese seem to have little interest in extending their direct control beyond the near abroad, although this includes Taiwan. 

During the Cold War, a combination of US containment policies 

and the autarkic impulses of the Soviet leadership insured that 

the communist world economy would be isolated from the world 

economy—and therefore doomed. But the PRC leadership has 

followed precisely the opposite path, with the result that Western and Chinese economies are now codependent. The consequence is mutual dependence on a safe and predictable space 

environment. The ways and means of creating such an environment are the crux of Colonel Mastalir’s study.

He suggests a number of steps, prominent among them the 

restoration of space cooperation with friends and allies, greater 

reliance on “soft power,” modification of the draconian trade 

restrictions of the International Traffic in Arms Regulations 

(ITAR) regime, greater reliance on confidence-building measures, agreed rules of engagement, and joint efforts at debris 

mitigation. He strongly underlines the need to find some peaceful solution to potential rivalries in space, not least because of 

the crushing expense that an arms race in space would mean 

for both China and the United States.

This is not a naïve study. The author recognizes the potential 

for hostilities in space and recognizes, too, that a movement in 

that direction may very well result from decisions over which the 

United States has little control. But equally, he offers a corrective to the view that what we are facing is a determined and unified opponent. We know that our own policy often results from 

brokerage among competing bureaucratic and congressional 

and private interests, that those charged with implementing 

policy can distort or “slow roll” the clearest executive direction, 

and that ignorance and personal rivalry can and often do influence decisively the policy outcome. But we tend to impute to our 

potential opponents cold-blooded rationality and singleness of 

purpose. Colonel Mastalir avoids this illusion, emphasizing instead the bureaucratic disagreements and lack of communication evident in the PRC documents. One might add that PRC 

foreign office personnel and other Chinese commentators have 

been quite open in professing their ignorance of the PLA’s motives for the ASAT test—so perhaps Chinese policy making is as 

opaque to many on the inside as it is to us.

ix

FOREWORD
x

If I were to add something to the author’s analysis, it would 

be greater attention to the Chinese space white papers. There 

have been two of these, one in 2000 and the latest in 2006. 

They describe a space policy overwhelmingly directed toward 

economic development and international prestige, with some 

attention as well to exploiting space for purposes of military 

modernization. There are those in the West who believe that 

such policy statements are meant as propaganda to distract 

the West from secret and more malevolent designs. Perhaps 

they are, in part. But while we may be ignorant of the inner 

workings of the Chinese bureaucracy, we know that it is a bureaucracy. We can therefore assume that these white papers—

like the policy statements our government issues on space—result from protracted negotiations among various bureaucratic 

players and represent some common denominator among their 

competing interests. Moreover, in a bureaucracy as secretive 

and divided as that of China, we can be reasonably certain that 

whether or not the white papers are a true statement of Chinese policy, hundreds of thousands of Chinese bureaucrats believe—and behave as if—they are. Perhaps we cannot take at 

face value what these policy documents say, but neither should 

they be dismissed as irrelevant.

In short, it is Colonel Mastalir’s accomplishment to have 

shed some welcome light in an area which will be of increasing 

concern to US policy makers in the years and decades to come. 

I expect this will become one of the foundational documents 

which policy makers and academics draw upon to manage China’s “peaceful rise” as a space-faring nation.

ROGER G. HARRISON, PhD

Director

Eisenhower Center for Space

 and Defense Studies

FOREWORD
xi

Lt Col Anthony J. Mastalir is the commander, 595th Operations Support Squadron, 595th Space Group, Space Innovation and Development Center (SIDC), Schriever AFB, Colorado. 

The mission of the squadron is to enhance air and space force 

readiness by providing operations and intelligence support to 

the test, advanced training, space tactics, and force development missions of the 595th Space Group and the SIDC. He 

took command 25 June 2006. 

Colonel Mastalir entered the Air Force as a distinguished 

graduate of the Northwestern University Air Force Reserve Officer Training Corps. He is a credentialed space professional, 

having completed a series of operational assignments in the 

areas of space control, satellite command and control, and 

ICBM launch operations. The colonel has held internships on 

the Pentagon staffs of the deputy chief of staff for Air and Space 

Operations (AF/XO) and the assistant secretary of defense for 

legislative affairs (OSD/LA). He has served at Headquarters Air 

Force Space Command as a space control requirements command lead, speechwriter, and aide-de-camp to the commander. 

He has also led the SIDC’s Integration Division, responsible for 

the development and integration of innovative space capabilities, the planning and execution of exercises and war games, 

and the development of space modeling tools and simulated 

space environments.

About the

Author

Lt Col Anthony J. Mastalir
ABOUT THE AUTHOR

xii

He earned a master’s degree in organizational management 

as a fellow at the George Washington University, a master’s 

degree with highest distinction in national security and strategic studies from the Naval War College, and a master’s degree 

in airpower art and science from Air University’s School of Advanced Air and Space Studies. 

Colonel Mastalir is a command space and missile operator 

with qualifications in the Defense Satellite Communications 

System III, Skynet 4, Inertial Upper Stage, Minuteman III, and 

Deployable Space Support Segment III weapon systems. He is 

married to the former Danielle Bailey of Atlanta, Georgia. They 

have two children, a daughter, Mikel, and a son, André.
xiii

Acknowledgments

I am deeply grateful to the faculty, staff, and students at the 

School of Advanced Air and Space Studies (SAASS) for their 

investment of time and energy in pursuit of higher learning. 

Through seminar discussions, faculty lectures, and casual 

conversations, my colleagues and professors have deepened 

my understanding of and appreciation for the art and science 

of strategy and air and space power.

The opportunity to continue this research has been a tremendously rewarding experience. I would like to thank Amb. Roger G. 

Harrison, director of the Eisenhower Center for Space and Defense 

Studies, United States Air Force Academy, for inviting me to participate in the 2008 National Space Forum, where I had the opportunity to dialogue with the nation’s leading thinkers on space 

policy. The addresses, discussions, and interviews with which I 

was associated significantly shaped this paper. Specifically, I am 

indebted to the Hon. Peter Teets; Rep. Jane Harmon; Gen Tom 

Moorman, USAF, retired; Gen C. Robert Kehler, USAF; Lt Gen 

Michael Hamel, USAF; Dr. Joan Johnson-Freese; Mr. Michael Gold; 

Ms. Theresa Hitchens; Ms. Marion Blakely; Dr. Joanne Gabrynowicz; Mr. Michael Gass; Ms. Joanne Maguire; Mr. Joseph Rouge; 

Dr. Simon P. Worden; Dr. Larry Wortzel; and Col Dustin Tyson, 

USAF. Their specific contributions are noted in the text.

I could not have completed this project without the tireless 

support and guidance of my research advisor, Dr. John Sheldon, 

and the other outstanding scholars at the SAASS. Dr. Sheldon 

always took the time to answer a question, share a perspective, 

or review a section. His continued encouragement was extraordinary. Additionally, I would like to thank Dr. John Davis, 

Dr. Andrew Erickson, and Dr. Joan Johnson-Freese, my 

readers, for their wealth of knowledge and expertise. Their 

critical reviews and comments have significantly contributed 

to the balance and depth of the research that follows.

Most importantly, I am indebted to my beautiful wife, Danielle, 

and my two adorable children, Mikel and André, who routinely 

demonstrated tremendous patience and understanding during 

many nights and weekends throughout the course of this paper. I 

am truly humbled by their unconditional love and commitment.



Chapter 1

Introduction

In a manner itself paradoxical, it is those who are materially weaker, and therefore have good reason to fear a 

straightforward clash of strength against strength, who 

can most benefit by self-weakening paradoxical conduct—if it obtains the advantage of surprise, which 

may yet offer victory.

—Edward N. Luttwak

Nearly three years have passed since China’s successful 

antisatellite (ASAT) test ushered in a new era of space competition. If US civilian and military leaders are any closer to gleaning China’s overall strategic intent vis-à-vis the acquisition of 

space weaponry, it is not readily apparent. Somewhere in the 

Pentagon finance office sits an impressive stack of international 

travel vouchers, evidence of the numerous trips US Defense 

Department representatives have made to Beijing in search of 

answers. One bears the name of US defense secretary Robert 

M. Gates, who broached the antisatellite issue with China defense minister Cao Gangchuan during his first official visit to 

the People’s Republic of China (PRC). But Cao was unwilling to 

even entertain the subject. According to Gates, “With respect to 

the anti-satellite test, I raised our concerns about it, and there 

was no further discussion.”1 Ultimately, Gates fared no better 

at gaining answers than the military commanders who went 

before him. Since its first successful ASAT test on 11 January 

2007, China still offers no answers to one of the most troubling 

strategic space questions of the twenty-first century. Why is 

China building space weapons?

The United States, and the rest of the world, must accept 

that it may be a long time before the answer to this question 

becomes clear—if that ever happens at all. In the weeks and 

months following the test, most US leaders shared the sense 

that something must be done. In light of the debris strewn 

throughout low-earth orbit, scientists lamented the fact that 
INTRODUCTION

the United States chose not to issue a démarche in the days 

before the test. US diplomatic efforts toward China became 

increasingly cumbersome on 12 January, and policy makers 

began to explore opportunities to dissuade or deter a repeat 

performance. Members of the intelligence community, initially 

sanguine about their collection achievement, quickly realized 

that the advent of space warfare will create new and extraordinary collection requirements. Analysts, both internal and external, began to speculate about the intelligence resources necessary to meet those requirements. Military commanders were 

reeling. Without either the capabilities to protect US space assets from antisatellite attacks or any practical means to preempt an ASAT launch from deep within China’s sovereign territory, military options remained limited. Space leaders within 

the Department of Defense (DOD) immediately called out for 

new systems with the capabilities commanders need to protect the nation’s critical space inventory. Space industry leaders were equally stunned. Space, as a contested environment, 

completely changed the functional paradigm. 

In light of the potential implications of the ASAT test, what is 

the best solution set for the United States to pursue? The previous administration wanted to know as does, undoubtedly, its 

successor. Pres. George W. Bush reportedly issued a classified 

memo to various government agencies in the months following 

China’s ASAT demonstration. The memo directed the State and 

Defense Departments to form “a cohesive government-wide approach both to avoid future anti-satellite launches and formulate plans on how to deal with them if they occur.”2 The assignment is not an easy task, especially since China’s intentions 

are unclear. Nonetheless, the president’s choice of the word 

cohesive and his decision to include the State Department are 

most appropriate. In his manuscript on grand strategy, Edward Luttwak wrote of the importance of coherence in both the 

horizontal and vertical dimensions. He argues that military efforts, even if well integrated vertically, will likely fail or become 

counterproductive if horizontal disharmony exists across, for 

example, other instruments of national power. Luttwak notes 

that “there are cases of weapons successful at all military levels 

but counterproductive at the level of grand strategy because 

they fail in the horizontal dimension. German pre-1914 battle-
INTRODUCTION



ships were wonderfully advanced and did well in combat, but 

all they ever gained for Germany was Britain’s lethal hostilities 

. . . a wholly predictable result.”3

Contextual Basis and Attendant Assumptions

The challenge, therefore, is to assemble a US response that 

not only addresses the strategic issue posed by an ASAT-armed 

China but that also achieves both vertical and horizontal harmony. As any strategist quickly learns, before coherent courseof-action analysis can take place, one must identify the leading 

assumptions necessary to bound the problem. A forensic review of open-source Chinese literature—including the spoken 

and written words of China’s military scholars, strategists, political leaders, and international diplomats—offers keen perceptions regarding the issues upon which internal Chinese 

policy deliberations focus. Military researchers and academics 

generally develop People’s Liberation Army (PLA) military doctrine, not operators and planners, as is often the case in the US 

military. PLA publishers produce several hundred books every 

year.4 The findings from this research are provided to military 

educational institutes and to PLA war-fighting commanders.5

Some of these reports are circulated externally and are available for public consumption. Open-source literature is not a 

substitute for authoritative sources, and strategists must appreciate its inherent limitations; nonetheless, it provides a reasonable alternative when authoritative sources are unavailable. 

The forensics, taken as a whole, support the following contextual basis and attendant assumptions.6

China’s ascendance to regional superpower status is increasingly dependent on the preservation of its freedom of action 

throughout the global commons. China envisions a multipolar, 

global security environment in which it exerts significant influence over international policy decisions. Its desire for national 

prestige and international relevance intensely shapes internal 

decision-making processes. Space power is perceived to be a key 

enabler toward the attainment of China’s long-term vision.

China is making steady progress toward becoming a major 

space power. Its unprecedented economic growth has sustained 
INTRODUCTION

a military modernization program making rapid advancements 

in nearly all aspects of warfare, most notably space-based effects. China appears to have the political will, national resources, and technological elements necessary to transform its 

People’s Liberation Army into a modern fighting force capable 

of “informationized” (or information) warfare. Its national leaders have embraced a revolution in military affairs, with space 

capabilities at the core, and hope to further China’s international prestige by implementing a robust space doctrine. 

China’s emerging space doctrine is the driving force behind its 

efforts to develop antisatellite weapons. The PLA, as well as its 

closely associated research and development academies, perceive 

a significant advantage in developing the capabilities to conduct 

space warfare. ASATs represent a relatively simple, cost-effective 

option to counter what Chinese military leaders describe as an 

expanding US space hegemony—a perception that pervades Chinese strategy circles. Hegemonic powers in any domain constitute 

a real threat toward China’s long-term vision.

Strategically, China’s military planners and strategists believe ASATs are a critical element of a robust space deterrent 

that can further protect China’s nuclear and conventional deterrents against emerging threats like US ballistic missile defense programs. Doctrinally, China places a premium on deterrence strategies and will relentlessly pursue the requisite 

capabilities to protect it from coercion or blackmail. The antisatellite test communicated, unequivocally, that China has a 

direct-ascent antisatellite capability and is willing to use it—

fulfilling all the criteria for a credible deterrent strategy.

Operationally, PLA commanders are wholly focused on the 

near-term issues related to Taiwan. Chinese Communist Party 

(CCP) leaders and the Central Military Commission (CMC) have 

made the preservation of national integrity, and specifically 

Taiwanese reunification, one of the PLA’s highest priorities. The 

issue is paramount to China’s efforts to establish internal legitimacy and develop as a modern power. Space weaponry represents sovereign options for military leaders should they be 

called upon to exert Beijing’s influence over the “rogue” province. ASATs may be employed to deter or delay US intervention 

should cross-Strait hostilities intensify and represent an escalatory preemptive attack option against either Taiwan or the 
INTRODUCTION

United States if deemed absolutely necessary. The extent to 

which China will employ all options necessary to preclude Taiwanese independence should not be underestimated.

Ironically, China’s successful ASAT strategy appears to 

have fomented bureaucratic discord. The extent to which 

space weaponry will facilitate China’s burgeoning military 

modernization effort is still not clear to all the members of 

China’s most influential power base—the Standing Committee. The decision to test a direct-ascent ASAT was debated 

internally within the CMC years ago; however, strict compartmentalization and a culturally rooted obsession with secrecy 

precluded the assimilation of a wider range of perspectives. 

The Foreign Ministry, to include China’s delegation at the 

United Nations (UN) in Geneva and other international organizations, was not among those whose consensus was deemed 

essential. Consequently, it was not consulted. When the news 

of the low-earth orbit collision became public, it was quite 

possibly the most outraged.

Despite China’s abysmal interagency coordination process, 

Hu Jintao, as chairman of the CMC, most assuredly granted 

approval for the 11 January test, just as he had in each of the 

preceding years. Unfortunately, he underestimated the international condemnation that resulted for several reasons. First, 

the space debris issue was successfully marginalized by CMC 

advisors whose estimates were unopposed by experts most 

closely attuned to the international rhetoric on the subject. 

Likewise, the political fallout was not closely scrutinized by 

those diplomats most familiar with China’s efforts at the UN. 

Finally, the worldwide reaction was predicted to be minimal; 

earlier tests had provoked no reaction from US officials, whose 

silence on the issue was likely interpreted as indifference. It is 

perhaps worth noting that political-military misalignments are 

inescapable. These are iterative processes, and it is possible 

that China will “fix” some of these problems. Even if China’s 

interagency process remains largely ineffective, other internal 

corrective actions may be forthcoming. Nevertheless, in the 

context provided at the time, Hu’s decision to approve the 11

January test without extensive deliberations in the Politburo or 

Standing Committee appears both reasonable and rational.
INTRODUCTION

Assumption 1: China’s stated commitment to a negotiated space 

treaty is unreliable.

The assertion that China designed its ASAT test to cajole the 

United States to the negotiating table, while plausible, is not 

well supported. In 2005, while Chinese diplomats harangued 

their foreign counterparts in meetings at the UN, senior-level 

PLA officers convened a task force on military space issues. In 

concluding that the weaponization of space is inevitable, they 

argued, “China must prepare itself and should not tie its hands 

through overly restrictive international legal treaties.” In other 

words, while it is in China’s interest to work diplomatically to 

the extent it can, “it should not limit its options if the United 

States proceeds with missile defense and space weapons.”7

Assumption 2: China appreciates the strategic deterrent value of 

antisatellite weapons.

Whether by design or not, China realizes its ASAT test represents some measure of deterrent value. If China meant to send 

a message, it aimed it at US leaders supporting missile defense 

and Taiwanese intervention. China’s subsequent actions will 

indicate which model of strategic deterrence it has decided to 

follow. A small “credible deterrent” based on Chinese nuclear 

doctrine may only require a few ASAT weapons, in which case 

further testing may not be needed. However, if China pursues 

mass development and deployment of its newly tested ASAT 

capability, more tests will follow, suggesting that PLA strategists have embraced the “real war-fighting potential” of space 

weaponry in addition to its inherently deterrent attributes.

Assumption 3: China aspires for greater relevance within the 

international space community.

China believes it has attained a new level of status among 

the space-faring nations. The PRC is still looking for new ways 

to expand its cooperation and influence in international space 

politics.8 Although it is engaged in a number of ongoing cooperative ventures with the Europeans and Russians, Beijing is 

not satisfied with its role in the larger multilateral space dia-
INTRODUCTION

logue. Following on the heels of its successful manned-space 

program, China’s ASAT demonstration places it among the top 

three space-faring nations that have successfully knocked a 

satellite out of orbit. The implication is that China must now be 

recognized as a major contributor toward any future discussions on the space environment.

Assumption 4: China believes space weapons are an obvious 

prerequisite to becoming a major space power.

China appears to have the political will, national resources, 

and technological elements necessary to become a major space 

power. China’s emerging military space doctrine is informed by 

its time-honored precepts of asymmetric strategy, a pervasive 

sense of techno-nationalism, and a new revolution in military 

affairs aimed at propelling the PLA into the age of informationized warfare.9

Assumption 5: China does not harbor any expansionist intentions.

Beyond reunification with Taiwan and the resolution of other 

relatively minor territorial disputes along its borders and in the 

South China Sea, the PRC has no grand imperialistic design. 

However, China does seek greater influence in world events and 

anticipates the need to compete globally for energy resources in 

order to preserve national sovereignty.10

Methodology

Superior strategists understand the benefit of framing complex problems using multiple perspectives. Intractable security 

dilemmas require a multifaceted approach that musters the resources of all national instruments of power. Furthermore, newly 

emerging systemic-planning models assist strategists in choosing options that are well integrated both vertically and horizontally. Luttwak points out that “the entire realm of strategy is 

pervaded by a paradoxical logic very different from the ordinary 

‘linear’ logic by which we live in all other spheres of life.”11 The 

options considered in this systemic approach were chosen, in 
INTRODUCTION

part, for their paradoxical value. However, in choosing the alternatives explored in this paper, the author strove to stretch but 

not break the fiscal and political boundaries that will continue to 

shape America’s choices in space. It is common knowledge that 

many things are possible with unlimited resources; and just as 

it is unwise to expect a nation to act counter to its own interests, 

it is equally unwise to promote options that fail to align vertically 

within the political and economic spheres.

As Luttwak’s work has now been referenced several times (and 

as a primer for additional references forthcoming), it may be 

prudent to further explore his model of the vertical and horizontal dimensions of strategy, as outlined in his book Strategy: The 

Logic of War and Peace. Of particular relevance is the way he 

modifies his framework when discussing elements of grand 

strategy, as opposed to military strategy where he employs a 

different approach. Luttwak writes that a “grand strategy may 

be seen as a confluence of the . . . interactions that flow up and 

down level by level, forming strategy’s ‘vertical’ dimension, with 

the varied external relations among states forming strategy’s 

‘horizontal’ dimension.”12 The methodology applied in this work, 

therefore, draws upon Luttwak’s “grand strategy” model to first 

explore various response options along the vertical dimension 

of each instrument of power and thereafter craft a complement 

of options across the horizontal dimension to ensure that an 

enduring, harmonious solution set emerges. The answer to the 

question, how should the US respond, lies in an integrated 

strategy that requires the input of multiple agencies within the 

federal government. The familiar DIME—diplomatic, informational, military, and economic—model provides four broad vertical dimensions, and successful integration across these dimensions produces horizontal harmony (see fig. 1).

Sources such as congressional testimony; space fora transcripts; US, foreign, and UN government reports; and personal 

interviews represent the bulk of the primary source data used 

in this research. Secondary sources such as books, professional journals, periodicals, electronic media, and unpublished research projects are used to support and contextualize the arguments in each dimension. The author has carefully 

selected options based on the five aforementioned assumptions regarding China’s employment of space weaponry and 
INTRODUCTION

well-established norms that govern political and fiscal boundaries. The final chapter represents a set of options and offers 

an analysis of the timing and magnitude necessary to achieve 

vertical and horizontal harmony.

Thesis

The current paradigm, which dictates that national security 

space is largely a unilateral effort and for years has governed US 

policy and activities in this arena, is no longer valid. The only 

proper US response to China’s ASAT demonstration is one that 

properly aligns the US instruments of national power to produce 

an enduring, coherent, multilateral approach toward space 

power. Fundamental changes in the way the United States approaches national security space are long overdue. Poorly impleFigure 1. Adaptation of Edward Luttwak’s model of horizontal and vertical harmony. (Adapted from Edward N. Luttwak, Strategy: The Logic of War 

and Peace [Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 

2001].)
INTRODUCTION

10

mented policies and futile strategies have hitherto failed to ignite 

any sense of urgency or rationality in Washington. China’s test 

must serve to demark the end of failed American assumptions 

vis-à-vis its future competitive edge in space. As Gen Lance Lord, 

USAF, retired, often observed, “Space superiority is not America’s 

birthright, but it can be its destiny.”13 However, it is no longer 

clear whether America should pursue its destiny alone.

Diplomatically, the United States must extract the previously 

ignored kernels of soft power inherent in its dominant national 

security space enterprise. A new international security space 

alliance could enhance the security and influence of all likeminded space-faring nations. In good faith, American diplomats must pursue treaty options that preserve the space environment without dulling the asymmetric advantage their 

country currently wields. Finally, widely accepted confidencebuilding measures that effectively diminish the likelihood of 

escalatory space engagements have become imperative. 

Through information, as an instrument of national power, 

the United States must pursue a more nuanced understanding 

of the Chinese military space culture. Transparency cannot be 

achieved by sending an envoy to Beijing requesting access to 

China’s military budgets. True transparency must be achieved 

through routine, sustained engagement. Military-to-military 

engagement at the senior-officer level must serve as a model 

for continued engagement throughout the chain of command. 

At the same time, the United States must increase the prominence of its commitment to strategic and tactical space intelligence. At the strategic level, the intelligence community must 

provide a workforce with the requisite skill sets to interpret the 

newly contested environment. Tactically, commanders and collectors must optimize the flow of information and integrate processes and capabilities to ensure timely military response options are available.

Economically, Washington policy makers must fix the repressive policies that have unnecessarily stunted the growth and 

success of space industry stakeholders. Technology exportcontrol restrictions have marginalized the very satellite industry 

congressional leaders strove to protect. Ineffectual policy adjustments will not correct this paradox. The horizontal disharmony 

resulting from America’s export policies has spawned new global 

10
INTRODUCTION

11

markets with foreign entities that have, in turn, become increasingly competitive with US corporations. It is time to allow the US 

space industry to compete fairly with global competitors and reaffirm its title as the world’s leader in space.

Finally, America’s military forces must attend to the immediate crisis that is space situational unawareness. In concert 

with the aforementioned policy changes, the US military must 

take the lead in forming an international security space alliance. By implementing a shared space-surveillance strategy, 

military commanders can set standards for interoperability and 

shape the requirements process for all participating nations. 

Notes

(All notes appear in shortened form. For full details, see the appropriate entry 

in the bibliography.)

1. Gertz, “Chinese Still Silent on Space Weapons.” 

2. Butler, “Bush Memo Orders Space Situational Awareness.”

3. Luttwak, Strategy, 259.

4. Unfortunately, they are rarely translated by foreign governments. 

Shambaugh, “China’s Military Views the World,” 56.

5. Of these institutes, the PLA’s Academy of Military Science and National 

Defense University are the most reputable. See Pollpeter, “Chinese Vision of 

Space Military Operations,” 330. Dr. Larry Wortzel is a retired US Army colonel and is a leading authority on China, Asia, intelligence issues, foreign 

policy, national security, space policy, and military strategy. Wortzel says 

that 

in China, the materials that Dean [Cheng] and I primarily exploit or pay 

attention to come out of the Academy of Military Science, their National 

Defense University, the Nanjing Command College, the Navy, the Second Artillery and the Air Force Command Colleges, some of the logistics 

institutions and some of the engineering colleges. They are not transparent in terms of policy and intentions, but you really can get a fair 

picture of future doctrine if you can either get someone to translate it 

for you or you read Chinese at that level. 

See Wortzel and Cheng, “China’s Military Ambitions in Space.”

6. The context provided here is based upon research the author conducted 

in 2007 while a student at the Naval War College. The entire body of work 

explores five possible hypotheses: 

(1) China’s antisatellite test was designed to gain leverage against the 

United States to ratify a new international Space Treaty; (2) China is 

developing an antisatellite capability as a strategic space deterrent; (3) 

The motivation behind China’s ASAT test can be summarized in one 

word: Taiwan; (4) China’s ASAT test marks a milestone in its military 
INTRODUCTION

12

modernization efforts—it represents an incremental development in the 

broadly evolving space doctrine of a nation intent on becoming a major 

space power; and (5) China’s decision to test an ASAT weapon was an 

unfortunate miscalculation, the result of overzealous PLA leaders pursuing a program which was overly compartmentalized, poorly communicated, and ineffectively coordinated. The political-military balance of 

power in China is clearly misaligned.

See Mastalir, “China’s ASAT Test,” 113­–16.

7. Chang et al., Military Astronautics, 152, 168, 243. Quoted in Hagt, “Mutually Assured Vulnerabilities in Space,” 96. 

8. Saunders and Lutes, “China’s ASAT Test,” 2. 

9. The term techno-nationalism is the idea that “technology is fundamental to both national security and economic prosperity, that a nation’s development policy must have specific strategic underpinnings, and that technology must be indigenized at all costs and diffused system wide.” Feigenbaum, 

China’s Techno-Warriors. For a discussion on how techno-nationalism guides 

China’s comprehensive national development, see Johnson-Freese and Erickson, “Emerging China-EU Space Partnership,” 15. In September 2003, Jiang 

Zemin announced a new stage of PLA modernization that he characterized as 

a revolution in military affairs (RMA)–based military reform. He ushered in 

the new era of advanced technologies (including nanotechnologies, space 

technologies, and electromagnetic weapons). His goal: create a smaller, welleducated PLA army of high quality (such as the American forces). Major 

changes in military financing also took effect: the proportion of weapons purchases increased from 32.3 percent in 2000 to 33.8 percent in 2002, and 

passed 35 percent in the 2003–4 timeframe. The share of expenses for the Air 

Force, Navy, and Second Artillery increased—specifically, significant money 

was assigned for establishing space troops as a new kind of PLA forces. According to the article “Mastering New RMA Trends,” published in Jiefangjun 

Bao (official paper of the PLA) on 28 October 2003, the major directions of the 

current RMA in the PLA include that the Strategic Missile Corps should improve capabilities for mobile strikes and real-time strikes, while the Air Force 

should develop capabilities related to space troops, satellite striking systems, 

and unmanned aerial vehicles. Nemets, “PLA ‘Modernization Building,’ ” 3.

10. This assumption may be difficult for some military professionals to 

accept, nonetheless, it is well supported in US national policy. Consider the 

following excerpt from a 2008 report to Congress: “The United States welcomes the rise of a stable, peaceful, and prosperous China. No country has 

done more to assist, facilitate, and encourage China’s national development 

and its integration in the international system. The United States continues 

to encourage China to participate as a responsible international stakeholder 

by taking on a greater share of responsibility for the stability, resilience and 

growth of the global system.” DOD, Annual Report to Congress, 2007, I.

11. Luttwak, Strategy, 2.

12. Ibid., 209. Much of Luttwak’s book is dedicated to military strategy, 

wherein the horizontal dimension refers to the action and reaction of “adversaries who seek to oppose, deflect, and reverse each other’s moves” (xii). 
INTRODUCTION

13

When discussing grand strategy, Luttwak suggests that the horizontal dimension refers to the “varied external relations among states” that can draw 

upon multiple instruments of power (209). His use of the vertical dimension 

remains consistent at all levels of strategy. 

13. Gen Lance W. Lord (commander, Air Force Space Command, Peterson 

AFB, CO), in discussion with the author, 2005–6.

15

Chapter 2

Extreme Dimensions

We have a long way to go in the space race. We started 

late. But this is the new ocean, and I believe the United 

States must sail on it and be in a position second to 

none.

—Pres. John F. Kennedy, 1962

Response Option: America’s response is bounded by two extremes: defeat the Chinese in a good old-fashioned American space race . . . or simply do nothing.

The Chinese have developed an ASAT, but few can be certain 

as to why. Inability to answer the primary question makes the 

subsequent question considerably more challenging. How 

should the United States respond? One might turn to history 

as a means to illuminate the way ahead. Historian Williamson 

Murray argues that “history will always present the military 

professional with considerable difficulties. But the past can 

suggest how to think about new contexts and different challenges. It is almost never predictive. It can only suggest a range 

of possibilities and thinking about the future.”1

Indeed, the historical evidence indicates a range of possibilities that might govern America’s response. The 1957 Soviet 

launch of Sputnik I sparked an international competition that 

landed US astronauts Neil Armstrong and Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin 

on the moon a little over a decade later. The moon landing 

marked the pinnacle of the space race, and American investment in the space program thereafter declined accordingly—the 

National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) cancelled the last three Apollo missions due to lack of interest.2

Concerned US leaders turned their attention toward the stars 

again in September 1972, when the Soviets launched their first 

early-warning satellite, Cosmos 520, into a highly elliptical orbit unfamiliar to North American Aerospace Defense Command 

(NORAD) trackers. Panic ensued until the end of December 

1972 when NORAD finally obtained the spacecraft’s orbital ele-
EXTREME DIMENSIONS

16

ments on a regular basis.3 By 1983 the nuclear standoff with 

the USSR precipitated Star Wars, the famous US Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) that mobilized the aerospace industry to 

deploy a space-based system capable of destroying thousands 

of incoming Soviet ballistic missiles.4 Before the end of Pres. 

Ronald Reagan’s second term, the administration determined 

the plan was no longer feasible and scaled back the effort. In 

2000 the Space Commission, formally called the Commission to 

Assess United States National Security Space Management and 

Organization, began a comprehensive national security space 

review. The report’s findings promised significant changes, and 

the DOD subsequently enacted many of its recommendations; 

however, the 11 September 2001 terrorist attacks in New York 

and Washington, DC, diverted much of the public attention the 

issue richly deserved.5

Historically, therefore, America’s interest in the pressing issues derived from strategic space dilemmas has been somewhat transitory—even the most vigorous US responses have 

proven to be relatively short-lived. Antonio Pensa, a United 

States Strategic Command (USSTRATCOM) space expert of 

over 35 years, correctly observed that “this nation’s interest in 

space has been, at best, very episodic.”6 However, the question 

remains—which episode will emerge in the aftermath of the 

2007 Chinese ASAT test? The historical perspective bounds the 

problem at two extremes: embrace an all-out space race, or 

simply do nothing. While one might argue that fringe options 

rarely prevail, it is worth exploring the possibilities offered at 

the extremes, if for no other reason than to rule them out.

Space Race

Gen Michael Moseley, former US Air Force Chief of Staff 

(CSAF), called China’s test of an ASAT weapon a “strategically 

dislocating” event as significant as the Soviet launch of Sputnik 

in 1957.7 Others took the analogy much further. In fact, journalists, scholars, and bloggers virtually tripped over themselves 

in a rush to sound the alarm warning everyone of the forthcoming space race. With so many publications invoking memories (and fears) of the nuclear buildup between the United 
EXTREME DIMENSIONS

17

States and the Soviet Union, the alleged missile gap, and the 

Cuban missile crisis, one is left to wonder how long before 1/11 

is compared to 9/11. 

China’s demonstration was a boon for space weapons advocates who quickly seized the opportunity to promote their agendas. Hank Cooper, former director of President Reagan’s SDI 

and chairman of a missile-defense advocacy group, proclaimed, 

“I hope the Chinese test will be a wake up call to people. I’d like 

to see us begin a serious anti-satellite program. We’ve been 

leaning on this administration. This argument to prevent weaponization of space is really silly!”8 Several members of the 

House Armed Services Committee who share Cooper’s views 

immediately launched a push for more spending on classified 

space programs, stating that China’s recent antisatellite test 

ushered in a “new era of military competition.”9 US senator Jon 

Kyl took an even more direct approach, suggesting the United 

States develop offensive and defensive technologies to deal with 

ASAT weapons, including space-based systems that can disable or destroy enemy ASAT weapons, and space-based missile 

interceptors that could destroy a rocket carrying an ASAT payload before it leaves the atmosphere.10

In contrast to the outspoken rhetoric embraced by politicians 

and advocacy groups, the nation’s uniformed personnel remained somewhat measured in their assessment of the pending space race. During his 2007 congressional testimony, Gen 

James Cartwright, US Marine Corps (USMC), then USSTRATCOM commander, questioned whether the Chinese space-arms 

program should lead the United States to develop similar weapons. “We have the technical capability,” he said. “My belief right 

now is, knowing what we believe we know about this threat 

after the demonstrations, that it is premature to start thinking 

about an arms race in space. . . . We do not have to have a 

space response to that threat.”11 Gen Peter Pace, USMC, then 

chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told senators he did not 

believe China intended to use such an ASAT weapon anytime 

soon. “On the other hand, it is a unique capacity in the world. 

And we need to, in a very separate conversation, take a look at 

where are we with regard to that capacity, where should we be, 

and if there is a gap, how we close it,” Pace concluded.12
EXTREME DIMENSIONS

18

Closing a capabilities gap and mobilizing an all-out space 

race are two very different notions. Too many analysts have 

been enticed to conclude that China’s ASAT demonstration will 

likely energize a new bilateral space race between the United 

States and China. Admittedly, the Sputnik analogy is attractive. However, in his seminal work, Analogies at War, author 

Yuen Foong Khong urges those who employ analogical reasoning “to separate what is clearly ‘known’ about the relationship 

and what is ‘unclear’ or ‘presumed.’ ”13 Furthermore, analysts 

should carefully inspect the history of an issue before employing analogies that may or may not fit the historical context.14

Unfortunately, historical context fades with time. Many analysts seem to have forgotten that the space race between the 

United States and the USSR, with which they frequently identify, was squarely a product of the Cold War—national prestige 

versus national prestige.15 Virtually none of the strategic drivers that drove the frenzied acquisition of space technologies 

necessary to land Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin on the moon 

are present in today’s geopolitical climate. 

First, China and the United States are not bitter enemies. 

Although tensions between the two countries ebb and flow due 

to varying national interests, such as the security and sovereignty of Taiwan, the United States and China enjoy relatively 

strong economic ties that dictate the necessity for cooperation 

more so than competition. Consider the following excerpt from 

a 2008 DOD report to Congress: “The United States welcomes 

the rise of a stable, peaceful, and prosperous China. No country has done more to assist, facilitate, and encourage China’s 

national development and its integration in the international 

system. The United States continues to encourage China to 

participate as a responsible international stakeholder by taking on a greater share of responsibility for the stability, resilience, and growth of the global system.”16

Second, current fiscal realities preclude the type of rapid 

buildup demonstrated during the Cold War–era when resources 

were not a limiting factor. President Kennedy and Pres. Lyndon 

Johnson provided unlimited funding to NASA for virtually anything the agency deemed relevant to space exploration. As vice 

president, Johnson rationalized that “failure to master space 

means second best in every aspect, in the crucial arena of our 
EXTREME DIMENSIONS

19

Cold War world. In the eyes of the world, first in space means first, 

period; second in space is second in everything.”17 The fiscal constraints of today are far different. The US secretary of the Air 

Force serves as the DOD’s executive agent for space.18 Unfortunately, the Air Force budget is emaciated. General Moseley’s plan 

to recapitalize the USAF aircraft inventory by mortgaging nearly 

40,000 military personnel fell flat when the Bush administration 

proposed increases in Army and Marine Corps end strength.19

Furthermore, its space acquisition arm has shown only isolated 

signs of efficiency after a string of cost and schedule overruns 

brought the entire space industry under fire from multiple US 

congressional committees.20 A 2008 Government Accountability 

Office (GAO) report shows that five major space recapitalization 

programs initiated within the last 10 years continue to incur substantial cost growth and schedule delays.21 Finally, operations in 

Iraq and Afghanistan have placed the Defense Department’s coffers in an extremely compromised position at the same time as 

the new administration wants to trim overall defense spending. 

Likewise, China is hardly prepared to appropriate exorbitant 

amounts of money into space weaponry. Hui Zhang remarks 

that “China’s most urgent national objective is economic growth. 

It needs a stable international security environment to concentrate its resources on economic development. Chinese security 

analysts are mindful that the [US SDI] in the 1980s induced 

the Soviet Union to waste resources in response.”22 As one Chinese official stated, “China is not in a position to conduct [an] 

arms race with [the] US and it does not intend to do so.”23 More 

to the point, a Chinese analyst observed that “China does not 

have the ability to enter a space weapons race.”24

Chinese ambassador Hu Xiaodi may have best characterized 

the Chinese perspective when he remarked in 2001 that 

the country that takes the lead in deploying weapons in space will enjoy 

an advantage for a period, but it will not be able to monopolize space 

weapons. Other states, when they find it affordable economically, scientifically and technically, will follow suit at a different pace and scale. 

This may not generate a space arms race in its strict sense (because 

other states are not really competing with the leading power), but the 

space weapon arsenal will inevitably develop and increase both qualitatively and quantitatively. As soon as the weapons are deployed in outer 

space, the international community will have to change its efforts from 

preventive ones to the aim of space disarmament. Soon afterwards, as a 

few other countries (major powers) also have put their weapons in the 
EXTREME DIMENSIONS

20

arena of outer space, there will be an attempt towards space weapon 

non-proliferation—that is, let the haves continue their privileged position, while prohibiting other have-nots from accessing space weaponry. 

In other words, an old story will unfold in a new form.”25 (emphasis in 

original)

The clamoring of wide-eyed analysts over the dangers of an 

imminent space race falls mute against the realities of the USPRC geopolitical environment, economic interdependencies, 

and fiscal constraints. The Sputnik analogy simply does not 

hold up. If China and the United States each decide to pursue 

space weaponry, they will likely do so with caution and prudence. The imperative for stability continues to underwrite 

China’s military modernization efforts, while the United States 

wrestles with global commitments and a rapidly aging military 

infrastructure. 

Do Nothing

If “Space Race II” represents one extreme, the opposite end of 

the spectrum is the null set; that is, the United States could 

simply choose to do nothing. US leaders could view China’s 

ASAT test as nothing more than a technology demonstration, 

an appropriate milestone for a burgeoning space power that 

has developed satellites since 1970, achieved human spaceflight, and recently launched its first lunar orbiter.26 In 2006 

reports surfaced suggesting China had dazzled an American 

reconnaissance satellite as it passed over Chinese territory. 

Later, US military officials acknowledged that the Chinese had 

indeed attempted to blind or disrupt signals of a US satellite 

flying over Chinese territory.27 What was the US response? 

Nothing. The point: China’s experimentation with space weapons is nothing new.

The do nothing option is predicated on the belief that China’s 

activities do not constitute a threat to the United States—a notion that has been debated within US intelligence and policy 

circles. Some defense officials have argued in interagency meetings that the ASAT weapon test was “a one-time event that 

poses no strategic threat.”28 International affairs experts, such 

as Thomas Schelling, maintain that intent and capability are 
EXTREME DIMENSIONS

21

two essential elements that constitute a credible threat.29 With 

respect to China, ambiguity lies in both. 

China’s intent has been difficult to discern considering its 

wholly inadequate response to the international fervor its ASAT 

test created. Some continue to argue that China has the most 

to gain by avoiding a military conflict with the United States. 

The argument regarding China’s close trade relationship with 

the United States again becomes germane and warrants further examination. In 2007 estimates of China’s trade deficit 

with the United States reached nearly $300 billion, representing nearly half the overall American trade deficit.30 Many US 

and other multinational companies are investing about $1 billion per week to expand their China-based operations.31 While 

these numbers are intriguing, they merely represent the more 

fundamental argument of ideological compatibility, which is 

why US policy makers may largely overlook China’s ASAT test. 

In Triangulating Peace, authors Bruce Russett and John Oneal 

observe that “the rise of China does not recreate a danger like 

the Cold War conflict between NATO and the Warsaw Pact because China is no longer driven by an ideology that is incompatible with good, mutually beneficial relations with the West.”32

Whereas the Soviet Union abhorred capitalism, China has embraced it as a means to fuel unprecedented economic expansion, the bedrock of its modernization efforts in all sectors, including the military. Its trade relationship with the United 

States lies squarely at the heart of its economic success.

The extent of China’s true capability in space warfare is also 

somewhat ambiguous. In many respects, China’s test is an impressive demonstration of technological achievement. However, 

translating this knowledge into a viable operational capability 

will take considerable time and skill. It remains to be seen just 

how exactly China intends to do this, if at all. The reality is that 

a large-scale attack on America’s space assets would be rather 

difficult to achieve, at least without warning. In arguing that 

China could not possibly win a space war with the United 

States, former UN weapons inspector and strategic weapons 

analyst Geoffrey Forden takes a close look at how China’s presumed ASAT capability matches up against US space assets. 

Forden concludes that, given the worst-case scenario, China 

could reduce but not cripple US military capabilities. He reveals 
EXTREME DIMENSIONS

that “back in 2001, a commission led by Donald Rumsfeld 

warned of a ‘space Pearl Harbor,’ a single strike that could cripple America’s satellite network. It turns out, there is no such 

thing.”33 Forden may be right, at the moment; however, this 

only suggests that the US response should not forsake coherency for exigency.

Summary

Neither the United States nor China is seemingly able to afford a space race, and the ambiguities regarding China’s threat 

capacity that make the null set possible also make it impractical 

as a national security policy. Consequently, an examination of 

the extreme options suggests that neither represents an appropriate strategy for countering China’s employment of space 

weaponry. Until more information becomes available, perhaps 

the best course is to develop a comprehensive, integrated response that brings to bear all US instruments of national power. 

The Chinese made one irrefutable point abundantly clear—

America’s space assets are vulnerable to attack. Although military space leaders have made the same point on numerous occasions, the Chinese have managed to express it in a way that 

has finally caught the attention of US decision makers. Additionally, some military commanders have already recognized the 

need for a multifaceted approach. Brig Gen C. Donald Alston, 

former director of Air, Space, and Information Operations at 

Headquarters Air Force Space Command (AFSPC), observed that 

“other elements of national power should be used to reduce the 

danger of war in space, including diplomacy, economic measures 

and ‘engagement’ to produce a dialogue aimed to preventing 

space attacks.”34 It is time to explore such alternatives and seek 

harmony in the vertical and horizontal dimensions.

Notes

1. Murray, “Thoughts on Military History,” 92.

2. This investment decline actually began prior to the moon landing. McDougall, Heavens and the Earth, 10. See also “1969: Man Takes First Steps 

on the Moon”; and Johnson-Freese, Space as a Strategic Asset, 58.

3. Podvig, “History and the Current Status of the Russian Early Warning 

System,” 27. 

22
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23

4. Lennon, Contemporary Nuclear Debates, 5–6.

5. Commission to Assess United States National Security Space Management and Organization, Report of the Commission, 9–12; hereafter cited as 

the Space Commission Report. 

6. Pensa, “Overview of Space Issues.” 

7. Harrington, “Chinese ASAT Test Prompts US Rethink.” 

8. O’Brien, “Fanning Fears of a Space War.” 

9. Scully, “House Republicans Call for Greater Military Effort.” House 

Armed Services ranking member Cong. Duncan Hunter, R-CA, and House 

Armed Services Strategic Forces Subcommittee ranking member Cong. Terry 

Everett, R-AL, wrote a letter to President Bush contending that space systems are “integral to the daily execution of virtually every military campaign, 

operations and exercise involving U.S. forces today.” They called on the administration to review Defense Department programs that protect US space 

assets, and they encouraged the development of new systems (ibid.).

10. Singer, “Senator Criticizes Bush for Tepid Response.”

11. Gertz, “China Has Gained and Tested Array of Space Weapons.” Cartwright testified before the Senate Armed Services Committee Strategic Forces 

Subcommittee in March 2007. Defense Authorization Request for Fiscal Year 

2008 and the Future Years Defense Program: Statement of General James E. 

Cartwright.

12. “US Defense Chief Troubled by Chinese Anti-Satellite Test.” 

13. Khong, Analogies at War, 255.

14. Ibid.

15. Frost, “Introduction to Space”; and McDougall, Heavens and the Earth, 

6–9.

16. DOD, Annual Report to Congress, 2007, I.

17. Hirsch and Trento, National Aeronautics and Space Administration, 

107. Quoted in McDougall, Heavens and the Earth, 8.

18. The summary to DOD Directive 5101.2, DoD Executive Agent for Space, 

states that 

pursuant to the authority vested in the Secretary of Defense under 10 

U.S.C. 113, and consistent with the policies in DoD Directive 3100.10, 

this Directive: Establishes policy and assigns responsibilities and authorities for the planning, programming, and acquisition of space systems within the Department of Defense . . . ; Designates the Secretary 

of the Air Force as the DoD Executive Agent for Space in accordance 

with DoD Directive 5101.1; Implements and supersedes paragraph 3.2 

of Secretary of Defense Memorandum, “National Security Space Management and Organization,” 18 October 2001, consistent with DoD Instruction 4000.19, and supersedes DoD Directive 5160.32.

19. Sherman and Roque, “Bush to Announce Bigger Army.” According to 

defense officials, President Bush wants to “increase the permanent size of US 

ground forces by as many as 90,000 uniformed personnel, the first such significant boost in end-strength since the fall of the Soviet Union.

20. Tirpak, “Beyond ‘Back to the Basics.’ ” 
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24

21. These programs include the (1) Advanced Extremely High Frequency 

(AEHF) communications satellite program, (2) National Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System (NPOESS), which DOD is jointly developing with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, (3) SpaceBased Infrared System (SBIRS), which detects missile launches, (4) Wideband 

Global Satellite Communications (WGS), another communications satellite, 

and (5) Global Positioning System (GPS) IIF program. Senate, Space Acquisitions. 

22. Podvig and Zhang, Russian and Chinese Responses, 44–45.

23. Fu, “Concerns and Responses,” quoted in Podvig and Zhang, Russian 

and Chinese Responses, 36.

24. Bao, “Deterrence Revisited: Space,” 10.

25. Hu, “A Treaty to Prohibit Weapons and War in Space?” quoted in Podvig 

and Zhang, Russian and Chinese Responses, 40–41; and Hu, “Missiles: How 

Can We Reduce the Dangers They Pose?” quoted in Podvig and Zhang, Russian and Chinese Responses, 45.

26. “Concern over China’s Suspected Weapon Test.”

27. Fabey, “China Sat Disrupting Efforts,” 3. National Reconnaissance Office director Donald Kerr acknowledged that something had happened but 

that “it did not materially damage the U.S. satellite’s ability to collect information.” Shalal-Esa, “China Jamming Test.” 

28. Gertz, “US Satellites Dodge Chinese Missile Debris.” 

29. Schelling, Arms and Influence, 92–93.

30. Weisman, “US-China Trade Talks.” 

31. Scott and Coumatos, “Why China Won’t Start a Space War.”

32. Russett and Oneal, Triangulating Peace, 293.

33. Forden, “How China Loses the Coming Space War.” 

34. Gertz, “Beijing Space Test Scattered Debris.” General Alston has since 

moved on to become the director of Space and Nuclear Operations, Office of 

the Deputy Chief of Staff for Air, Space, and Information Operations/Plans 

and Requirements, Headquarters US Air Force, Washington, DC.

24
25

Chapter 3

Political/Diplomatic Dimension

The art of policy is to create a calculation of the risks 

and rewards that affect the adversary’s calculation.

—Henry Kissinger

Response Option: America’s response must be one of diplomacy. A fresh policy perspective, new space treaties, international confidence-building measures, and escalatory restraints are the keys to protecting America’s space assets.

US diplomatic relations with China have long been bipolar, 

alternating between containment and engagement.

1 The 2006 

Quadrennial Defense Review recognizes China’s “potential to 

compete militarily with the United States” and at the same time 

identifies China as a “partner in addressing common security 

challenges.”2 Likewise, the 2008 Defense Department assessment of the PRC’s military power warns that “much uncertainty 

surrounds China’s future course, in particular in the area of its 

expanding military power and how that power might be used,” 

but “welcomes the rise of a stable, peaceful, and prosperous 

China.”3 Sir Lawrence Freedman maintains that throughout the 

Cold War, policy experts relied on containment strategies to 

counter the assumption that communism was naturally expansionist and so could only be held through the threat of force. He 

advocated that “containment as an objective lent itself to deterrence as a method.”4 However, it was the policy of engagement, 

which peaked in the 1990s, that has propelled economic globalization and has made China one of the United States’ top trading 

partners. The result has been a hedging strategy that continues 

to expose a variety of inconsistencies and vertical disharmony 

with how America conducts foreign policy.

Space as an Element of Soft Power

One aspect of America’s foreign policy that is arguably undervalued is what Joseph Nye calls soft power. According to Nye, 
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“Soft power is the ability to get what you want through attraction 

rather than coercion or payments. It arises from the attractiveness of a country’s culture, political ideals, and policies.”5 The 

concept of soft power is readily apparent in the way China has 

managed its rise to power. For example, one of China’s most influential leaders of modern time, Deng Xiaoping, instilled in his 

foreign-policy apparatus the “24-character strategy”: “observe 

calmly; secure our position; cope with affairs calmly; hide our 

capacities and bide our time; be good at maintaining a low profile; and never claim leadership.”6 However, Chinese officials deliberately exclude Deng’s maxim from publicly circulated leadership speeches and documents to avoid stimulating additional 

concerns abroad that China will pose a threat once it becomes 

powerful. The same appreciation for soft power was evident in 

China’s decision to reject the term peaceful rise in favor of the 

less threatening term peaceful development in April 2004.7 China 

has also been careful to mitigate the external counterbalancing 

forces that invariably arise within the international security environment when a single nation amasses power. Ashley Tellis 

has identified a number of techniques employed by China to 

continually balance external forces: theories of peaceful ascendancy, the use of economic leverage, the promotion of goodneighbor policies, the possible provision of public goods over 

time, and, finally, exploiting regional dissatisfaction with the 

United States.8 A 2005 Pew Global Attitudes Project survey suggests China’s efforts to produce a favorable image have paid off. 

The report notes, “Strikingly, China now has a better image than 

the US in most of the European nations surveyed.”9 Of course, 

US diplomacy is still capable of achieving results—soft power 

alone does not dictate the necessities of the security environment. Furthermore, China’s ASAT demonstration may have 

opened some doors for American diplomats.

The United States derives its soft power from many sources, 

yet disharmony in the vertical dimension of foreign policy seems 

all too often to generate counterproductive results. Furthermore, 

there is an element of space to soft power that often gets overlooked by policy makers. Simon Worden, director of the NASA 

Ames Research Center explains, “I recall when I worked for the 

national space council at the White House. They ignored us most 

of the time but whenever the President was going to talk with 
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somebody, it could be Botswana, and they didn’t have anything 

to talk about they could always talk about space. It became a 

real positive entrée.” Worden argues that the most intensive and 

impressive application of space, as an element of soft power, is 

not supporting the war fighter, but rather, preventing wars. He 

concludes that “until we figure out how to do that and how to 

work with other people we’re going to have an increasing problem. Others are only going to take advantage of it.”10

It has become common in space-policy circles to criticize US 

space policy for negating the element of soft power by projecting 

a defiant, zero-sum view concerning other nations’ access to 

space capabilities. Indeed, some of the criticism is justified, and 

US policy writers could have avoided such criticism in the same 

way Chinese policy writers substituted the word rise with development.

11 Albeit to a far lesser extent than its 1996 predecessor, 

the 2006 U.S. National Space Policy allows for and encourages 

the cooperation and engagement necessary to embrace a multilateral approach toward space exploitation. For example, a major principle of the policy states that “the United States will seek 

to cooperate with other nations in the peaceful use of outer 

space,” and one of its fundamental goals is to “encourage international cooperation with foreign nations and/or consortia on 

space activities.”12 Based on this broad guidance, new diplomatic 

initiatives are possible—initiatives that can strengthen America’s ability to influence the strategic environment of space.

International Security Space Alliance

In the future, America must increasingly rely on alliance and 

coalition efforts to shape its security environment. The global 

war on terror serves as a daily reminder of the importance of 

strong alliances with other nations. The 2006 Quadrennial Defense Review noted that to realize its goals, the Department of 

Defense must “join in a collaborative partnership with key stakeholders in the process of implementation and execution—the 

Congress, other agencies of the Executive Branch and alliance 

and coalition partners.”13 (emphasis added) The United States 

has long sought cooperative ventures in civil space. The International Space Station is one prime example, although many other 
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cooperative ventures, including an unprecedented 19-nation 

unmanned mission to Mars, took place throughout the 1990s.14

With few exceptions, when it comes to national security space, 

America has been less willing to join an international team. Gen 

Thomas S. Moorman Jr., USAF, retired, claims that the problem 

lies not with US Space Policy, which he believes has been extremely consistent, but with its implementation, which he characterizes as “terrible.” According to the general, “The missing 

link is a national space strategy . . . [and as part of that strategy] 

international cooperation is going to become more important than 

less important.”15 (emphasis added) China’s military modernization efforts in space, punctuated by its 2007 ASAT demonstration, provide an opportunity for the United States to shape an 

international alliance of like-minded, space-faring nations.

American officials were shocked and dismayed by China’s 

reckless demonstration of brute-force space weaponry. Air Force 

secretary Michael Wynne called the shootdown an “egregious 

act” and concluded that China now claims space as a “legitimate 

battlefield.”16 However, the United States is not the only country 

concerned about the future of space security. Leaders from many 

countries, including Britain, Australia, Canada, Japan, Taiwan, 

India, South Korea, and the European Union, joined the United 

States in its protest and called upon Beijing for consultations.17

These leaders perceive China’s ASAT capability as a direct threat 

to their own space assets, many of which revolve in orbits similar to China’s target satellite, the Feng Yun-1C.

18

Given the universally negative reaction to China’s actions, an 

opportunity exists to form an international security space alliance. The benefits of such an alliance are numerous. The 

United States could offer enticements, such as unprecedented 

access to its extensive space network, fewer restrictions on 

technology exports, and increased access to other space products. In return, the United States could negotiate standards for 

collectively acquired and shared space systems. Such systems 

could eventually include missile warning/defense, communication, navigation, remote sensing, and space surveillance. 

As an instrument of policy, US leaders must carefully consider the advantages and disadvantages of increasing partnership capacity in each national security space–mission area. For 

example, a shared-source, multilateral space surveillance net-
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work (SSN) distributed among alliance partners could achieve 

several objectives. Real-time data about the location of all space 

objects would decrease tensions about the purpose and activities of each nation’s spacecraft. Future technologies will enable a 

robust SSN to characterize attacks from within the space domain, as well as terrestrial-based attacks. The real-time capability to detect and geolocate directed-energy attacks from the 

ground, for example, would be a powerful deterrent against any 

who may consider such hostile acts. Of course, the apparent 

disadvantages include sharing the location of sensitive national 

payloads (useful for targeting), the risk of weapons technology 

proliferation, and the inherent risks of employing an open architecture. These issues will be revisited in due course.

One risk inherent in any US response is what Robert Jervis 

calls the security dilemma. Essentially, the security dilemma is 

a series of reactions whereby each adversary takes measures to 

counteract the other. In other words, if China builds ASATs, 

the United States must build counter-ASATs, and so forth. In 

offering suggestions to break out from a security dilemma, Jervis suggests that “one way to do this is to procure the kinds 

and numbers of weapons that are useful for deterrence without 

simultaneously being as effective for aggression.”19 Since space 

surveillance alone does not pose the same threat as missile 

defense or offensive space control, it could serve as the nonaggressive form of deterrence that Jervis describes. 

Of course, the development of the technology and space systems necessary to produce a robust surveillance capacity, such 

as the one described above, will be extremely costly. Thus, another benefit of the space alliance is reduced cost through shared 

expense and the elimination of duplicative systems. There is 

growing evidence that other nations may be receptive to this 

concept. For example, Canada plans to launch Sapphire in 

2011––a space surveillance satellite designed to integrate with 

the existing US space surveillance network of ground-based optical and radar sensors. From a sun-synchronous low-earth orbit, the satellite will survey objects, catalogue space debris, 

and monitor other nations’ satellites.20 Sapphire’s contribution 

to the SSN promises to significantly increase the network’s 

capacity for space-based space surveillance (SBSS).
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Other cooperative ventures in military space also lend credence to the idea of an international security space alliance. At 

the 2007 Strategic Space and Defense Conference in Omaha, 

Nebraska, French and Indian military leaders advocated joint 

sponsorship of imaging and signals-intelligence satellites for 

the purposes of space control. According to Lt Gen Patrick de 

Rousiers, commanding officer of the French Air Defence and 

Air Operations Command, “These efforts are not meant to create an alternative to a US-centric space control program, but to 

allow European nations to work on their own satellites to integrate information sent to ground forces.”21

Why and How Will This Work?

The only legitimate answer to the first question is increased 

security, and NATO serves as an appropriate analogy.22 In 2008 

NATO celebrated its 60th anniversary, demonstrating an enduring capacity more impressive than the Outer Space Treaty. Encouraging nations to participate during the Cold War was relatively simple; the Soviets represented a common threat that 

unified the members of the alliance. Likewise, the modern-day 

proliferation of space weaponry, missile technology, and even nuclear weapons represents an increasing threat to all space systems. After the Cold War, many international security analysts 

believed NATO’s future was uncertain, but NATO transformed to 

accept a broader scope of international engagement. Its continued involvement in Kosovo and Afghanistan demonstrates its enduring capacity to increase security for its member nations.

The continued relevance of the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) is another example of the enduring nature 

of organizations that effectively enhance security. The ITU 

traces its roots back to the nineteenth century, when international telegraph standards first became necessary.23 Today, the 

ITU is an office within the United Nations that governs orbital 

slot assignments in the geostationary belt and performs frequency deconfliction. The ITU has no formal mechanism to enforce its standards, but space-faring nations comply to protect 

against interference from other satellites. Attorney and author 

Lawrence Roberts notes that the
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legitimacy of a legal structure has a powerful impact on efficiency. Like 

most international legal regimes, the ITU does not have the authority to 

enforce its rulings directly; it is dependent upon its own legitimacy to 

influence the behavior of its Members. As a consequence, the ITU’s effectiveness is bound up in the Member’s perception of the process’s efficacy. As perceptions of legitimacy decline, the tendency increases for 

individual Members to act in their own short-term best interest, rather 

than in accordance with a legal system that, under ideal conditions, 

maximizes community benefit over the long-term.24

The issue of legitimacy shapes the answer to the second 

question, which becomes more palatable when one accepts 

that an international space alliance is neither a dovish nor 

hawkish approach to national security space. The debates regarding the US development of defensive and offensive space 

weapons must continue; after all, most NATO nations continue 

to build military capacity in excess of those forces each intends 

to contribute toward collective operations. Rather, the alliance 

would bring legitimacy and influence to the international dialogue that continues to shape responsible nations’ activities in 

space. The very act of drafting an alliance charter and determining its conditions for entry provides member nations a platform to promulgate international norms for behavior. Would an 

international space alliance include a NATO-like Article 5 provision that states an attack on one member is an attack on 

all?25 Perhaps it should, if the members believe such a provision would enhance security. But more important than a unified response to a space attack is the deterrent value in the 

assurance that every member of the alliance will know immediately when an attack in space has occurred, and by whom, and 

against whom. This subject deserves more scrutiny and receives it in chapter 6.

A truly cooperative approach to national security space will 

require policy endorsement from the highest level. The current 

US administration is looking for unique solutions to its security concerns in space, and the State and Defense Departments 

are exploring what data sharing could take place with friendly 

nations that also have space surveillance sensors.26 Although 

the current national space policy encourages cooperation, too 

many other policies prohibit the kind of information sharing 

that would be necessary to make an international space alliance a reality. Current technology export laws and security 
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classification guidelines remain significant hurdles. However, 

since the United States has the most to lose, it therefore must 

have the most to offer others in exchange for cooperation.27 The 

increased security derived from shared space surveillance data 

may be the catalyst for an international space alliance. 

Treaties

American satellites are the soft underbelly of our national security and it is urgent . . . to guarantee their protection by initiating an international agreement to ban the 

development, testing, and deployment of space weapons and anti-satellite systems.

—Ed Markey, US representative, 2007

Tensions between the United States and China appeared 

high when US ambassador Christina Rocca criticized the Chinese delegation at the UN Conference on Disarmament meeting 

only one month after China’s ASAT demonstration. If members 

present were hopeful that meaningful work toward a new space 

treaty might finally begin, disappointment soon displaced their 

optimism. In her summary, Ambassador Rocca stressed that 

we should focus our efforts on ensuring free access to space for peaceful 

purposes and deterring and dissuading the misuse of space, seeking universal adherence to the existing treaties and conventions to which not all 

members are signed up to. This is precisely what the United States national space policy states. We believe this approach will have more of a 

deterrent and dissuasion effect than an additional set of international 

constraints—constraints that would be unverifiable, protect no one, and 

constrain only those who comply and not those who cheat.28

Rocca concluded, as the United States has at nearly every previous session, by stating plainly that “there is no arms race in 

space, and therefore no problem for arms control to solve.”29

Fundamental Challenges 

The US position, as represented at the UN, identifies several 

fundamental challenges with using international legal instruments to control the development or employment of space weapons. The most difficult issue is verifiability. Treaties that lack the 

32
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necessary tools of verification must rely on trust. Of course, a 

lack of trust is what generally drives one to negotiate a legal instrument in the first place. President Reagan’s maxim “trust but 

verify” holds as true for space weapons as it does for thermonuclear weapons. The Chinese side has believed, fairly accurately, that the United States will never sign such a treaty simply 

for lack of trust, fearing others will secretly pursue space-weapons capabilities while America’s hands are tied.30 This risk of 

breakout from the agreement by covertly developing or deploying 

prohibited or constrained capabilities to gain a military advantage makes prominent the requirement for verifiability.31

Problems also arise because space assets have an inherently 

dual purpose. For example, communication satellites can 

broadcast television services and at the same time transmit 

execution orders for a nuclear attack. Imaging satellites serve a 

critical role in disaster relief while providing strategic intelligence 

to military planners. The signals sent from position, navigation, 

and timing satellites guide tractors, trucks, and airplanes and 

enable financial transactions, as well as precision-strike munitions. The dual-use phenomenon is an equally challenging issue 

with which negotiators must contend when considering space 

arms control.

The issue becomes increasingly complex when one considers 

the use of defensive weapons, such as missile defense. The challenge lies in the faulty notion of a purely defensive weapon. 

Nearly every weapon known to man—perhaps with the exception 

of land mines and stationary flak cannons—can be employed in 

an offensive manner.32 The critical test of whether a weapon is 

truly defensive, however, is whether the potential adversary 

views it as such.33 Nations vehemently opposed to US missile 

defense, including Russia and China, believe the capability 

threatens their nuclear deterrent. Factoring in the concept of 

dual-use application, these same nations also contend that US 

missile defense is a poorly masked space weapon. With minor 

software modifications any weapon capable of shooting down a 

ballistic missile can also shoot down a satellite. Moreover, the 

satellite is an easier target since missile-defense radar systems 

can more easily track a satellite’s position and velocity. The US 

Navy proved the point in February 2008 when the USS Lake 

Erie, a sea-based component of missile defense, shot down a 
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disabled US reconnaissance satellite after space experts determined the spacecraft’s imminent reentry and toxic fuel supply 

posed a threat to inhabitants on Earth.34 The challenges of treaty 

verification and the phenomenon of dual-use assets both cause 

serious problems for space treaty negotiations.

Presumably, the administration’s space experts had carefully 

considered these problems as they finished the final draft of the 

2006 National Space Policy. Robert Joseph, undersecretary for 

arms control and international security at the US State Department, delivered the first public comments about the policy, saying the United States sees “no value” in proposals to adopt a 

treaty prohibiting the weaponization of space and will continue 

to reserve the right to exercise “a full range of options from diplomatic to military” to defend its space assets.35 However, the 

Chinese ASAT test has changed the thinking of some Washington policy makers, if for no other reason than the fact that thousands of pieces of new debris now endanger the assets of spacefaring nations everywhere. At least one congressman believes 

the Chinese satellite shootdown “should cause us to reconsider 

whether or not there should be some arms control regimen to 

restrict these kinds of tests” and the deployment of weapons in 

space altogether.36 Most other nations agree. A recent UN resolution calling for the prevention of an arms race in outer space 

resulted in a 178-1-1 vote, with the United States voting in the 

negative and Israel abstaining.37

Possible Options

What kind of treaty makes sense for the United States to pursue? The options are few, considering the administration’s commitment to missile defense, which is itself a product of failed 

arms control measures to stop the proliferation of ballistic missiles.38 James Clay Moltz notes that “current treaties . . . allow 

unlimited testing of conventional weapons and lasers in space, 

the stationing of such systems in space, and the use of space for 

the interception of ballistic missiles or satellites by a variety of 

ground-, sea-, air-, and space-based systems.”39 These conditions allow the United States to pursue its missile defense programs free from international legal entanglements. Still, US 

space experts and politicians have become greatly concerned 

34
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about space debris; therefore, a small target of opportunity exists for those interested in some degree of space arms control.

Unfortunately, the 2002 Chinese and Russian–proposed UN 

resolution, banning the deployment of weapons in outer space, 

completely misses this target. The document provides for the 

following basic obligations: “[1] Not to place in orbit around the 

Earth any objects carrying any kinds of weapons, not to install 

such weapons on celestial bodies, or not to station such weapons in outer space in any other manner; [2] Not to resort to the 

threat or use of force against outer space objects; [and (3)] Not 

to assist or encourage other States, groups of States, or international organizations to participate in activities prohibited by 

this Treaty.”40 Broad ranging restrictions, as represented by 

the first point, typically fail when negotiators address issues 

such as space-based missile defense. The second point is too 

vague to be useful. What constitutes the “use of force”? One 

might argue that kinetic-kill attacks would fall into this category, but reversible tactics, such as laser dazzling and radiofrequency jamming, are not clearly prohibited by the language 

proposed. Still, the second point warrants further scrutiny and 

will be addressed shortly. 

Essentially, the international community can agree that it 

wants to preserve the space environment to ensure members’ 

freedom to access space. In other words, agreements that prohibit the physical destruction of satellites—debris-creating engagements like China’s demonstration in 2007—and are designed to preserve international access to space warrant careful 

consideration. When asked to comment on the destruction of 

China’s Feng Yun weather satellite, Heiner Klinkrad, head of 

the European Space Agency’s (ESA) space debris office in 

Darmstadt, Germany, said that “destroying a satellite at this 

altitude, in sun-synchronous orbit, presents a debris problem 

about as serious as you can get” and speculated that some 

debris could remain on orbit for hundreds of years.41 The Chinese demonstration raised the issue of space debris to a grandstrategic level, leading a US State Department spokesman to 

note, “We don’t believe anyone should be doing these kinds of 

activities.”42 Again, preventing the deployment of such weapons would be pointless, given the dual-use phenomenon of 

space-based missile defense systems. However, banning the 
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physical destruction of any nation’s satellites, through either 

testing or hostile acts, might represent a reasonable starting 

point for negotiators in Geneva. 

Assuming the United States is unwilling to compromise on 

its commitment to missile defense, most space weapons treaty 

proposals fall well short on feasibility. However, Moltz, a national security affairs professor at the Naval Postgraduate 

School, has put forth a construct that warrants thoughtful 

consideration. His five-point proposal is as follows: 

• No use, testing, or deployment of weapons or interceptors of any sort 

in regions of space above 500 miles;

• Permitted testing of ground-based, sea-based, and air-based interceptors in low-Earth orbit (60–500 miles) against ballistic missiles 

passing through space (although with frequency limitations per year/

per state and possible restrictions on altitude and debris generation, 

which do not exist today);

• No stationing of weapons of any sort in low-Earth orbit, including 

kinetic-kill vehicles, lasers, or any other weapons for use against 

space-, ground-, sea-, or air-based targets (to prevent destabilizing 

aspects of short warning times in space and to alleviate public fears 

of use of weapons from space against cities);

• No testing or use of lasers from ground-, sea-, or air-based platforms 

against any space-based, orbital objects; and

• No testing or use of other ground-, sea-, or air-based weapons against 

satellites or other space-based objects (chiefly a confidence-building 

and debris-reduction measure, because direct-ascent missile defenses would have some residual ASAT capabilities).43

Moltz effectively preserves the essential elements of missile defense while banning specific ASAT effects. However, any generic 

ban on weapons first requires one to define exactly what is meant 

by weapon, which is exceedingly difficult. A micro- or nanosatellite, placed on orbit to provide a modest communications capability, becomes a weapon when its final thruster burn sends it 

on a collision course with a larger spacecraft. Virtually anything in 

orbit could perform the function of a space weapon. Allegedly, the 

Soviet Union applied this same logic to stall US efforts to finalize 

an ASAT treaty in the late 1970s, when it insisted on classifying 

the US space shuttle as a potential ASAT weapon.44

There is another fundamental reason why Moltz’s proposal, 

like the Chinese proposal discussed earlier, to ban the use of 

space weapons is futile. The concept sounds good in theory but 
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is completely impractical in every other sense. Why stop at 

ASATs? This line of logic, if pursued, supports a ban on any 

platform of war. Consequently, nations ought to ban attacks on 

aircraft, ships, and tanks. Of course, why stop there when a 

ban on warfare would solve many more problems—a line of 

reasoning which borders on hysteria. Indeed, many held this 

view in the years succeeding the First World War. British historian E. H. Carr once remarked that “the utopian assumption 

that there is a world interest in peace which is identifiable with 

the interest of each individual nation helped politicians and 

political writers everywhere to evade the unpalatable fact of a 

fundamental divergence of interest between nations desirous of 

maintaining the status quo and nations desirous of changing 

it.”45 (emphasis added) This problem underscores a larger, more 

general predicament regarding the concept of space arms control. It is no more plausible to attempt to guarantee security in 

space than it is to attempt to guarantee security anywhere on 

earth. John Sheldon, a space policy expert at Air University’s 

School of Advanced Air and Space Studies, summarizes the 

point succinctly, “If a country relies on satellites for the effective use and projection of military force terrestrially, on what 

basis is it realistically possible that the very satellites that enhance and support military force can be exempt from the actions of an enemy?”46

Confidence-Building Measures

While some members of Congress urgently called for new legal 

treaties in the aftermath of the Chinese ASAT debacle, others 

noted the need for “common norms and acceptable rules of behavior in space,” also known as confidence-building measures.

47

Confidence-building measures that delineate rules of the road or 

responsible space-faring behavior are not typically binding—an 

attribute that distinguishes them from legal instruments such as 

treaties. Nonetheless, they offer a useful construct through which 

representatives can share and debate ideas. In some cases, diplomats can later incorporate these tools into useful legal instruments. Confidence-building legal measures include the Registration Convention of 1976, the Liability Convention of 1972, and the 
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Rescue Agreement of 1968.48 Joanne Gabrynowicz, director of the 

National Center for Remote Sensing and a law professor at the 

University of Mississippi, argues that the form and legal status of 

international agreements are not the most salient points. She observes that “one of the things we’ve seen since the end of World 

War II is a proliferation of different kinds of agreements—resolutions, memorandums of understanding, charters, codes of conduct, all in addition to treaties—and the significance of that is not 

whether or when they become legally binding but rather that this 

is political will manifesting. . . . If we only focus on the form in 

which this political will is manifesting . . . we are losing sight of 

what we need to be seeing.”49 The logic behind confidence-building 

measures is to establish universally recognized international 

norms about the rights and responsibilities of space-faring nations, a discussion some believe the United States has failed to 

engage with China.50 A few areas are worthy of consideration.

Debris Mitigation

The continued progress of the Inter-Agency Space Debris Coordination Committee (IADC) is critical to the establishment of an 

international norm regarding the employment of debris mitigation practices. The agency is comprised of representatives from 

the civilian space agencies of 11 member nations, including the 

China National Space Administration and NASA. In 2004 the 

IADC published a set of guidelines designed to encourage spacefaring nations to implement debris-mitigating practices into the 

design and operation of spacecraft. The next step is to codify such 

guidelines by strengthening the Convention for International Liability for Damage Caused by Space Objects. In this way, individual nations would be accountable for any damage caused by 

their debris, which may serve to discourage future testing of the 

destructive nature demonstrated in 2007. Of course, the United 

States and Russia would likely seek grandfather clauses, as the 

majority of catalogued space debris is a result of their collective 

space activities between 1966 and 1996.51
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Escalation Control

Rules of engagement (ROE) have always been a critical component of escalation control. Gen Douglas MacArthur was told 

to stay away from the Yalu.52 Gen John McConnell was told he 

could not bomb Hanoi.53 Political leaders and military commanders use ROEs to ensure hostilities do not provoke an undesirable response. During the height of the Cold War, both 

Russia and the United States understood that any attempts to 

blind the opponent’s early-warning systems would immediately 

constitute an act of war, more specifically, a nuclear attack, 

since the blinded party would have no means to verify that an 

attack was not underway. Consequently, the prohibition of interference with national technical means was captured in a 

variety of treaties and agreements, such as the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, the 1987 Intermediate Nuclear Forces 

Treaty, and the 1991 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty.

Today, the ROEs that govern space hostilities are nonexistent. 

No agreements, formal or informal, regarding the interference or 

denial of space capabilities have been negotiated. Moreover, the 

United States has not clearly articulated a policy describing exactly how it would react to an attack on a US spacecraft. Some 

US officials have indicated that such an attack would constitute 

an act of war.54 During congressional hearings, Maj Gen James 

Armor, USAF, retired, then director of the National Security 

Space Office, offered a more measured approach borrowed directly from national space policy: “The United States views purposeful interference with its space systems as an infringement 

on its rights and will take actions necessary to preserve its rights, 

capabilities, and freedom of action in space including denying, if 

necessary, adversaries the use of space capabilities hostile to US 

national interests.”55 The phrase “will take actions necessary” is 

too ambiguous to constitute a declaratory policy.

The point became more evident in March of 2007, just weeks 

after China’s ASAT test, when General Cartwright mused, “How 

many satellites would [the United States] be willing to lose before 

we went to a nuclear alternative?”56 Cartwright’s query raises 

another point. If the Second Artillery Corps becomes operationally responsible for China’s ASAT capability, is it possible a missile strike against a Chinese ground-based ASAT system will in-
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40

advertently threaten China’s nuclear command and control 

element?57 Again, the issue of escalation control is unclear.

A historical review does little to add clarity. In 2003 a satellite 

jammer transmitting from Cuba effectively blocked US government Voice of America broadcasts into Iran. The United States 

launched an investigation while a US State Department spokesman commented, “We are looking into the source of interference 

of these broadcasts and we’ll be taking up with the Cubans the 

question of whether or not this interference is coming from 

Cuba.”58 Since Voice of America is not a valuable military asset, 

the modest response offered by the United States was probably 

appropriate. However, when China dazzled a US imaging satellite in 2006, National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) director Donald Kerr downplayed the incident, acknowledging that something 

had happened but that “it did not materially damage the US 

satellite’s ability to collect information.”59 How did China know 

the United States would react so indifferently?

Space ROEs could take many forms. Experts at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Lincoln Labs have proposed 

one possible model (see table).60

Table. Notional space rules of engagement defining hostile intent/hostile 

acts

    Threat     Hostile Intent     Hostile Act

Collision between onorbit assetsPreparation to deliberately maneuver toward asset with a high probability of collisionDeliberate collision with hardkill effects

Co-orbital microsat Deliberate penetration of the 

stand-off distance/exclusion zone; 

nondestructive interference with 

operations

Deliberate penetration of 

engagement zone; destructive 

interference with operations

Reentry over US

territory or forces

Preparation to deliberately

deorbit

Deliberate deorbit with hard-kill 

effects

Direct ascent ASAT Preparation to launch by fueling 

the missile on the launch pad

Launch

Ground-based laser Placing a target designator on the 

satellite

Initiating a firing sequence

Reprinted from Aaron J. Seltzer, “An Introduction to Orbital Dynamics: How Physics Affects the Use 

of Space” (lecture, Naval War College, Newport, RI, 7 March 2007).

Nevertheless, difficulties quickly arise when one applies traditional, terrestrial-based logic to the space environment. Proximity and maneuver take on a completely new meaning in space. 

For example, a 65-kilometer exclusion zone appears reasonable; 
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41

however, currently 40 percent of the spacecraft in geosynchronous orbit has at least one encounter of 65 kilometers or less 

every year. Furthermore, satellites in low-earth orbit separated 

by several hundred kilometers can still rendezvous in less than 

45 minutes.61 Reaching international consensus may not be 

easy; nonetheless, the discussion would be valuable.

Escalation control is a confidence-building measure whose 

time has come. The commander of Air Force Space Command, 

Gen C. Robert Kehler, argues that “during the Cold War we, 

through a number of our actions, made it very clear what our 

policies meant to us. That helped our potential adversaries determine what [our] redlines really were. I think we have a lot of 

work to do [in this area].”62 Internationally debated and agreedupon space rules of engagement for defining hostile intent and 

hostile acts would resolve the ambiguity that currently clouds 

the issue. More importantly, they could serve as a deterrent to 

nations such as China, which might otherwise be tempted to 

experiment on US satellites. 

Summary

The vertical disharmony in US foreign policy toward China 

has been one source of the distrust that continues to handicap 

relations across the Pacific Ocean. The U.S. National Space 

Policy has failed to grasp the soft-power attributes of space, 

resulting in a poorly implemented unilateral approach toward 

national security space strategy. New policies that embrace the 

advantages of an international security space alliance can successfully address the challenges of space as a contested environment. A new paradigm has emerged.

Treaties will continue to be problematic for the United States 

vis-à-vis the international space community. As a hegemonic 

space power, the United States cannot afford to negotiate treaties that will adversely impact its own national security posture, nor does any nation realistically expect it to do so. However, important dialogues about the conduct and norms of 

space-faring nations must continue, and diplomats are right to 

codify these manifestations of political will for the benefit of the 

international space community. All nations want to preserve 
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42

the use of space for future generations, and the United States 

must find a way to lead such an effort. Furthermore, every nation must understand the implications of space interference 

and the redlines that govern such behavior. Failure to establish 

escalation-limiting mechanisms serves as a precursor to unintended and unnecessary military conflict.

Notes

1. Feffer, “China: What’s the Big Mystery?” 

2. DOD, Report of the 2006 Quadrennial Defense Review, 29.

3. DOD, Annual Report to Congress, 2007, I.

4. Freedman, Deterrence, 11. 

5. Nye, Soft Power, x. Joseph S. Nye Jr., former dean of the Kennedy 

School of Government at Harvard University, was chairman of the National 

Intelligence Council and an assistant secretary of defense in the Clinton administration.

6. DOD, Annual Report to Congress, 2007, 7.

7. Glaser, “Ensuring the ‘Go Ahead’ Policy.” 

8. Tellis, “Sustaining China’s Rise: Obstacles and Risks.” 

9. Pew Global Attitudes Project, American Character Gets Mixed Reviews, 2.

10. Worden, address.

11. Johnson-Freese, Space as a Strategic Asset, 234–35. For example, Dr. 

Freese points out one objectionable line: “In this new century, those who effectively utilize space will enjoy added prosperity and security and will hold a 

substantial advantage over those who do not” (ibid.). This statement is too 

easily misconstrued to mean military advantage, in which case one might 

conclude that the United States plans to deter other nations from gaining access to space.

12. Executive Office of the President, U.S. National Space Policy.

13. DOD, Report of the 2006 Quadrennial Defense Review, ix.

14. von Bencke, Politics of Space, 101–4.

15. Moorman, address.

16. Lowe, “AF Sec Calls China Sat Kill an ‘Egregious Act.’ ” 

17. Hitchens, “US-Sino Relations in Space,” 21. 

18. Since November 2003, Japan has launched four civil-military surveillance satellites (two electro-optical and two radar); Taiwan’s single FormoSat-2

(electro-optical with a two-meter resolution) has been flying since May 2005; 

South Korea’s Koreasat-5, launched on 22 August 2006, provides imagery to 

civil and military users; India now maintains three high-resolution imaging 

(electro-optical satellites) and is developing a radar satellite. Its latest onemeter resolution Cartosat-2 was launched on 10 January, one day before 

China’s ASAT test. Fisher, “Space to Manoeuvre.”

19. Jervis, Perception and Misperception, 111.

20. de Selding, “Canada to Help US Monitor Space.” 

21. Wirbel, “Space-Control Philosophy.” 
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43

22. The ideas in this paragraph can be attributed to Amb. Claudio Bisogniero. See Bisogniero, address.

23. Roberts, “Lost Connection.” 

24. Ibid.

25. “North Atlantic Treaty.” 

26. Butler, “Bush Memo Orders Space Situational Awareness.” 

27. Freece, “Bees, Not Bears,” 12.

28. UN Office at Geneva, “Conference on Disarmament.” 

29. Ibid.

30. Quoted in Hagt, “China’s ASAT Test.”

31. Crawley, “US Encourages Responsible Behavior.”

32. Flak cannons were employed by the Nazis in the Second World War as 

an air defense system.

33. Glossop, Confronting War, 236.

34. Mulrine, “Behind the Scenes.”

35. Harrington, “US Reserves Right.”

36. “Shelton: Space Warfare Is Certain.” 

37. Krepon, “Will the Bush Administration Endorse?” 

38. The United States based its decision to withdraw from the Anti-Ballistic 

Missile (ABM) treaty on the realization that there is currently no means of stopping a ballistic missile traveling through space. Moltz, “Breaking the Deadlock.”

39. Ibid. Hui Zhang observes that “the 1967 Outer Space Treaty, now involving 120 states, bans nuclear weapons or any other weapons of mass destruction in space or on the moon and other celestial bodies, but does not ban 

weapons in general. The 1963 Limited Test-Ban Treaty and the 1996 Comprehensive Test-Ban Treaty prohibited nuclear test explosions in space. The 1979 

Strategic Arms Limitations Talks (SALT II) banned the development, testing, 

and deployment of systems for placing nuclear weapons or any other weapons 

of mass destruction, including fractional orbital missiles, into Earth orbit. The 

1972 ABM treaty prohibited the development, testing, or deployment of spacebased missile defense systems or components. Until the United States’ withdrawal, the ABM treaty had been one of the most important agreements on the 

prevention of space weaponization. It remains apparent that, with or without 

the ABM treaty, existing treaties are not sufficient to restrict the weaponization 

of outer space.” Podvig and Zhang, Russian and Chinese Responses, 69.

40. Delegations of China, The Russian Federation, Vietnam, Indonesia, 

Belarus, Zimbabwe, and Syrian Arab Republic, “Possible Elements for a Future International Legal Agreement,” 3.

41. de Selding, “Debris from FY-1C.”

42. de Selding, “China Says It Remains Opposed.” The apparent hypocrisy 

of such statements was not lost on the Chinese in the aftermath of the February 2008 shootdown of a crippled National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) satellite. See “Who’s the Hypocrite?”

43. Moltz, “Breaking the Deadlock.”

44. Karas, Implication of Space Technology, 17.

45. Carr, Twenty Years’ Crisis, 53.
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44

46. Sheldon, “There’s No Such Thing as Space Security.”

47. Comment attributed to Rep. Ellen O. Tauscher (D-CA), chairman, 

House Armed Services Strategic Forces Subcommittee. Gertz, “US Halts 

China Space Ventures.”

48. Article 4 of the Registration Convention provides that the launching 

state should furnish to the

United Nations, as soon as practicable, the following information concerning each space object . . . : (a) name of launching State or States; 

(b) an appropriate designator of the space object or its registration number; (c) date and territory or location of launch; (d) basic orbital parameters, including: (i) nodal period [the time between two successive northbound crossings of the equator—usually in minutes], (ii) inclination 

[inclination of the orbit—polar orbit is 90 degrees and equatorial orbit is 

0 degrees], (iii) apogee [highest altitude above the Earth’s surface—in 

kilometers], [and] (iv) perigee [lowest altitude above the Earth’s surface—

in kilometers]; [and] (e) general function of the space object.

UN General Assembly, Resolution 3235, “Convention on the Registration of 

Objects.”

Elaborating on Article 7 of the Outer Space Treaty, Article 2 of the Liability 

Convention provides that “a launching State shall be absolutely liable to pay 

compensation for damage caused by its space object on the surface of the 

earth or to aircraft flight” and liable for damage due to its faults in space. The 

convention also provides for procedures for the settlement of claims for 

damages. UN General Assembly Resolution 2777, “Convention on International Liability.” 

The Rescue Agreement, elaborating on elements of Articles 5 and 8 of the 

Outer Space Treaty, provides that “States shall take all possible steps to rescue and assist astronauts in distress and promptly return them to the 

launching State, and that States shall, upon request, provide assistance to 

launching States in recovering space objects that return to Earth outside the 

territory of the Launching State.” UN General Assembly Resolution 2345, 

“Agreement on the Rescue of Astronauts.”

49. Gabrynowicz, address.

50. Larry Wortzel suggests, for example, that US and Chinese officials 

have never discussed important issues such as the interference of a sovereign nation’s spacecraft. Numerous discussions with the Russians over national technical means resulted in an agreement prohibiting such interference. Wortzel, address.

51. National Science and Technology Council, Interagency Report on Orbital Debris, 10. 

52. Cohen and Gooch, Military Misfortunes, 170–71.

53. Gelb and Betts, Irony of Vietnam, 136–37.

54. Saunders and Lutes, “China’s ASAT Test.”

55. “Pentagon Reaffirms US Right.”

56. To provide context, General Cartwright was supporting his case to build 

an array of conventional missiles with a global range capable of striking urgent 

targets, such as an ASAT missile on a launchpad, within 60 minutes of an 
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45

order to attack. Currently, the only weapons available to reach targets deep 

inside the territorial boundaries of a country the size of China are nuclear intercontinental ballistic missiles. Gertz, “China Has Gained and Tested.”

57. The Second Artillery was likely involved with (or at least observed) the 

execution of the test, although the extent of its involvement is unknown. Experts who study China’s nuclear forces generally concur that if the system 

transitions from the research and development community into the operational community, the Second Artillery has a very good chance of assuming 

responsibilities for its operational employment. Dr. Michael Chase (professor, 

Strategy and Policy Department, Naval War College), interview by the author, 

Naval War College, Newport, RI, 30 March 2007. Chase has published numerous articles on Chinese nuclear strategy and the Second Artillery. Also, 

see references to other Chinese political and military experts who believe the 

Second Artillery participated in the test in Sanger and Kahn, “U.S. Officials 

Try to Interpret”; and Saunders and Lutes, “China’s ASAT Test.” 

58. “US Broadcasts ‘Jammed by Cuba.’ ” 

59. Shalal-Esa, “China Jamming Test.”

60. Seltzer, “Introduction to Orbital Dynamics.” 

61. Ibid. 

62. Kehler, address.

47

Chapter 4

Information Dimension

The United States maintains a large investment in satellites and this investment has grown dramatically in 

recent years. . . . At the same time, our investment in 

intelligence collection concerning threats to our interests in space has declined markedly in relation to our 

overall investment in space systems.

—Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, Report 110-75

—110th Cong., 1st sess., 2007

Response Option: America must rely on information superiority to counter China’s burgeoning military space capabilities. Externally, America must foster an international 

pressure demanding greater transparency vis-à-vis China’s 

military modernization efforts. Internally, reforms to space 

intelligence will ensure the United States can meet future 

requirements in a rapidly expanding domain of warfare. 

In modern times, information power is generally considered 

the most compelling instrument of national power. Theoretical 

ideas regarding the speed and maneuver of information have 

preconditioned the US military to embrace a transformation to 

network-centric warfare. Likewise, the PLA has undergone its 

own revolution in military affairs based on the precepts of informationized warfare. Still, neither the United States nor China is 

seemingly able to discern the intentions of the other, and their 

respective need for information appears insatiable. Western diplomats characterize this phenomenon as transparency, while 

military commanders refer to it as intelligence. Both are critical 

elements of information as an instrument of national power, and 

both offer options for a US response to Chinese space weapons.

Transparency

Nearly every American scholar, analyst, or strategist who comments on the state of affairs in China is obliged to broach the 
INFORMATION DIMENSION

48

issue of transparency. At the most fundamental level, transparency is information sharing. It is the level of insight available to 

outsiders about internal processes, and it is immensely important in Western ideals. Consequently, US citizens demand a high 

level of transparency within their government. For example, congressional activities are a matter of public record; the Freedom 

of Information Act carries a presumption of disclosure; one critical element of the US Constitution’s First Amendment is the 

guarantee of press freedom, which protects the processes for 

obtaining information for public distribution. 

From the Western perspective, transparency generally deters 

corruption. The US Securities and Exchange Commission standards of transparency for publicly traded companies derive 

from a simple and straightforward concept, that “all investors, 

whether large institutions or private individuals, should have 

access to certain basic facts about an investment prior to buying it, and so long as they hold it.”1 Generally, Americans believe such transparency is required—a less than subtle nod to 

Machiavelli’s assertion that man is “readier for evil than for 

good.”2 The Enron scandal of 2001 makes the point aptly. 

The Chinese Perspective

The extent to which other nations around the world, notably 

China, embrace the tenets of transparency varies widely. Historically, the Chinese Communist Party led a military struggle 

that began with seizing control of a national regime and that 

has since progressed to consolidating the national regime, safeguarding the national security, and preserving and consolidating sovereignty.3 A timeless attribute of Chinese strategy, and 

one embraced obsessively by the CCP, is secrecy. Although 

China’s military modernization is in full stride, the PLA has not 

yet abandoned its asymmetrical approach of gaining the initiative by striking first. Mark Stokes, the former country director 

for the PRC and Taiwan within the Office of the Secretary of 

Defense, International Security Affairs, asserts that from a 

Chinese perspective, asymmetrical strategies are “an effective 

means to offset technological and logistical advantages which a 

more advanced military power brings to the fight.”4 Such an 

approach depends on a high degree of disinformation, decep-
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49

tion, and secrecy. Chinese scholars Zhu Mingzhuan and Bo 

Yan add that secrecy “is essential to the security of weaker 

states, who [sic] must rely on ambiguity to create sufficient 

doubt in the minds of stronger rivals who would take unfair 

tactical advantage of information that detailed the specific nature and extent of their acknowledged relative weaknesses.”5

Secrecy (the antithesis of transparency) has enabled the authoritarian regime to retain control, both internally and externally, since its rise to power in 1949. 

Chinese leaders have come to accept that greater transparency is required to integrate successfully with the international 

establishment. Trade globalization, the underpinning of China’s economic success and consequent modernization, requires 

a significant degree of transparency to reassure foreign investors. Furthermore, Chinese political leaders have made accommodations in the conduct of their international security policy. 

One analyst notes that “they joined the International Atomic 

Energy Association in 1984, acceded to the Non-Proliferation 

Treaty in 1992, and joined the Zangger Committee in 1997. All 

of these commitments required the surrender of highly protected information to international authorities.”6 PLA commanders also claim a desire to be more transparent. Lt Gen 

Zhang Qinsheng, deputy chief of the PLA General Staff, cites 

the release of five white papers on national defense as an example. Zhang claims that “the Chinese army is taking pro-active 

and pragmatic measures to improve transparency of national 

defense.”7 US analysts, however, are looking for a different level 

of transparency—one that provides substantial details of crucial 

defense issues that might prove helpful in understanding the 

processes of the Chinese defense sector, more so than the political rhetoric that typifies a white paper.8

The ASAT test has placed an increased sense of urgency on 

the part of US leaders to seek and achieve a level of transparency with China that can mollify heightened US threat perceptions. Defense analysts William Martel and Toshi Yoshihara 

suggest that such a task is exceptionally difficult in that both 

Washington and Beijing “cloak their space programs in extraordinary levels of secrecy.” They add that “each side probably 

believes that maintaining great uncertainty in the minds of potential adversaries enhances their security. China shields its 
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50

space program from scrutiny to hide its relatively inferior position; the United States does so to maintain its technological 

lead. This culture of secrecy creates an impediment to enhancing mutual understanding about the other’s intentions.”9 Although US officials routinely imply China should embrace the 

same level of transparency demonstrated by the United States, 

it is unlikely US leaders would then be satisfied. Peter Hays, a 

space analyst at the US National Security Space Office, suggests the United States must better articulate its own intentions vis-à-vis space. Like many critics of the 2006 US National 

Space Policy, he argues the policy lacks transparency and 

blames the administration for doing a “[poor] job of preparing 

the field to roll [the] report out.”10 One might conclude that an 

“all around” lack of transparency, or at least trust, has progressively exacerbated the issue.

Increasing Transparency

What can be done to improve transparency between China 

and the United States? Amb. Roger Harrison argues that the 

first step is for US diplomats to choose a different word. In 

Mandarin, the English word transparency translates with an 

indication of espionage. Harrison contends that “precision of 

language is critically important” when communicating Western 

ideals to Chinese representatives.11 As a result, he has led an 

effort at the Eisenhower Center for Space and Defense Studies 

to develop a space strategic lexicon designed to improve clarity 

of communication with Chinese officials.

Martel and Yoshihara suggest that transparency requires additional key steps, including military-to-military contacts and 

broader exchanges of information.12 Indeed, military-to-military 

represents one area where further efforts may yield progress. At 

the general-officer level, US commanders have made a host of 

visits to Beijing since 11 January 2007.13 Although the United 

States has been unable to discern the details of China’s intentions regarding the deployment of ASAT weapons, the meetings 

have led to discussions about other ways to increase transparency, such as establishing a military hotline between the United 

States and China in cases of emergency.14 In his testimony to 

Congress, Richard Lawless, deputy under secretary of defense 
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51

for Asian and Pacific security affairs, said, “We believe these exchanges and mechanisms have the potential to improve mutual 

understanding, reduce miscalculation, and contribute, over 

time, to ‘demystifying’ one another.”15

However, it is unlikely the United States will achieve a significant level of insight by flying into Beijing and simply asking 

for transparency. That dialogue is important, but the Chinese 

culture places an emphasis on “developing human relationships, building mutual trust, and establishing a stable interpersonal foundation for long-term cooperation.”16 With this formula, transparency develops over time, through continued 

interaction. The imperative for the United States is to remain 

engaged in multiple levels of dialogue. To isolate China every 

time ripples in the security environment shake US confidence 

is counterproductive. For example, the US decision to suspend 

plans to develop space ventures with China, including joint exploration of the moon, in reaction to Beijing’s 11 January ASAT 

test effectively negates any potential for strengthening relationships that could eventually lead to greater transparency.17

Likewise, speculation that the United States should have boycotted the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing in objection to China’s harsh crackdown against Tibetan separatists represents 

the “carrot and stick” approach to diplomacy that has done 

little to increase transparency in previous decades.18

Given the measured success of high-level talks, the United States 

should explore the benefits of increased military-to-military contact throughout lower levels of the armed forces. A 2000 Air Force–

directed program designed to improve bilateral military-to-military 

relations and build partnership capacity has grown with promising 

potential. The program fosters exchanges with foreign militaries at 

the staff, operator, and general-officer levels. However, China is not 

yet among the list of nations with which the Air Staff plans to visit, 

an oversight the Pentagon must correct if it hopes to gain greater 

insight into PLA processes.19 In addition, the United States should 

formalize a military student-exchange program with the PLA. Other 

foreign military officers that attend US war colleges usually return 

to their native countries to resume immensely successful careers. 

The relationships they forge in the United States as midranking 

officers are ones they carry forward. Often, such officers ascend 

in rank to the very pinnacle of their respective services. Strong ties 
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52

between Chinese and US flag officers that date back 10–15 years 

would prove to be extraordinarily beneficial in cooling heightened 

threat perceptions and misunderstandings. Furthermore, modest 

joint military exercises offer an opportunity for additional collaboration across various ranks of Chinese and US armed forces. Initial exercises could focus on relatively benign military tasks such 

as search and rescue, humanitarian missions, or disaster relief. 

China’s ability to contribute substantially in such areas benefits 

the United States in multiple ways and could be the objective of 

joint training that continues to strengthen mutual understanding 

and insight. 

Space Intelligence

What one fails to discern through transparency, one must 

ascertain through intelligence. The initial reaction of many analysts seems to be that China’s 2007 ASAT test took America by 

surprise. Two days after the story broke, the Washington Post

was quick to print that “the day the test was conducted, the 

chiefs of major US intelligence agencies presented their annual 

threat assessments to Congress. Neither China’s anti-satellite 

program nor its general push toward space weapons was mentioned during the public hearing or anywhere in the written 

testimonies of the director of national intelligence, the director 

of the Pentagon’s intelligence agency or the CIA [Central Intelligence Agency] director.”20 Ironically, both the CIA and the NRO 

admit space-based reconnaissance is not the most effective 

way to monitor Chinese space weapons development given China’s adept use of camouflage.21 The NRO’s director, Donald 

Kerr, said there is a lack of “good intelligence” on what other 

nations are doing in space. US analysis capability of space 

threats has “diminished substantially” following cutbacks after 

the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991.22

The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence wasted little 

time in drafting legislation to reform, yet again, the intelligence 

community. This time, the amendment would create a new national space intelligence office within the Office of the Director 

of National Intelligence (DNI). According to the proposal, the new 

office would provide policy direction, prioritize space-related col-
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53

lection, and evaluate assessments of threats.23 The Senate proposal was predictable. One of the main provisions of the last 

intelligence reform act was the establishment of a National 

Counterterrorism Center, responsible for commensurate 

tasks.24 However, it is not clear to everyone that 11 January 

2007 represented an intelligence failure. Furthermore, despite 

whatever deficiencies might exist within the space intelligence 

discipline, the DNI did not agree that an organizational face-lift 

was the correct solution.25

Arguably, the Intelligence Reform Act of 2004 has improved 

information sharing throughout the intelligence community. 

Still, if the intelligence community indeed failed to anticipate 

China’s efforts to develop and test a space weapon, Thomas 

Mahnken offers possible reasons in his book Uncovering Ways 

of War. Mahnken examines why intelligence organizations often 

fail to detect the development of innovative technology and derives three conclusions: (1) intelligence agencies are more inclined to monitor the development of established weapons than 

to search for new military systems, (2) intelligence agencies pay 

more attention to technology and doctrine that have been demonstrated in war than to those that have not seen combat, and 

(3) it is easier to identify innovation in areas that one’s own 

services are exploring than those they have not examined, are 

not interested in, or have rejected.26 Moreover, weapon systems 

produced on a small scale or developed to meet a unique operational requirement, such as ASAT weaponry, pose a particular challenge to intelligence services.27

In actuality, of all the US intelligence problems exposed by 

China’s edgy demonstration, a failure to predict the test was not 

one. By 2007 the intelligence community was fully aware of 

China’s efforts to develop and test an ASAT missile. Earlier attempts, all failures, had cued intelligence assets, many of which 

deployed to various locations to collect as much information as 

possible. Imagery had revealed the exact location of the mobile 

missile launcher used in the test weeks before the 11 January 

launch.28 Furthermore, the United States had deduced the 

most likely target and the exact launch window. For years, the 

AFSPC space surveillance network reported the FY-1C orbital 

elements with a frequency of once or twice daily, but those reports jumped to about four times per day just before the test.29
INFORMATION DIMENSION

In the hour just prior to the intercept, the SSN measured the 

target’s element set six times.30 Despite the preponderance of 

early reports suggesting China’s ASAT test took America by 

surprise, the evidence indicates that the intelligence community not only anticipated the event but was well postured to 

collect valuable intelligence throughout the day.

Intelligence Deficiencies and Options

This begs the question, what is the real deficiency in national 

security space intelligence? Perhaps a better way to approach 

the issue is to consider what changes could better prepare the 

US intelligence apparatus to meet the emerging requirements of 

space operations. There are several options. The first reflects the 

shrinking capacity of the intelligence community since the 

1990s. While recent intelligence reforms have reversed some of 

these trends, space intelligence requirements are emerging at an 

increasing rate. The Senate report that accompanied its proposed legislation noted, “The United States maintains a large 

investment in satellites and this investment has grown dramatically in recent years. At the same time, our investment in intelligence collection concerning threats to our interests in space 

has declined markedly in relation to our overall investment in 

space systems.”31 Senior military commanders agree. At a 2007 

space conference, Maj Gen William Shelton expressed dissatisfaction regarding the number of space intelligence analysts available to aid military decision makers in understanding what capabilities potential adversaries possess and what they intend to 

do with them.32 China is particularly problematic. Space analysts at the National Air and Space Intelligence Center (NASIC) 

admit they know virtually nothing about China’s military space 

doctrine, although they are certain one exists.33

One option is to increase efforts to exploit open-source intelligence methods. The US Navy recently formed a dedicated opensource center for the study of Chinese maritime power. The 

China Maritime Studies Institute (CMSI) employs approximately 

10 Mandarin linguists who conduct research, publish articles, 

host conferences, provide congressional testimony, and conduct 

scholarly exchanges at prestigious Chinese institutions such as 

54
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55

Qinghua University and Beijing University.34 The CMSI has 

formed a complementary relationship with the Office of Naval 

Intelligence, the Navy’s traditional intelligence organization. 

No similar organization exists to support the NASIC or its parent organization, the Air Intelligence Agency (AIA). The task of 

penetrating Chinese intentions in space may be the type of problem best solved by integrating open- and traditional-source intelligence. One NASIC analyst suggests there may be some value in 

comparing open-source publications regarding Chinese space 

doctrine to what China is actually doing in space (in terms of the 

type of space assets—hardware and software—China is acquiring). The merger of such analyses could offer fruitful insight as to 

what China hopes to accomplish in the military space domain.35

The argument that the intelligence community needs greater 

resources is somewhat trite. Appropriation levels for intelligence 

will never be adequate in the eyes of commanders depending on 

answers to tough strategic questions. Intelligence is an imperfect science—as a result, more analysis is usually better. The 

more difficult question is one of roles, responsibilities, and prioritization. As the nation focuses the preponderance of its resources on fighting global terrorism, episodic events such as 

China’s ASAT test are reminders that other actors continue to 

shape the strategic security environment. The director of national intelligence, since its creation, is largely responsible for 

working with the secretary of defense in balancing priorities 

across the full spectrum of intelligence efforts.36 The need for a 

greater emphasis on space activities is an easy argument to 

make. In 2008 only 1 percent of NASIC’s discretionary budget 

was dedicated to space.37 China’s test should raise questions 

within the Air Force as to how it might best prioritize resources. 

To suggest, however, that the DNI should reprioritize assets away 

from counterterrorism to meet the growing space requirement is 

a more contentious assertion to support.

China’s ASAT test did prompt the Defense Intelligence Agency 

(DIA) to lead a review of roles and responsibilities among government agencies on the subject of counterspace.38 Interestingly, the requirements to support US space operations during 

an ASAT launch fall along the indistinct line between strategic 

and tactical intelligence. A RAND report on intelligence reform 

notes, “As the capabilities of ‘national’ collection systems in the 
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56

NIP [National Intelligence Program] have improved, they have 

become increasingly important to warfighters for tactical purposes, and thus the distinction between ‘strategic’ and ‘tactical’ 

has blurred.”39 China’s space weapons test made this point 

abundantly clear to US space commanders.

The Joint Space Operations Center (JSPOC) at Vandenberg 

AFB, California, serves as both the fusion center and command 

and control element for joint space operations. Like any operations center, the JSPOC relies on the timely processing and 

transfer of information to perform its mission. Lt Gen Michael 

Short, USAF, retired, suggests it is among the most critical 

tasks in an operations center. While discussing the time he 

served as the combined force air component commander during Kosovo operations in 1998, the general recalled, “The first 

thing I said when I walked into the AOC [Air Operations Center] 

was ‘I’d like to see your information management plan.’ I then 

needed several hours to sit down and go through it to understand how information flows [throughout the center].”40 However successful the JSPOC’s accomplishments on 11 January 

2007 may have been, the effective and efficient free flow of information between various organizations required a full panoply of improvised mechanisms. JSPOC controllers on duty during China’s ASAT test overcame significant hurdles, including 

immature procedures, unclear organizational roles and responsibilities, and multilevel classification barriers. At the end of 

the day, the team achieved mission success but also confirmed 

that future operations in the contested environment of space 

will require dynamic processing tools and well-established organizational procedures and relationships.41

The US national security space program has long been a collection of stovepiped organizations encumbered by institutional 

and bureaucratic barriers. The measures implemented by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld in May 2001 aimed at creating 

“a new and comprehensive national security space management 

and organizational approach” to promote and protect US interests in space.42 These measures have had a relatively positive 

impact on national security space. Significant improvements in 

the integration of national intelligence products have enhanced 

joint war-fighting effectiveness and collaboration across multiple stakeholders. Much of the progress was the result of the 

56
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57

singular vision of Under Secretary of the Air Force (USECAF) 

Peter B. Teets, who also assumed directorship over the NRO—a 

result of the Space Commission’s recommendation to merge the 

two positions. However, continued consolidation under the umbrella of a single national security space enterprise became 

doubtful when the DNI later convinced the secretary of defense 

to abandon the dual-hatted approach.43 As an additional strain, 

Secretary Rumsfeld granted the NRO directorship, traditionally 

held by an Air Force official, to a CIA veteran, Donald M. Kerr. 

That change had a seemingly greater impact on the fate of the 

consolidated space enterprise than did the dissolution of a unified authority, as many within the Air Force space community 

perceived the two organizations would consequently drift apart. 

“When people define situations as real, they are real in their consequences,” observed social psychologist W. I. Thomas.44 In the 

end, a self-fulfilling prophesy emerges.

Those in Congress who opposed these changes warned that 

a “weakened role and the ensuing lack of senior Air Force advocacy within and for the NRO will force a decline in the number and quality of the Air Force personnel assigned to the 

NRO.”45 Secretary Wynne, more concerned with the flow of information between the individual organizations, observed, “We 

know Don Kerr does great work; we know that the NRO does 

great work; we know that the Air Force does great work. . . . 

[The question remains,] how do we share, and [what] are the 

roles and missions?”46 Wynne’s concerns struck at the heart of 

the issue. Organizational behaviorist Gareth Morgan suggests 

that “many aspects of organizational structure, especially hierarchy and departmental divisions, influence how information 

flows. Often, the quest for control of information in an organization is linked to questions of organizational structure.”47

The changes in leadership at the NRO and USECAF (space) 

may have widened the fracture within the national security 

space enterprise. Key stakeholders, including the USECAF; 

the NRO director; the defense under secretaries for intelligence, policy, acquisition, technology, and logistics; and the 

assistant defense secretary for networks and information integration play critical roles in the progression of a comprehensive space strategy that includes space protection. Yet the roles 

and responsibilities of each organization remain poorly defined. 
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Mr. Teets, when recently asked if a single office should once again 

lead the space activities of both the NRO and the Air Force, replied, 

“Absolutely, it’s the right thing to do. It is vitally important that one 

person have the lead on national security space. This country 

needs one DoD executive agent for space.”48

Summary

The vertical disharmony apparent in US efforts to increase PLA 

transparency is both a function and product of the sense of urgency with which American statesmen pursue the task. Transparency, from the Chinese perspective, runs contrary to cultural 

and political norms. The pervasive secrecy that shrouds specific 

operational details of space activities in both countries will not 

disappear soon. However, modest gains in transparency are possible over time with increased and broadened military-to-military 

contact throughout the PLA and US armed forces. Operations-tooperations programs, military student exchanges, and more frequent bilateral military exercises are possible options.

The military was prepared for China’s ASAT test, but the event 

revealed both structural and contextual deficiencies in America’s 

space intelligence capacity. Structurally, the leadership, roles, 

and responsibilities of key organizations must align to support 

one national security space enterprise. The DIA-led review is a 

good start, but the scope of this effort is probably beyond the 

purview of an organization at this level. A greater review of the 

roles and responsibilities of all national security space stakeholders is overdue. Furthermore, the new DNI structure raises 

questions about national security space processes and priorities. Could a new national space intelligence office within the 

DNI address these issues, as the Senate proposal suggested? 

Perhaps it could. However, the codification of roles, responsibilities, and priorities would likely accomplish the same without the 

creation of another bureaucratic layer in the enterprise.

Contextually, the advent of space warfare has underscored 

the speed and ease with which information must flow to preserve America’s advantage in space. Space operators must continue to develop relationships across the full range of national 

security space and refine procedures to ensure future com-
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59

manders have at their disposal a robust command and control 

architecture to protect America’s space assets. 

Notes

1. US Securities and Exchange Commission, “Investor’s Advocate.”

2. de Grazia, Machiavelli in Hell, 74. 

3. Peng and Yao, Science of Military Strategy, 116.

4. Stokes, China’s Strategic Modernization, 9.

5. Kulacki, “Chinese Perspectives on Transparency and Security.”

6. Ibid. 

7. “PLA ‘Not Involved in Arms Race.’ ” 

8. Kondapalli, “PLA Transparency with Chinese Characteristics,” 5–10.

9. Martel and Yoshihara, “Averting a Sino-U.S. Space Race,” 29.

10. Kraft, “Growing International Space Capabilities.” 

11. Harrison, address.

12. Martel and Yoshihara, “Averting a Sino-U.S. Space Race,” 28.

13. James Mulvenon offers an excellent summary of the military-to-military 

visits that have taken place since the Chinese ASAT test. He notes visits to China 

by the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Gen Peter Pace, and Pacific Command commander, Adm Timothy Keating; reciprocal visits by the PLA navy commander, 

Adm Wu Shengli, to the United States; and an exchange between deputy chief of 

the General Staff, Zhang Qinsheng, and DOD leaders at the Shangri-la Dialogue 

in Singapore. Mulvenon, “Make Talk Not War,” 1–14. Since Mulvenon’s article 

was published, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Adm Michael Mullen, visited 

Chinese leaders in August 2007, and Defense Secretary Robert Gates traveled to 

Beijing in November 2007. See Gertz, “Chinese Still Silent on Space Weapons”; 

and “Concerns Persist over Chinese Anti-Satellite Test.”

14. Gertz, “Chinese Still Silent on Space Weapons.”

15. House, China: Recent Security Developments. 

16. Kulacki, “Chinese Perspectives on Transparency.” 

17. Gertz, “U.S. Halts China Space Ventures.”

18. Knowlton, “Bush Aide Sees ‘Cop-Out.’ ”

19. The USAF operations-to-operations program currently engages 11 

countries: Great Britain, France, Australia, Israel, Italy, Germany, Japan, 

Singapore, Chile, Korea, and the Netherlands. Jones to the author, e-mail.

20. Kaufman and Linzer, “China Criticized for Anti-Satellite Missile Test,” A01.

21. Covault, “Intensify Faceoff.” 

22. Gertz, “Space Defense.” 

23. House, Congressional Record, 110th Cong., 1st sess., H14485. 

24. Treverton, Next Steps in Reshaping Intelligence, 9.

25. House, Congressional Record, 110th Cong,, 1st sess., H14485. Although 

the House reviewed the Senate proposal, it never made it into the final 2008 

National Defense Authorization Act. 

26. Mahnken, Uncovering Ways of War, 1–4.

27. Handel, “Technological Surprise in War,” 13–16.
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28. Gordon and Cloud, “U.S. Knew of China’s Missile Test.” 

29. Covault, “China’s Asat Test.”

30. Forden, “Measure of Success.” 

31. “Senate Intel Authorizers Want New Office to Monitor Space Threats.”

32. “Shelton: Space Warfare Is Certain.” 

33. Owen Hagovsky (space futures analyst, National Air and Space Intelligence 

Center, Wright-Patterson AFB, OH), in discussion with the author, 13 April 2007.

34. Dr. Lyle Goldstein (director, China Maritime Studies Institute), interview by the author, 10 April 2007. The CMSI conducts extensive research of 

Chinese professional journals posted to the China National Knowledge Infrastructure database. The database includes thousands of journals and technical articles, several hundred of which are dedicated to aerospace. 

35. Scott Feairheller (principal analyst, space navigation systems, National Air and Space Intelligence Center, Wright-Patterson AFB, OH), in discussion with the author, 13 April 2007.

36. Treverton, Next Steps in Reshaping Intelligence, 7.

37. Col Dustin Tyson (Air Force Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance Agency, National Air and Space Intelligence Center), interview by the 

author, 8 February 2008.

38. Butler and Bruno, “With Antisatellite Threat to US Military.” 

39. Treverton, Next Steps in Reshaping Intelligence, 10.

40. Short, address.

41. The information presented in this paragraph was originally derived 

from a variety of informal interviews with a number of individuals, all of 

whom requested anonymity. However, General Shelton confirms all the points 

made here in his 4 March 2008 testimony to Congress, stating that 

we’ve derived many lessons from the Chinese ASAT event, chief among 

them being the tremendous wealth of SSA [space situational awareness] 

data available, albeit in many disparate systems and security channels. 

It took the heroic efforts of many to manually assemble this information 

ad hoc, then pass it to senior decision makers. While we were very successful in this case due to the outstanding cooperation between the intelligence and operations communities, we clearly need improved processing and analytic systems that continually compile and automatically fuse 

SSA information in real-time to keep us abreast of space events. Our lessons learned from the Chinese test will continue to guide our future improvements and developmental efforts for the JSPOC. 

Senate, Defense Authorization Request for Fiscal Year 2009, Statement of Lieutenant General William L. Shelton, 4.

42. Rumsfeld to chairman, Senate Armed Services Committee, letter. 

43. Schanz, “Split-Up in Space.”

44. Morgan, Images of Organization, 174.

45. Schanz, “Split-Up in Space.” 

46. Ibid.

47. Morgan, Images of Organization, 175.

48. Hon. Peter B. Teets (distinguished chair, Eisenhower Center for Space 

and Defense Studies), interview by the author, 8 March 2008.
61

Chapter 5

Economic Dimension

The world is moving to new uses of space, and our technology in the United States has not progressed because 

of the time and expense it takes us to do a mission.

—Robert Conger, vice president of Microcosm Inc., 2007

Response Option: America must revive the enterprising 

capitalist and the innovation that has long fueled its economic engine. Unencumbered by oppressive export laws, 

the US space technology sector has a chance to regain its 

prominence throughout the global market. The US military’s capacity to achieve space superiority is a function 

of the capacity of the industry that supports it.

Identifying practical options within the economic sphere of 

influence to counter China’s space weapon ambitions is perhaps the most difficult to analyze. The underlying challenge 

becomes apparent when one considers the nexus of two incredibly complex, cognitively dominant systems: international relations and international economics. Second- and third-order effects derived from decisions made in these areas of human 

interchange are not always obvious to the policy makers who 

implement change. Jervis argues that “many crucial effects are 

delayed and indirect; the relation between two actors often are 

determined by each one’s relations with others; interactions 

are essential and cannot be understood by additive operations; 

many outcomes are unintended; regulation is difficult.”1 Jervis’s observations are particularly relevant when applied to USChina relations. While contemplating the effects of closing the 

Strait of Hormuz with three strategically placed mines, US military strategists called upon leading economists for an assessment of secondary and tertiary effects. The strait is one of the 

most critical choke points for much of the world’s oil supplies, 

and the economists were at a loss to describe the worldwide 

economic impact such a strategic move would have. One ana-
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62

lyst replied soberly, “Our models aren’t capable of predicting 

such an outcome.”2

No Economic Sanctions

For good reason, there is no evidence the Bush administration considered new economic sanctions against China in the 

wake of the 11 January ASAT demonstration. Controversy surrounding the efficacy of economic sanctions has been longstanding. Historically, economic sanctions have a poor record 

of accomplishment. A 1990 study by the Institute for International Economics concluded that “between 1914 and 1990, 

various countries imposed economic sanctions in 116 cases. 

They failed to achieve their stated objectives in 66 percent of 

those cases and were at best only partially successful in most 

of the rest.” Since 1973 the success ratio for economic sanctions has “fallen precipitously to 24 percent for all cases.”3

US economic sanctions against China have taken various 

forms since 1969 when Pres. Richard Nixon initiated normalized trade relations with the PRC. The brutal 1989 Chinese 

government suppression of pro-democracy demonstrators at 

Tiananmen Square led to a host of new and renewed US sanctions against China. Today, human rights conditions in China 

and the threat of proliferation of weapons of mass destruction 

resulting from China’s lack of export controls or lack of cooperation with international export control standards continue to 

be the main foreign policy and national security issues that 

hold these economic restrictions in place.4

Present-day policy makers may be reluctant to further manipulate export controls to China because of the disastrous 

consequences of policies enacted in the 1990s. In his book Systems Effects: Complexity in Political and Social Life, Jervis argues that the inherent interconnectedness of complex systems 

make them particularly vulnerable to misapplied policies. He 

notes that “interconnections can defeat purposive behavior. 

Not only can actions call up counteractions, but multiple parties and stages permit many paths to unanticipated consequences.”5 Jervis cites numerous examples to support his 

point, including Jay Forrester’s argument that “building subsi-
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63

dized housing attracts more poor people to [a] city and increases 

the tax rate, thereby making the city less attractive to business 

and so decreasing employment.”6 The result of targeted changes 

within a complex system can produce outcomes contrary, if not 

opposite, to the originally conceived goal of the stimulus. In 

this context, a case study of two Chinese launch failures in the 

1990s informs the debate.

The Cox Report

The January 1995 failed launch of the Long March 2E rocket 

carrying Hughes-built Apstar 2 spacecraft and the February 

1996 failed launch of the Long March 3B rocket carrying Space 

Systems/Loral-built Intelsat 708 spacecraft started a chain of 

events that has severely diminished, if not completely destroyed, US competitive advantage in the areas of space launch 

and satellite technologies. Because of the launch failures, the 

US Department of Commerce granted permission to the US 

satellite manufacturers to exchange technical data with interested parties, including Chinese space launch experts and representatives from the manufacturers’ respective insurance 

companies. However, a congressional review later determined 

the Commerce Department had acted without authority and 

asserted that the launch failure reviews were conducted without required Department of State export licenses and communicated technical information to the PRC in violation of International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR).7 The investigation 

produced a congressional report, known as the Cox Report, 

and led to legislation that returned control of the licensing process for satellite and related technologies from the Commerce 

Department to the State Department.8 Concurrently, the new 

law removed the same items from the control of the Export Administration Regulations and placed them under the jurisdiction of the United States Munitions List (USML).9

There is little doubt that US legislators believed they were 

acting in the best interest of the country. Presumably, it was 

clear to them that the information shared with Chinese officials 

compromised America’s standing as the technological leader in 

the space industry. One damning piece of evidence, as revealed 
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64

in the Cox Report, was a Defense Department monitor’s final 

report after a 1998 PRC launch campaign. 

This assignment for DTSA (the Defense Technology Security Administration) has proven to be exceptionally taxing and difficult. We are 

trained, given the necessary tools/skills and expected to protect U.S. 

technology from improper disclosure/compromise. 

Our responsibilities as monitors become transparent when aerospace 

companies (some not all) are given a Commerce License. It is viewed by 

industry as a license to steal and the monitors are a necessary evil to 

pacify management and our government. 

There is a general consensus within the public sector that, if restrictive measures and significant penalties are not levied against industries (specifically aerospace) by the Commerce Department (or higher), 

our technology will be compromised to such a staggering level and 

that our highest level of technology advancements will be available to 

our international competitors before [they come] off the research and 

development floor.

We as a nation cannot allow or afford to have industry police itself when 

it comes to national security. . . . 

History is filled with unnecessary shortcuts in safeguard/security procedures resulting in the loss of American lives and federal grand jury 

investigations into illegal transfer of our technology by major corporations in an effort to increase their profit.10

While the events surrounding the Chinese launch failures 

and the ensuing technical interchanges between Chinese 

launch officials and US contractors produced signs of smoke, 

it is not clear there was any real danger of fire. The Cox Report 

findings have been widely criticized as the product of a politicized agenda, and although several studies and reports have 

since attempted to characterize the extent to which China has 

benefited from the technological information it received from 

US sources, it remains unclear that the infractions represented 

a credible threat to national security. One interagency report, 

compiled at the behest of the Cox Committee, concluded that 

no apparent modernization of China’s deployed strategic force 

or nuclear weapons deployment resulted from US-derived 

sources.11 Several leading defense analysts, including a panel 

of scholars from Stanford University, have challenged the veracity of the Cox Report, calling some of its findings “unwarranted” and characterizing the bulk of the report as an “unbelievable rush to judgment.”12
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Despite the skepticism with which some post-analysis commentators have treated the Cox Report, its effect on US policy 

spread almost immediately. The Strom Thurmond National Defense Authorization Act of 1999, alluded to earlier, included recommendations that, during implementation, assumed a state of 

agency all their own. The State Department not only assumed 

responsibility for space technology control, it applied a level of 

rigor and rigidity that went beyond the intent of the original legislation. For example, the act states that some of the most intrusive aspects of the controls do not apply “to the export of a satellite or related items for launch in, or by nations of, a country 

that is a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization or 

that is a major non-NATO ally of the United States.”13 However, 

since no corresponding legislation directed similar changes to 

the International Traffic in Arms Regulations, the State Department embraced a functionally restrictive interpretation, and US 

satellite manufacturers suddenly faced an excruciatingly bureaucratic hurdle in place of well-established export processes.

ITAR: The Path to Hell

One anonymous philosopher once quipped that “the path to 

hell is paved with good intentions.” Jurisdiction under ITAR, a 

change implemented with the best of intentions, has become a 

living hell for America’s space industry. The bureaucratically 

intense restrictions, regulations, and licensing requirements 

that typify the current process have hamstrung the US space 

industry to the point that foreign entities no longer care to do 

business with US manufacturers. Nearly every metric used to 

determine the overall health of the space industry has trended 

downward since Congress enacted the more restrictive legislation. Prior to the change in export controls in 1999, the United 

States dominated the commercial satellite-manufacturing field 

with an average market share of 83 percent. Since that time, 

market share has declined to 50 percent.14 Likewise, the US 

share of satellite manufacturing revenues and satellite exports 

has declined over the past decade, while the US share of the 

overall foreign space market has fallen over 10 percent.15
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66

Much of the decline can be attributed to the increasing difficulty foreign entities face when dealing with US export laws. 

Numerous foreign companies and governments are no longer 

interested in purchasing US products that come with severe 

legal ramifications. European aerospace executives claim that 

export customers are demanding with increasing frequency 

“ITAR free” systems.16 Canadian Telesat has stated, “We will 

not buy from [the] US due to export controls.”17 Moreover, ITARfree components such as apogee motors, thruster control 

valves, star trackers, microwave components, and satellite busses have replaced US components on the world market. The US 

export control laws have, in effect, created an entire new market for ITAR-free components—a market in which US industries are excluded. According to Joseph Rouge, director at the 

National Security Space Office, export controls have not only 

failed to prevent the rise of foreign space industries, they actually encouraged foreign industry growth. At the 2008 National 

Space Forum, he noted, “Two nations have actually declared 

openly that their space industry is due to ITAR. Well that wasn’t 

exactly the plan for ITAR. The plan for ITAR was to keep them 

from having their own space industry, but we essentially did it 

for them because we gave them an incentive to do it.”18 Defense 

experts contend that Europe’s decision to enter the space 

launch industry with the French Ariane booster was primarily 

in reaction to US efforts to control what the Europeans could 

launch on US boosters. The Ariane has since become the largest competitor to the US launch industry.19 Daniel Sacotte, the 

head of the European Space Agency’s Human Spaceflight program, believes export controls have made cooperation with the 

United States “too complicated to be feasible.” He states that 

“we are now obliged to develop our autonomy in various areas, 

which is no bad thing. . . . We may also find partners besides 

NASA.”20 The Indian prime minister, in an address before members of the Indian Space Research Organization, commented 

that “it is a matter of particular pride that international technology denial regimes have not impeded your efforts—in fact, 

they have spurred you to greater heights.”21

One contentious issue regarding the ITAR regime is its slow 

and unpredictable licensing process. Space systems and information providers generally have to submit a technical assis-
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67

tance agreement (TAA) and wait for approval before discussing 

technical solutions with potential international clients. According to a recent Air Force Research Laboratory analysis of over 

200 space companies, the process has become increasingly unpredictable and unnecessarily lengthy over the past five years, 

jumping from an average of 52 days in 2003 to an incredible 

106 days in 2006.22 This becomes especially problematic when 

one considers the competitive environment wherein a 60-day 

response requirement for new proposal requests is the norm. 

Some industry leaders claim the real travesty is the unpredictability of the process. There is very little transparency in the 

process, making it difficult for companies to establish timelines 

and meet customer’s expectations. Marion Blakey, president 

and chief executive officer of the Aerospace Industries Association, notes that “export controls are like death and taxes . . . 

but I certainly would not underestimate the challenges and impediments that the current [ITAR] regime poses for us. Predictability—knowing what you can promise a customer and how 

you move forward—affects everything.”23

Although the timeliness of the TAA approval process is disconcerting, most members of the space industry believe that 

the Munitions List, often referred to as “the list,” lies at the 

heart of the problem. The list prohibits the unlicensed transfer 

of spacecraft technologies, including “communications satellites, remote sensing satellites, scientific satellites, research 

satellites, navigation satellites, experimental and multi-mission satellites,” as well as “all specifically designed or modified 

systems or subsystems, components, parts, accessories, attachments, and associated equipment” of such articles.24 As 

noted earlier, the State Department’s rigid enforcement of ITAR 

restrictions has become a significant hurdle for America’s space 

industry. One example brilliantly illustrates the ill-conceived 

manner with which the US government has implemented these 

laws. Bigelow Aerospace (BA) is a privately funded space venture with a goal “to create a new, robust, private sector-driven 

space industry by dramatically reducing the costs of conducting space-based activities.”25 The exclusive focus of the company is developing next-generation space habitats based on 

expandable technology. The following excerpt is from a colorful 

law review drafted by BA’s legal counsel, Michael Gold, after 
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his attempt to fulfill ITAR requirements during a recent 2006 

project in Russia.

The cost, time, and trouble of export control would all be worthwhile if 

Bigelow Aerospace actually had any militarily sensitive technology that 

was worth protecting from the Russians. The problem was we didn’t, 

and hundreds of thousands of dollars, years of effort, and valuable government resources were wasted monitoring systems that aren’t even as 

sophisticated as what the Russians have themselves produced. Herein 

lies the fundamental flaw with the Department of State’s enforcement of 

the ITAR, commonly available and well-understood space-related technologies should not and cannot be treated under the same regime as 

sensitive space systems with real military applications.

I cannot think of a better example of the irrationality and waste of the 

ITAR than the treatment of a stand that BA built to support the Genesis 

spacecraft. This “stand” made out of standard aluminum, was basically 

circular in shape and had several legs sticking out around the perimeter. Bottom-line, if you flipped the stand upside down one would be 

hard pressed to distinguish the stand from any other table located in 

your grandmother’s kitchen. However, since the stand had been “altered” to fit the spacecraft, it was considered covered by the ITAR and 

therefore fell under a proviso in our TAA that required 24/7 monitoring 

by a security staff of two. One can only imagine the implications of the 

Russians obtaining such sophisticated technology. If sold to the Iranians, within weeks or months you could have members of the Revolutionary Guard drinking coffee or even tea with the help of this new “table” technology.26

As illustrated in this passage, industry representatives are 

most frustrated with the poorly conceived logic the State Department applied in its attempt to protect items that are currently 

available to anyone on the world market. As implemented, the 

law does far more harm than good to US national security by 

suffocating the US space industry’s access to foreign markets. 

Gold concludes, “In short, if the objective of the 1998 export control reforms expanding the ITAR were to cripple domestic US 

capabilities, lose billions of dollars, and bolster European competition all without impacting China, then we should rest assured that the mission has been accomplished.”27

Fixing ITAR

Efforts to ensure a robust and healthy space industry represent a critical part of the US economic response to China’s ASAT 

demonstration. The Navy has rightly tied its strength and liveli68
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69

hood to the health and prosperity of the US shipbuilding industry. Indeed, the prosperity of the industry was one of many criteria that routinely influenced the US Navy’s force structure and 

future maritime strategy to preserve dominance within the contested domain of sea.28 The same is true of the US space industry. General Kehler recently observed that

at the end of the day for us [Air Force Space Command], space capabilities that we can deliver to America’s warfighting commands and to 

our coalition and allied partners [are] directly related to the capability of 

the US industry to produce [them]. We get very concerned when industry is suffering because of policy direction or implementation. . . . We 

are still struggling to get space capability deployed soon and we will 

continue to struggle with that until we make some different strategic 

choices.29

The first of several strategic choices available to policy makers interested in preserving America’s technological advantage 

is to stop classifying communication satellites and other commercial spacecraft technology as “weapon systems.” This requires a fundamentally different solution set when compared 

to the efforts of the Bush administration. In January 2008, the 

Bush administration implemented an Export Control Directive, 

measures to streamline the license approval process through 

mandated timelines, increased resources, and web-based applications.30 Unfortunately, the directive misses the mark by 

not removing commercially available technologies—those that 

have become global commodities—from the protected US Munitions List. In some cases, the rapid proliferation of space services has driven commercial technologies to compete directly 

with what have historically been military technologies. Google 

Earth and Yahoo Maps, for example, have drawn criticism from 

both the Indian and US governments over the high resolution, 

military-grade imagery the companies make available free via 

the Internet. Lt Gen Michael Hamel, former commander of the 

Air Force’s Space and Missile System Center, observed that 

“we’re seeing a significant growth in both civil and commercial 

remote sensing capabilities. . . . [Commercial entities] in this 

country and in various other nations are actively developing 

and fielding capabilities. It wasn’t too many years ago that what 

would have been our cutting edge reconnaissance capability, 

now are commercially purchasable products.”31
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The next step is to establish other mechanisms to regulate the 

proliferation of moderately sensitive technologies, while aggressively employing ITAR control only over the most sensitive of US 

technologies. John Rood, undersecretary of state for arms control and international security, notes that historically, 99.99 

percent of all British licenses are approved. New treaties with 

Britain and Australia, if approved by the Senate, could potentially remove a total of 17,000 licenses from the system every two 

years.32 Treaties and similar mechanisms should aim to encourage trade with close US friends and allies. Marion Blakely believes that “the debate on this has moved, from talking about 

competitiveness and the drag on US companies that ITAR poses 

to the issue that we are in a position of denying to our allies and 

friends the critical technologies that provide for the war fighter. 

This is a large part of the motivation to change the process.”33

The final solution is likely to be one sponsored by multiple 

agencies, including the Departments of State, Commerce, Defense, and National Intelligence, bolstered with bipartisan congressional support, and received with commitment and resolve 

by the new administration. It is debatable whether such an 

alignment of the stars is possible. ITAR reform did not receive 

significant, if any, political attention in the lead-up to the 2008 

presidential election. The space industry and its relatively benign political action committees have hitherto been unable to 

influence the national agenda in this regard. Some speculate if 

export control policy vis-à-vis the satellite industry might represent the type of intractable problem for which a national 

space council is needed to advise the president and shape the 

interagency perspective. Former USECAF Peter B. Teets acknowledges that cohesion is vitally important: “We need to have 

cohesion. OSTP [Office of Science and Technology Policy] needs 

to examine the process carefully. There are simply too many 

stakeholders involved [to achieve the cohesion needed].”34

General Moorman takes a direct approach, stating that “we 

need to re-establish a White House organization for space activity. 

. . . Bush I [Pres. George H. W. Bush] had a national space council, 

but after that it went away. . . . There is [currently] no executive 

level leadership to drive these things through.”35

70
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Summary

Toyota’s senior executives believe in the paradox of innovation: to keep it, one must give it away. When asked why Toyota 

routinely shares the most intimate details of its operations with 

competitors from General Motors, one executive replied, “As long 

as we keep innovating, no one else in the industry can catch up. 

What better way to motivate our people but to advertise that GM 

is walking around and seeing everything we are doing today.”36

Perhaps every US space industry executive, upon hearing this 

story, smiles wryly and sighs, “if only it were that simple.” Yet 

the point made by Toyota executives is simple: the key is not 

protection but innovation—the innovation is about the economic 

engine and how the nation can support it.37

The fact is that while the proliferation of space power may 

not be a zero-sum game, in many respects, that is precisely 

how corporate America views market share. The very existence 

of an emerging market for “ITAR-free” goods is a poignant reminder of the vast global market share still out of reach for 

many US companies. For the better part of the twenty-first century, the space industry has struggled to mitigate the harmful 

effects of a policy designed to protect America’s status as the 

world leader in space innovation. First, US companies want 

predictability. Second, industry leaders want ITAR to protect 

sensitive military technologies, not technologies widely proliferated and commonly available for civil and commercial space 

systems. The US Munitions List must restrict the fewest possible technologies—only the true jewels of the industry. Finally, 

US companies want to eliminate the unnecessary licensing 

procedures still required for America’s closest allies. We must 

allow the industry to work freely with other allied nations in the 

same way we expect our military forces to fight wars. The paradox of ITAR has destroyed the vertical harmony within the economic dimension.

Notes

1. Jervis, System Effects, 29.

2. Hinote, lecture.

3. Hufbauer, Schott, and Elliott, Economic Sanctions Reconsidered, 92­–93, 

105–7.
ECONOMIC DIMENSION

72

4. Rennack, China: US Economic Sanctions, i.

5. Jervis, System Effects, 18.

6. Ibid.; and Forrester, Urban Dynamics, 67. In studying the impact of 

low-cost housing to urban development, Forrester concludes that “the results demonstrate the counterintuitive nature of complex social systems by 

showing that intuitively sensible policies can affect adversely the very problems they are designed to alleviate” (70).

7. Zelnio, “Short History of Export Control Policy.”

8. The Cox Report is named after the Select Committee’s chairman, Rep. 

Christopher Cox.

9. The USML is controlled under section 38 of the Arms Export Control Act. 

Zelnio, “Short History of Export Control Policy.” 

10. House, Report of the Select Committee on U.S. National Security, vol. 2, 

233.

11. Kan, China, CRS Report RL30143, 7–8. The author is grateful to Joan 

Johnson-Freese for identifying this source. See Johnson-Freese, Space as a 

Strategic Asset, 157.

12. Pincus, “Hill Report on Chinese Spying Faulted,” A16. The author is 

grateful to Joan Johnson-Freese for identifying this source. See JohnsonFreese, Space as a Strategic Asset, 157.

13. de Selding, “Export Issue Touches Europe,” 20. The author is grateful 

to Joan Johnson-Freese for identifying this source. See Johnson-Freese, 

Space as a Strategic Asset, 158.

14. Zelnio, “Effects of Export Control on the Space Industry.” There are five 

companies which dominate the sector: Boeing Satellite Development Center 

(formerly Boeing Satellite Systems), Lockheed Martin Commercial Space Systems, and Space/Systems Loral in the United States, and Alcatel Alenia Space 

and EADS Astrium in Europe. There are also a number of smaller companies 

that fill certain niches in the market: Orbital Space Sciences (United States), 

Israeli Aircraft Industries, Mitsubishi Electronics Company (Japan), Energia 

(Russia), and the China Academy of Space Technology.

15. This is according to data collected by the Federal Aviation Administration, Institute for Defense Analyses, NASIC, and Satellite Industry Association. Young, Ballhaus, and Chao, address, 30. 

16. DOD, Defense News, 19 June 2007.

17. Young, Ballhaus, and Chao, address, 50. 

18. Rouge, address.

19. Johnson-Freese, Chinese Space Program, 118.

20. Young, Ballhaus, and Chao, address, 23. 

21. Ibid.

22. Ibid., 49.

23. Blakey, address.

24. ITAR, 22 Code of Federal Regulations (CFR ) 121.1, Category XV—

Spacecraft Systems, 440­–41.

25. Michael N. Gold (corporate counsel, Bigelow Aerospace), interview by 

the author, 7 February 2008.

26. Gold, “The Wrong Stuff,” 6–7.
ECONOMIC DIMENSION

73

27. Gold, “Lost in Space,” 3.

28. The author attended several speeches and conferences at the Naval 

War College from 2006 to 2007 that reinforced this point.

29. Kehler, address.

30. Clark, “Officials Say ITAR Changes Don’t Solve the Big Problems,” 11.

31. Lowe, “ ‘Google Earth’ a Potential Space Threat.”

32. Clark, “Officials Say ITAR Changes Don’t Solve the Big Problems,” 11.

33. Blakely, address.

34. Hon. Peter B. Teets (distinguished chair, Eisenhower Center for Space 

and Defense Studies), interview by the author, 8 March 2008.

35. Moorman, address.

36. Gass, address.

37. Ibid.

75

Chapter 6

Military Dimension

You can look at somebody’s motives and say, “There’s 

no real intent that I’m aware of that they want to do me 

harm.” But if they’ve got the capability to do me harm, 

as a warfighter, that’s what I’ve got to respect—because 

intent can change overnight. As the capability evolves 

on the part of the people who would want to do us harm 

in space, you’ve got to stay ahead of them.

—Maj Gen William Shelton, USAF, 2007

Response Option: America’s military must prepare to defend 

its space assets. A robust shared space surveillance (SSS) construct may increase national security through enhanced 

space situational awareness and international cooperation. 

General Shelton’s edict in the epigraph above reflects his 

war-fighting pedigree. As a military strategist, he understands 

which capabilities the United States needs to defend against 

potential military adversaries. Of course, the salient question 

becomes, how? If indeed the US military will one day conduct 

combat operations in space, as Shelton suggests, then what 

national security space strategy can successfully parlay America’s limited resources into the proper force structure necessary to protect the nation?1

The situation has all the makings of the classic security dilemma discussed in chapter 2. ASATs represent a relatively 

simple, cost-effective option to counter what Chinese military 

leaders describe as an expanding US space hegemony—a perception pervasive throughout Chinese strategy circles.2 In response, US military leaders interpret China’s actions as overtly 

threatening and implement measures to sustain America’s hegemonic status. Within days of China’s demonstration, Secretary Wynne declared that “space is no longer a sanctuary; that 

veil has now been pierced. . . . Freedom of space is crucial and 

the Chinese, wittingly or not, have sent a message that our 

guard must be stronger. . . . This change is seismic in nature. 
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76

The recent Chinese test marks the turning point in the work 

our country must do to assure space dominance.”3

Military leaders have suggested the “work” begins by developing a robust level of space situational awareness. In his 2007 

written testimony to Congress, General Cartwright explained 

that “historically, space situational awareness (SSA) was focused 

on the cataloging, tracking, and monitoring of objects in space 

via the space surveillance network. Today it is clear we must 

have better space detection, characterization, and assessment 

tools. We require capabilities that enable rapid threat identification and attribution, facilitate a defensible architecture and provide fundamental shifts in space awareness.”4 Days earlier, Gen 

Kevin P. Chilton, commander of Air Force Space Command, testified that “today, our surveillance, analysis and data-sharing 

capabilities do not adequately support our future needs to rapidly identify and understand the threats to our space systems.”5

In truth, US military leaders had long before identified the critical need for space situational awareness. As General Shelton 

describes it, “It’s a work in progress . . . [but] the Chinese ASAT 

test put us on a much more rapid path than before.”6

Despite the annual testimony offered by the nation’s space 

leaders, it is possible that the US military apparatus writ large 

underappreciates the challenge beyond earth’s atmosphere. Modern air, sea, and land commanders would never consider placing 

their highest valued assets into an essentially blind operating environment. In fact, quite the opposite is true. For example, the Air 

Force specifically designed the F-22 Raptor to achieve total air 

battlespace domination. The Raptor fuses data from multiple sensors to create a level of situational awareness unrivalled by any 

other air-breathing platform in existence. Not only can the Raptor 

“see” all incoming threats, but it can also target and destroy them 

before they are even aware of the Raptor’s presence. Naturally, 

one must wonder why the world’s most advanced space-faring 

nation would not assure a similar degree of protection for its 

space-based assets—of course, this is not the case.

In fact, the US SSN is currently a kludge of slow, outdated 

processors coupled with radar and optical sensors dating back 

to the Cold War–era, designed primarily to surveil the Soviet 

Union. General Hamel understands well that the nation’s space 

surveillance capabilities, while currently more comprehensive 
MILITARY DIMENSION

77

than any system operated by other space-faring nations, are 

still woefully inadequate to meet the needs of modern space 

commanders. He was asked to fix it. According to Hamel, the 

solution lies in integrating the existing structure with new 

space-based capabilities and collateral sensors designed to 

support other programs such as missile defense. He notes that 

“our priority is to look at ways to knit and net together sensors 

in a much more operationally responsive fashion so we can 

maintain continuous knowledge as events and situations 

change. New and advanced sensors . . . like SBSS will become 

part of that architecture as that satellite is completed and 

launched.”7 To this end, the SMC is programming funding for 

integrated space situational awareness, an effort to provide the 

architecture and integration necessary to minimize the nation’s 

vulnerabilities in this area.

However, the SMC and America’s space force are facing increasing challenges in the area of space surveillance, and it is 

not clear whether the current programming efforts and funding 

levels will ensure the nation keeps pace with a problem that is 

becoming more complex. From 1995 to 2007, the number of 

objects tracked in space grew from roughly 10,500 to 18,500.8

Much of the increase is the result of breakups—large pieces of 

debris collide with other objects and break up into multiple 

smaller pieces of debris—however, the overall number of 

launches worldwide continues to increase as well. Consider 

that China, during its 10th Five-Year Plan, launched a total of 

28 satellites and spacecraft on 26 launchers, steadily increasing from just one in 2001 to a peak of eight in 2004.9 All indicators suggest that China seeks to maintain a leading role in 

space launch activity. In 2006 the PRC State Council issued a 

white paper describing its goals for the 11th Five-Year Plan, 

characterized by a marked increase in space applications including satellite remote-sensing, communications, and navigation.10 Furthermore, China hopes to strengthen its position as 

a worldwide provider of commercial and military launch services. One US assessment suggests that Beijing’s goal is to 

place a satellite into orbit “within hours upon request.”11

Moreover, the SMC may be facing a trend more challenging 

than the increase in sheer numbers of spacecraft in orbit. The 

trend toward miniaturization translates to a greater number of 
MILITARY DIMENSION

78

very small objects in space that are significantly more difficult 

to detect and track. Currently, the SSN tracks only those objects greater than 10 centimeters in diameter. Consequently, a 

new generation of satellites has emerged that may eclipse the 

threshold of America’s capabilities to surveil. While the United 

States continues to develop microsatellite technologies through 

programs such as TacSat-2 and XSS-11 to meet mission requirements for proximity and rendezvous operations, China has 

become increasingly interested in both the military and commercial uses of microsatellites.12 In a recent study of Chinese 

microsatellite applications, Andrew Erickson suggests that Chinese aerospace engineers are conducting extensive research 

in a variety of subfields including digital synthesis simulation, 

liquid gas propulsion technology, geomagnetic-based independent navigation methods, remote sensing, and complementary 

metal-oxide semiconductor (CMOS) camera applications.13 Furthermore, researchers at China’s prestigious Qinghua University Space Center are pursuing even greater accomplishments 

in miniaturization, including nano- and pico-technology. Dr. 

Zhang Xiaomin reports that the institute is developing a one-kilogram picosatellite.14 According to a Jane’s Intelligence report, 

both the China Aerospace Science and Industry Corporation 

and the Chinese Academy of Space Technology are developing 

microsatellites and small satellites for commercial use and possibly military ASAT projects.15 US military leaders also recognize the potential for microsatellites to fill counterspace roles. 

When discussing the XSS-11 program, one Pentagon official was 

harshly criticized by the media after articulating the possibility 

of using the microsatellite as a kinetic ASAT.16 According to an 

annex of the Space Commission report, “These micro/nanosatellites, when employed as unacknowledged secondary payloads, 

can covertly rendezvous with other space assets to perform satellite inspection and other missions to disrupt, degrade or destroy space assets.”17 Furthermore, a witting adversary could 

potentially deploy a swarm of nanosats into a preexisting debris 

field, making it nearly impossible for space surveillance experts 

to discern between actual pieces of debris and highly maneuverable and deadly space weapons. Indeed, the United States 

may not know for years if that was the real purpose of China’s 

11 January “test.” The potential application and proliferation of 
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79

micro- and nanosatellites as coorbital, kinetic-kill ASATs underscore the urgency with which US military leaders must work to 

establish a robust space surveillance capability. 

Finally, General Hamel and other space leaders face significant Air Force budget constraints as they attempt to design 

and build a modern space surveillance capability. In recent 

years, the vast majority of discretionary spending within the 

national security space enterprise has been dedicated to recapitalizing a rapidly aging fleet of spacecraft, launch, and 

ground systems. Several major mission areas in space are currently undergoing a significant level of recapitalization: intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (Space-Based Infrared 

System [SBIRS]); communications (Wideband Global Satellite 

Communications [WGS] and Advanced Extremely High Frequency [AEHF]); position, navigation, and timing (Global Positioning System [GPS] IIF and III and GPS Architecture Evolution Plan [AEP]); and spacelift (Delta IV heavy evolved expendable 

launch vehicle [EELV]).18 The next 18 to 24 months promise to 

produce significant increases in America’s space capability.

The critical need to recapitalize major space sectors translates into less money available for newer emerging mission areas like space protection. The phenomenon is a replay of a 

larger debate regarding the benefit of creating a new major force 

program (MFP) for the Defense Department’s space budget.19

The issue is that space programmers must continually compete for dollars within a largely air-centric construct. RAND 

analyst Benjamin Lambeth explains that “at present, there is a 

zero-sum competition going on between military space priorities and other USAF spending requirements, including its forceprojection needs. Should the Department of Defense continue 

its current resource apportionment practices with respect to 

space, the Air Force will, in the words of one former senior 

space officer, find itself faced with ‘the untenable option of capitalizing space with its increasingly limited resources.’ ”20 For 

years the highest acquisition priority for the Air Force has been 

the F-22 Raptor. Today, the F-35A is the big-ticket air platform, 

with a combined fiscal year 2009 procurement and research 

budget nearly half that of the entire space portfolio.21 The conclusion for space protection advocates is that the intense bud-
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80

get constraints that have limited growth in the past will likely 

persist into the future.

The Chinese ASAT test on 11 January 2007 has generated congressional support for additional space surveillance and space 

protection dollars. For example, the House-Senate conference report on the 2008 defense appropriations bill added $100 million 

above the administration’s request for nearly $200 million to accelerate space situational awareness.22 However, it is not clear 

that token budget increases will solve the enduring problem of 

keeping pace with a rapidly expanding mission area. Consider the 

SBSS Block 10 spacecraft, a critical element of AFSPC’s efforts to 

produce a robust space surveillance capability. The program has 

been plagued with a series of delays from its very start. Launchvehicle problems, followed by service and congressional cuts in 

2005, followed by programmatic challenges regarding the complexity of integrating the optical payload have caused a $223 million effort to grow to about $400 million.23 In March of 2008, the 

DOD and the intelligence community cancelled Space Radar, a 

military and intelligence surveillance satellite, because of soaring 

programmatic costs that ranged as high as $20 billion.24 In her 

2008 testimony to Congress, Christina Chaplain of the GAO concluded that “senior leaders managing DOD’s space portfolio are 

clearly working in a challenging environment. There are pressures 

to deliver new, transformational capabilities, but problematic 

older satellite programs continue to cost more than expected, 

constrain investment dollars, pose risks of capability caps, and 

thus require more time and attention from senior leaders than 

well-performing efforts.”25 The magnitude of the budget challenges 

space programmers face underscores the relatively benign impact 

modest congressional plus-ups actually have. Furthermore, it is 

not clear how long the Air Force will enjoy congressional favor as 

the emotional and psychological impact of China’s space weapons 

demonstration begins to wane. 

Shared Space Surveillance

The policy changes proposed in chapter 2 offer exciting 

options in the military dimension, and military leaders must 

consider teaming with other space-faring allies to form an 
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81

international security space alliance. For the military’s part, 

uniformed leaders must play an active role in beginning a dialogue with allied military leaders from around the world. Twentyeight foreign militaries currently operate in space, and each one 

has a vested interest in protecting its assets on orbit.

The concept is not significantly different from one the US 

Navy is considering. Faced with a dynamic operating environment and scarce resources, Admiral Mullen, then chief of naval operations, envisioned a “thousand-ship navy”—an allied 

fleet of ships working collectively to police the world’s blue waters and ensure viable sea lines of communication to every 

nation’s benefit.26 A “thousand-sensor SSS system” may produce the type of capability commanders will need to police the 

stars, even if fiscal limitations preclude the unilateral employment of such a system. A notional space-surveillance architecture generated within the Pentagon suggests a need for sensors performing three distinct mission sets: routine surveillance, 

tactical surveillance, and tactical imaging. Through the employment of a variety of electro-optical and radar sensors, the 

SSA architecture must surveil both prograde and retrograde 

space objects launched from the world’s major spaceports. 

Furthermore, a truly meaningful architecture must include a 

robust complement of space-based assets to surveil and image 

objects in both low-earth and geosynchronous orbits. The plan 

was labeled “Threshold Unconstrained Clean Sheet SSN,” suggesting that the Pentagon understands that current fiscal realities preclude such a plan from ever coming to fruition. The 

space-based component alone would bankrupt the Future 

Years Defense Program. For example, as depicted in figure 2, 

up to 10 supersynchronous-based electro-optical satellites 

may be necessary to maintain law and order throughout the 

geosynchronous belt, with another seven traversing through 

geosynchronous and low-earth orbits.

When applied to the issue of space protection, the “thousandsensor architecture” means every allied ground- and spacebased SSA platform could potentially form an integrated operations system designed to keep “space lines of communication” 

open to all who contribute. One construct worth considering is 

the existing Shared Early Warning System, as it may be a logical 

starting point for a multilateral acquisition program. The con-
MILITARY DIMENSION

cept of shared early warning came about toward the end of the 

1990s, when Russia’s plummeting level of military readiness 

raised concerns about its ability to command and control its 

nuclear missile arsenal. The goal was increased transparency. 

The United States agreed to share the critical missile-warning 

data it received via satellite remote sensing and radar to remove 

any ambiguity that might otherwise cloud the judgment of Russian command-and-control centers. Robert G. Bell, a senior aide 

on the National Security Council at the time, explained that “the 

agreement provides further protection against an inadvertent 

nuclear exchange triggered by misidentification of a launch.”27

As discussed in chapter 3, increased security remains the key to 

establishing an enduring architecture. 

Currently, several US allies, such as Japan, Canada, India, 

and the European Union (EU), are struggling with the same is82

Figure 2. Notional space surveillance architecture. (Reprinted from Headquarters 

Air Force, Space and Nuclear Operations, briefing, subject: Space Situational Awareness, 20 February 2008.)
MILITARY DIMENSION

83

sues of space protection that preoccupy US space commanders. For example, a 2005 European study concluded that

the security of [space] systems become[s] a true challenge [when] taking 

into account the increasing security issue of the space debris proliferation. While Europe is able to detect and catalogue some space debris 

using European facilities implemented by some European Union Member States, most of the data are still provided for free by the United 

States of America. This situation could change in the near future and 

the data already provided are not exhaustive or [may] not be made available at the needed time. The lack of a European Space Surveillance 

Capability is identified as a serious capability gap that must be one of 

the priorit[ies] of the future European Space Program. Beyond the security of the European space assets, this system must contribute to the 

control of the application of International Space Treaties and to the 

evaluation of the activities of the space-faring nations or organizations.28

Theresa Hitchens, the director of the Center for Defense Information, suggests the tenor of such reports reflects a political 

desire for European nations to decrease their dependency on 

US space systems.29 While her interpretation is plausible, it 

does not necessarily negate the possibility of formalizing interdependency between the United States and other space-faring 

allies. The EU faces far greater fiscal constraints vis-à-vis its 

military space budget, and political rhetoric alone will not fund 

the kind of robust space surveillance network needed to handle 

emerging threats. According to a 2004 study, an independent 

European space surveillance system with performance characteristics roughly equivalent to the current US space surveillance network will cost around 330 million euros (~$500 million in 2004 US dollars) to develop by 2015.30 The alternative 

approach, partnering with the United States, would allow the 

EU to field sensors that cover deficiencies in the US network 

(for example, in the Southern Hemisphere where the United 

States has virtually no coverage) while in return earn guaranteed access to the entire system. 

Top military officials admit such a plan has merit. Gen Kevin 

Chilton, USAF, commander of USSTRATCOM, testified that 

the United States “must continue to foster collaborative datasharing with our allies to enhance global coverage. . . . The 

ability to leverage and expand space partnerships with our allies holds the potential to dramatically improve Space Situational Awareness.”31 Just weeks earlier at a conference in Washington, DC, General Kehler suggested it might be time to rethink 
MILITARY DIMENSION

84

America’s approach to national security space and consider the 

role other space-faring partners might play in an integrated 

framework. He commented, “I don’t think we’ve gone about this in 

the past with an underlying assumption that says we want to include allies and international partners as a core piece of how we 

conduct our national security business with space capabilities. I 

think that has to change. Much like we have had alliance and 

coalition agreements with all of our other elements of our national 

security power, I think that it’s important for us to pursue as an 

objective when it comes to our space capabilities as well.” Kehler 

also noted that Australia’s decision to purchase a WGS satellite 

and become part of the US military satellite communications architecture represents a very positive step toward an allied space 

force. “That one step that they have taken speaks volumes about 

a way for us to do business in the future,” he observed.32

A team of space professionals in the Pentagon has set about 

the task to determine the possible areas of mutual interest with 

select allied air forces.33 During a February 2008 trip to Paris, 

Air Force officials met with a delegation from the French air 

force to discuss data-sharing options in a variety of space mission areas, including space imagery, space surveillance (together with space meteorology), and space education. The 

CSAF-directed program is designed to build bilateral militaryto-military relations at the staff, operator, and general-officer 

levels. The space delegation selected to participate in this bilateral engagement hoped to explore the potential for future coalition operations and partnership capacity—the fundamental 

building blocks for a future space alliance. However, two conditions must exist before the team’s efforts in bilateral discussions bear significant fruit. First, the team members must embrace the notion that the old way of doing business offers little 

hope for future success. In other words, they must be open to 

innovative ideas based on the belief that new strategies and 

doctrine will be necessary to meet future requirements. Stephen 

Rosen suggests that military planners are “driven to consider 

the need for innovation by broad structural changes in the security environment in which their organizations would have to 

fight for the foreseeable future, not by specific capabilities or 

intentions of potential adversaries.”34 The implication is that 

senior leaders must recognize the Chinese ASAT test not as an 

84
MILITARY DIMENSION

85

isolated event, merely attributable to one nation, but as a structural shift toward space as a contested environment. In this 

context, a space alliance may prove to be the innovative strategy necessary to ensure national security.

Space leaders must also acknowledge the inherent deterrent 

value in sharing space surveillance with a global audience. 

General Shelton explains that “if our adversaries know that we 

know what’s going on in orbit, then they’re going to be constrained.”35 To this end, the United States ought to consider 

including China as a space surveillance partner. China’s ambitious plans in space will continue to drive requirements for an 

increasingly sophisticated space surveillance network. Furthermore, China’s overall economic growth continues to climb 

at an unprecedented rate, surpassed only by the rate at which 

China has increased defense spending.36 If major space-faring 

nations express interest in an international space alliance designed to ensure collectively the protection of global space assets through shared awareness, there is little doubt China will 

want to join. China’s desire for international prestige and relevance takes precedence over its desire to become a major space 

power, and from China’s perspective, the latter enables the former. As General Kehler notes, “When you get better situational 

awareness; when you have the capability to attribute; our view 

is that you are enhancing deterrence. It is becoming clearer to 

all that there’s not a way to make an on-orbit activity look like 

an anomaly or a technical problem. It informs what a whole 

range of response options might be.”37 Consequently, the United 

States’ best option in response to China’s space weapons program may be to join together to lift the veil of obscurity shadowing orbital operations.

Summary

The vertical disharmony within national security space is largely 

attributable to the lack of a national space strategy. No single individual or office has purview over the entire military space infrastructure, which has struggled to translate national level policies 

into coherent, meaningful action. The result—national security 

space is stalled in a paradigm no longer useful to adequately 
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86

shape the global environment. A new, multilateral international 

security space alliance is one possible option for like-minded 

space-faring nations to prepare for operations in the contested 

environment of space. 

Shared space surveillance has the potential to underpin a 

space protection strategy for all alliance members. Current 

trends in space surveillance suggest challenging times lie 

ahead: the number of objects in space is increasing, the size of 

these objects is decreasing, and the cost of new space systems 

continues to wreak havoc on defense budgets. Significant 

change will require horizontal integration across the instruments of power, but the onus is on the US military to begin the 

process by pursuing possible solutions with like-minded, 

space-faring nations and present options to its civilian leaders. 

Space superiority can be America’s destiny, but US space forces 

must be prepared to achieve it with coalition partners, as do 

their land, air, and sea counterparts.

Notes

1. “Shelton: Space Warfare Is Certain.” 

2. Mastalir, “China’s ASAT Test,” 114.

3. “Cartwright: U.S. Needs Multifold Response.” 

4. Congress, Defense Authorization Request for Fiscal Year 2008. 

5. Congress, Fiscal Year 2008 National Defense Authorization Budget Request.

6. Little, “Space Chief.”

7. Chavanne, “Space Integral to Military.”

8. Magnuson, “Murky Picture.”

9. Pollpeter, “Building for the Future,” 5.

10. Information Office of the State Council of the PRC, China’s Space Activities in 2006.

11. DOD, Annual Report to Congress: The Military Power of the People’s 

Republic of China, 2007, 42. 

12. “XSS-11 Microsatellite.”

13. Erickson, “Microsatellites,” 8–9. Dr. Erickson cites a variety of published Chinese sources: Zhang, Chao, and Jiawei, “Microsatellite Digital 

Synthesis Simulation”; Wei and Xue, “Microsatellite Liquid Gas Propulsion 

Technology”; Zuo and Song, “Microsatellite Magnetic Survey”; Tang and 

Zhao, “ ‘Aerospace Qinghua 1’ Microsatellite”; and Liu and Huang, “CMOS 

Camera in Microsatellite Applications.” 

14. “TS-1 (Tansuo-1).”

15. “ASAT.”

16. Krebs, “XSS-11.”
MILITARY DIMENSION

87

17. Wilson, “Threats to United States Space Capabilities,” 5.

18. Congress, Fiscal Year 2009 National Defense Authorization Budget Request for National Security Space Activities: Statement of Mr. Gary E. Payton; 

and Ibid., Statement of General C. Robert Kehler. 

19. The Commission to Assess US National Security Space Management, 

a panel led by Donald Rumsfeld, first recommended the concept of an MFP 

for space spending in its January 2001 report. However, the DOD chose to 

create a virtual MFP instead.

20. Lambeth, “Footing the Bill for Military Space.” 

21. Spencer, briefing, Air Force Budget Office charts 11–12.

22. Pincus, “Space Defense Program Gets Extra Funding.”

23. Morris, “Decisions on SBSS Expected.”

24. Clark, “Space Radar Is Canceled.” 

25. Senate, Space Acquisitions, 12.

26. Cavas, “Thousand Ship Navy.”

27. Gordon, “Summit in Moscow.”

28. European Commission, Report of the Panel of Experts on Space and 

Security, 36.

29. Hitchens, “Military Satellites 2006,” 30.

30. Donath et al., “European Space Surveillance System Study,” 2, 18, 

23.

31. Congress, Fiscal Year 2008 National Defense Authorization Budget Request.

32. Kehler, address.

33. Unless otherwise indicated, this paragraph draws from a set of internal Pentagon documents presented to the French air force delegation. Headquarters Air Force, “USAF-FAF [French air force] Space Ops Working Group,” 

5 February 2008.

34. Rosen, Winning the Next War, 75.

35. Magnuson, “Murky Picture.”

36. Analysis of PRC budget data and International Monetary Fund gross 

domestic product (GDP) data for the period of 1996 to 2006 reflects how average annual defense budget growth of 11.8 percent (inflation adjusted) compared with average annual GDP growth of 9.2 percent (inflation adjusted). 

DOD, Annual Report to Congress: The Military Power of the People’s Republic 

of China, 2008.

37. Kehler, address.

89

Chapter 7

Findings/Conclusion

Even if the aim is much more ambitious, to devise and 

implement a grand strategy that will harmonize policy 

on all levels, the impediments can be overcome by great 

intellectual effort, sheer tenacity, and much political 

ingenuity.

—Edward Luttwak

China’s ascendance as a major space power, as demonstrated 

by its acquisition and employment of space weapons, is a matter of consequence at the US grand-strategic level. Consequently, it is appropriate that the US response draws upon all 

elements of US national power. Physicist Thomas Kuhn once 

argued that new paradigms emerge when a crisis reveals the 

inability of the existing structure to provide a solution.1 China’s 

test may be the crisis that overturns the traditional US approach to national security space. If so, Luttwak’s assertions 

defining the power of paradoxical logic and dimensional harmony in grand strategy provide a useful framework to explore 

possible US response options. 

Still, the alternatives explored in this thesis were chosen for 

reasons beyond their paradoxical value. First, each represents 

a plausible option when measured against the assumptions 

stated at the beginning of this paper. These assumptions were 

drawn from a relatively comprehensive review of open-source 

material and selected based on a careful analysis of Chinese 

foreign diplomacy, military strategy, doctrine, culture, and bureaucratic politics as a possible means to better explain China’s 

intentions.2 Different assumptions would yield different response options. For example, the military strategist who believes China’s expansionist goals include most of eastern Asia, 

the Pacific, and beyond (perhaps including Hawaii), could make 

a strong argument for immediate, aggressive military action. 

One would deem it foolhardy for the United States to wait when 

each successive year of Chinese military modernization repre-
FINDINGS/CONCLUSION

90

sents a decline in the likelihood of a decisive US victory. Of 

course, the evidence does not support such assertions regarding China’s expansionist goals or other forms of colonial or economic imperialism. Consequently, Senator Kyl’s call for exorbitant space-based counter-ASAT platforms specifically designed 

to destroy China’s space weapons should not receive a position 

of prominence in the final solution set.3

The alternatives explored in this paper are consistent with 

another limiting factor—resources. All too often studies of this 

nature include a wide range of options, from the fiscally possible to the fiscally inconceivable. Cost is then applied as a variable to ascertain which options are best, a largely futile exercise given the thin margins that exist in current military 

budgets. A more useful approach is to treat cost as a fixed constant, not a variable. Innovative solutions typically emerge 

when resources are constrained, and problem solvers are forced 

to stretch boundaries other than the nation’s checkbook. Again, 

the assumptions stated at the beginning of this work do not 

warrant a radical restructuring of the president’s budget; consequently, options requiring as much were not considered in 

this research. Minor adjustments within the DOD budget, however, may be necessary, such as creating a major force program 

for space to preserve the integrity of existing space appropriations. But prudence must prevail over zeal. Luttwak notes that 

the United States once “spent hundreds of millions of dollars 

on specialized antitank aircraft needed only against massed

armor, which [were] never used because massed antiaircraft 

guns are then present as well.”4 The parallel here is that pouring hundreds of billions of dollars against one relatively modest, direct-ascent weapon is likely no wiser. Enduring solutions 

are far more prudent.

The challenge in formulating a US response, therefore, is 

choosing a solution set that measures favorably against the 

entering assumptions, fits within the existing budget, and finally, achieves horizontal and vertical harmony. For example, 

the disharmony in US foreign policy toward China is easily discernible when one attempts to answer a single question: does 

the United States want China to evolve as a major space power? 

On the one hand, one might instinctively answer no since a 

zero-sum mentality continues to shape US thinking about the 
FINDINGS/CONCLUSION

91

space domain. On the other hand, one could conclude yes 

based on numerous references in a great number of policy instruments and US efforts to integrate China into the global 

economy. Of course, the dialogue will invariably devolve to “it 

depends,” based on the extent to which China’s interests align 

with US interests. This level of disharmony, present throughout US policy instruments as well as its other instruments of 

power, makes it increasingly difficult to develop a coherent national security space strategy to complement or oppose China’s 

rise—whichever it is the United States decides to do. Luttwak 

suggests, “Whether its goals are set by tradition, bureaucratic 

compromise, a dictator’s whim, or democratic choice, they 

must be consistent. It does not matter if they are wise or foolish 

in anyone’s opinion, but they cannot be mutually exclusive or 

ranked inconsistently, for otherwise the definition of a grand 

strategy cannot even begin.”5

Vertical and horizontal harmony are critical if enduring solutions are to prevail. For example, the United States claimed vertical victory after a long feud between American and European 

space representatives over the frequency plan for Galileo, an EU 

alternative to the Global Positioning System. However, such victories can prove Pyrrhic if significant damage is incurred in the 

horizontal dimension. It remains to be seen if American rigidity 

over Galileo will significantly impair its ability to form an international security space alliance in areas such as space surveillance less than five years later. For the Europeans’ part, China’s 

new Beidou navigation system becomes more problematic every 

year, as recent developments suggest China intends to make 

the system available to both military (PLA) and commercial 

consumers, essentially undermining a large segment of Galileo’s 

potential market share.6 As the Europeans increasingly marginalized China’s partnership status with Galileo, the Beidou program became an attractive option for Chinese policy makers. 

China has seemingly compensated its diminished influence in 

the vertical dimension with increased influence in the horizontal 

dimension, a move that may prove problematic for both the Europeans and the Chinese. The paradox of vertical success may 

ultimately preclude the enduring solution each party once 

sought. Michael Shaw, from the US government’s National 

Space-Based Positioning, Navigation, and Timing Coordination 
FINDINGS/CONCLUSION

92

Office in Washington, DC, notes the irony. “Frankly, China’s 

behavior towards Europe is not so different to how Europe behaved with us [the United States] when GPS was the only game 

in town a decade ago,” Shaw stated.7

There are no fail-safe tests to determine which solution sets 

simultaneously offer vertical and horizontal harmony. However, 

a number of criteria may provide insight as to how one might 

proceed to formulate a US response. First, the options considered for inclusion in the final solution set must have some reasonable source of political sponsorship. Just as states rarely (if 

ever) act contrary to their own interests, organizations rarely assume significant risks without political cover. As America has 

recently gone through a national election cycle, timing may also 

impact the political calculus. Second, the options must provide 

for enduring, rather than temporary effects. Perhaps the truest 

test of multidimensional harmony is to consider whether the 

proposed options have the endurance necessary to weather extreme swings in the geopolitical environment. NATO serves as a 

reasonable example. Finally, the options must be structural, not 

contextual in nature. In other words, the options, as a whole, 

must represent a net gain for national security as opposed to 

just one that merely addresses a specific conflict. A structural 

solution is one that addresses the larger issue of the advent and 

likely proliferation of space weaponry rather than merely the 

seemingly provocative actions of China on 11 January 2007. The 

final step, therefore, requires one to assimilate the filtered options to define a solution set in terms of the relationships and 

interactions of multiple options or intervening variables. These 

variables are not necessarily competing options but rather feed 

into and support the US strategy for response. The final solution 

must have, at a minimum, political sponsorship, enduring qualities, and structural implications if it is to produce harmony in 

the vertical and horizontal dimensions.

The problem with the 2006 National Space Policy is not the 

form or function of the guidance it provides but the complete 

lack of energy with which it was introduced and consequently 

implemented. US representative Jane Harman characterized the 

problem perfectly when she stated, “Both the administration 

and Congress have been snoozing. . . . Seven years after the 

Rumsfeld Commission Report . . . and more than a year after the 
FINDINGS/CONCLUSION

93

Chinese ASAT test, we do not, in my view, have an adequate 

space strategy.”8 Fundamentally, the 2006 National Space Policy is not flawed. As a national-level instrument of policy, it 

provides the broad guidance necessary to build a national security space strategy. However, the competing interests of the DOD 

and the intelligence community have directly contributed to the 

horizontal disharmony within the policy dimension. The need 

for executive- and congressional-level leadership is urgent.

The new administration may choose to revise the national 

space policy as a mechanism to signal change in America’s approach to national security space and international cooperation, 

further distancing the new administration from the preceding 

one. When this occurs, a number of actions must immediately 

follow. The new president should revive a White House–level national space council to ensure executive-level leadership remains 

engaged in space issues. As one of its first tasks, the council 

ought to conduct a thorough review of all relevant national policies to identify elements of contradictory or self-defeating policy 

guidance. In particular, the council must champion efforts to 

make substantive changes to export control directives.

The Congress must direct the secretary of defense and the 

director of national intelligence to produce a national security 

space strategy. Hitherto, neither organization has been able to 

lead the effort to consensus.9 Such a strategy must underwrite 

future efforts to form an international security space alliance. 

For the military’s part, efforts to explore areas of mutual interest 

with allied nations must continue in earnest. Military leaders 

should measure the interest of all space-faring nations to create 

an international space surveillance fusion center, perhaps modeled after NATO’s new intelligence fusion center in Molesworth, 

United Kingdom.10 Among other functions, the center should 

provide fused data for predictive analysis of space weather, comprehensive space object identification and tracking, and space 

traffic control services for worldwide launch and orbital maneuvers.11 To be a powerful deterrent, the space-surveillance fusion 

center must attain the capability to identify and geolocate sources 

of interference originating from both ground- and space-based 

sources, effectively forming a neighborhood watch program for 

all contributing partners.12 The key will be to identify the security interests common to all space-faring nations.
FINDINGS/CONCLUSION

94

The brilliance of the international security space alliance is 

the way it achieves vertical harmony within the political/diplomatic dimension. The astute reader may have noted the apparent disharmony present among the various options described 

in that dimension. Several of the options serve only to strengthen 

the perceptions of other space-faring nations that the United 

States intends to conduct space warfare. For example, the US 

rejection of a space weapons ban juxtaposed with US efforts to 

establish definitions of hostile acts and intents in space are difficult to reconcile against the stated goals of the National Space 

Policy. However, the fusion center, as part of a broader international security space alliance, aptly aligns these efforts. Confidence-building measures, such as escalatory constraints, can 

be explored in an unassuming manner, as part of an alliance 

charter. Treaties designed to ban the use of weapons in space 

may become more palatable once space surveillance assets become capable of treaty verification. Conceivably, the alliance 

could one day employ defensive space weapons of its own, authorized to take the actions necessary to preserve each nation’s 

access to its space assets.13 The terrestrial corollary is a missile 

shield designed to protect all nations on earth, the implications 

of which are intriguing, even if they border on science fiction. 

To create horizontal harmony across multiple dimensions, 

the fusion center must evolve to include space industry partners. Space, as a contested environment, creates consequences 

that extend beyond military space. The inclusion of commercial 

space entities serves two purposes. First, it extends the umbrella of space protection to commercial assets, which remain 

an integral part of the national security space enterprise. For 

example, the US military relies heavily on commercial communication satellites to satisfy the tremendous bandwidth requirements derived from network-centric warfare, while commercial 

imaging satellites provide imagery to the US National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency for military and intelligence users.14

Second, it achieves corporate sponsorship which translates 

into funding. The space indemnity implications alone may drive 

commercial participation. The Teal Group made the following 

observation shortly after China’s ASAT test: “About the last 

thing that the satellite market needs now is the uncertainty 

that will accompany any moves to start blowing up objects in 
FINDINGS/CONCLUSION

95

space or arming military satellites with protective countermeasures. The added debris problem is bad enough. An ASAT 

weapons race will have the effect of increasing the financial 

risk of any satellite program, and this will undoubtedly be felt 

most within the commercial market through decreased investor confidence and (or) higher insurance rates.”15

China’s space weapons test revealed significant vertical disharmony within the information dimension as well. Space operators got a first glimpse at the dynamic environment in which 

future space conflicts may unfold. Only strong organizational 

relationships between the Air Force, Strategic Command, the 

Defense Intelligence Agency, and the National Reconnaissance 

Office, along with mature internal and external processes, will 

ensure the timely flow of critical information during space warfare. The irony of the 11 January test is that it may have strengthened America’s space war-fighting posture by revealing the 

strengths and weaknesses of existing organizational relationships, machine-to-machine interfaces, and system processors. 

That China’s nefarious activities might be considered a net loss, 

both diplomatically and militarily, serves as an important consideration for future US plans regarding space weaponry.

US efforts to gain transparency regarding China’s intentions 

will benefit from horizontal integration across the other instruments of national power. Increased military engagement, at the 

operator, staff, and general-officer levels is necessary to build the 

enduring relationships that can yield greater transparency over 

time. Diplomatically, the United States must remain engaged, exploring confidence-building measures to (1) further limit the creation of debris in space, (2) establish mechanisms of escalation 

control, and (3) proliferate well-established norms to new spacefaring nations. The decision to suspend plans to develop space 

ventures with China, including joint exploration of the moon in 

the aftermath of the ASAT test, only exacerbated the distrust between the two nations and moved the United States further from 

its goals toward transparency.16 To this end, it is critical that China’s participation in the space alliance is not repressively conditional. Like new weapon systems, new alliances risk the paradoxical consequence of triggering a security dilemma. Restricting 

membership in the new “space club” will likely create disharmonies that could undermine its utility. The United States must re-
FINDINGS/CONCLUSION

main engaged and earn the trust of other space-faring nations 

before it can expect to gain significant transparency. 

Significant changes to existing export control laws, most notably ITAR, must be part of this new engagement strategy. ITAR 

has had the self-defeating effect of accelerating the proliferation of space technologies and, indeed, entire industries around 

the globe. ITAR reforms desperately need political sponsorship. 

The satellite industry cannot negotiate substantive reforms on 

its own behalf, and many politicians are far too risk averse to 

vote for measures that may be perceived as detrimental to national security. Marion Blakely notes that “the ITAR issue has 

been a minefield for many administrations. Future change 

won’t come from an administration that is politically risk averse. 

This is a thing you can only do when your political capital is 

very high.”17 The military, as a stakeholder, has a vested interest in a thriving space industry to procure the systems and 

capabilities it needs to fight the nation’s wars. Military leaders 

may be the only true, honest brokers to negotiate the changes 

to the US Munitions List that will allow the space industry 

greater participation in the global market. To this end, military 

leaders must encourage lawmakers to work toward a solution 

that balances the need for secrecy with the need for a competitive industry. The effort must be integrated horizontally, with 

diplomatic efforts to negotiate enduring legal instruments with 

close allies such as Britain, Canada, and Australia. The timing 

is critical, and an opportunity exists within the first year of the 

Obama administration, ensuring a buffer of time between subsequent election cycles.

Elements of this strategy portend controversy. The United 

States, for example, must be willing to share what historically 

has been considered highly sensitive information. The National 

Reconnaissance Organization prefers to keep the exact location 

of its collection assets secret since savvy adversaries generally 

take appropriate countermeasures when collection assets are 

known to be overhead. The reality is that for years amateur 

space hobbyists have tracked and published the locations of all 

of the organization’s space-based assets on the Internet.18

Technologically, the NRO believes it must remain at least one 

generation ahead of commercial sensors to maintain America’s 

asymmetric advantage in space. ITAR is supposed to prevent 

96
FINDINGS/CONCLUSION

97

the proliferation of such technologies and thereby negate the 

possibility that an adversary could employ similar capabilities. 

However, as markets for “ITAR-free” components continue to 

mature, it will not be long before foreign counterparts to USbased corporations like DigitalGlobe and GeoEye field sensors 

with competing technologies. General Shelton notes that “the 

commercialization of space has allowed many developing nations and non-state actors to acquire space-based capabilities 

such as imagery and satellite communications that were previously the exclusive purview of superpowers.”19 Culturally, the 

NRO still prefers to work alone, as evidenced by its decision to 

invest in a program known as the Broad Area Satellite Imagery 

Collection. The organization recently lost some decision authority for the program, which some officials believe violates 

national policies that direct “the military and intelligence community to rely on commercial satellites for general mapping 

purposes.”20 The existing strategies for space protection, embodied in the cultural biases of organizations like the NRO, no 

longer have the enduring quality that once made them valid. 

The trends in the proliferation of space capabilities, both commercially and militarily, suggest it is time to consider a more 

transparent strategy.

One area that warrants additional research is the US decision not to issue a demarche to China through diplomatic 

channels in the days and weeks leading to the January launch. 

Presumably, one debate took place between the intelligence apparatus and other stakeholders over the potential for intelligence collection. Another possibility is that members of the 

State Department believed a demarche would yield little value, 

that China would proceed with the test despite US objections, 

and the United States would emerge diplomatically emasculated. Little is known about the deliberations at the highest 

levels of the US government, but as information becomes available, an interesting case study in diplomacy will likely emerge.

Luttwak’s model encourages planners to seek horizontal and 

vertical harmony in the strategies they employ. As shown here, 

the model is also useful in formulating a coherent response to 

a problem of grand-strategic consequences. US leaders can 

derive meaningful solution sets by seeking answers to seemingly intractable problems across the vertical and horizontal 
FINDINGS/CONCLUSION

98

domains. Only through the careful integration of all the instruments of national power can America find a way forward in 

this new era of contested space.

Summary

China’s ASAT test on 11 January 2007 was not nearly as 

“strategically dislocating” as was the subsequent realization 

that US national security space is ill prepared to meet the attendant challenges of the contested environment––space. Strategies to contain, coerce, or deter China are futile, as Beijing’s 

decision to develop space weapons was one toward greater 

prestige, relevance, and influence as a major space power. A 

new paradigm has emerged. The best response for the United 

States is to prepare for a very different future in space, not with 

weapons in kind, but with enduring solutions to preserve the 

utility of space exploitation for all nations. These solutions require a vertically and horizontally integrated effort across all 

four instruments of national power. Drawing on the inherent 

soft-power element of space, politicians and diplomats must 

craft the instruments necessary to form a national security 

space alliance. The unilateral approach to national security 

space is a broken promise for the future, and space warriors 

need to adopt the coalition mind-set that their land, sea, and 

air counterparts have employed for decades. A multilateral 

space surveillance fusion center must be their highest priority. 

All stakeholders should apply a horizontally integrated approach to difficult problems such as export control, transparency, and engagement. Space superiority can be America’s destiny, if pursued with the cooperation of like-minded space-faring 

nations around the world.

Notes

1. Kuhn, Structure of Scientific Revolution, 77–91.

2. Mastalir, “China’s ASAT Test.”

3. Singer, “Senator Criticizes Bush for Tepid Response.” 

4. Luttwak, Strategy, 259.

5. Ibid., 260.

6. Marks, “China’s Satellite Navigation Plans.”

7. Ibid.

98
FINDINGS/CONCLUSION

99

8. Harman, address.

9. In a letter to the Senate Armed Services Committee, the GAO examines 

the reasons the DOD and DNI have failed to publish a national security space 

strategy. An excerpt from the letter provides insight: 

DOD and the intelligence community have not developed, agreed upon, 

or issued a National Security Space Strategy. The National Security 

Space Office developed a draft strategy in 2004, but it was never issued. 

The Director of the National Security Space Office and the Director of 

Space Policy in the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy 

provided examples of reasons why a strategy has never been issued. 

One reason was that the National Security Council requested that the 

strategy not be issued until the revised National Space Policy was released in October 2006. However, once the policy was released, changes 

in leadership in the National Reconnaissance Office and the Air Force 

delayed the issuance of the strategy. In addition, differences of opinion 

between the defense and intelligence communities over the implementation of the strategy and cultural differences between the two communities further delayed the issuance. 

GAO, Defense Space Activities, 3.

10. Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe, “Launch of Intelligence 

Fusion Centre.” 

11. Peter Hays discusses the benefits of space traffic control in his publication “Military Space Cooperation,” 41–42.

12. Joe Rouge presented the neighborhood watch program to an international audience in 2007. Rouge, address, 25–26 October 2007.

13. It is worth noting that NATO once owned and operated its own constellation of military communication satellites to provide immediate satellite 

communication connectivity between member nations. NATO has since 

leased transponders on three of its members’ nation-owned satellites: the 

French Syracuse series, the Italian Sicral constellation, and the UK Skynet 4

and 5. “NATO Military Communications Satellite.” 

14. Commercial imaging satellite operators like DigitalGlobe and GeoEye 

have multiyear contracts to provide imagery to the US National GeospatialIntelligence Agency. Clark, “NRO Loses Decision Authority.” 

15. Cacéres, “Market Impact Brief ”; and “Teal Group Assesses Satellite 

Market Impact.” 

16. Gertz, “US Halts China Space Ventures.” 

17. Blakey, address.

18. “Hobbyists Track Secret Orbits.” 

19. Senate, Defense Authorization Request for Fiscal Year 2009 and the 

Future Years Defense Program, Statement of Lieutenant General William L. 

Shelton.

20. Clark, “NRO Loses Decision Authority.”

101

Abbreviations

ABM	 anti-ballistic missile

AEHF	 advanced extremely high frequency

AEP	 Architecture Evolution Plan

AFSPC	 Air Force Space Command

AMD	 Air Mobility Division

ASAT	 antisatellite

BA	 Bigelow Aerospace

CCP	 Chinese Communist Party

CIA	 Central Intelligence Agency

CMC	 Central Military Commission

CMOS	 complementary metal-oxide semiconductor

CMSI	 China Maritime Studies Institute

CSAF	 US Air Force Chief of Staff

DIA	 Defense Intelligence Agency

DIME	 diplomatic, informational, military, and

economic

DNI	 Director of National Intelligence

DOD	 Department of Defense

EELV	 evolved expandable launch vehicle

ESA	 European Space Agency

EU	 European Union

GAO	 Government Accountability Office

GDP	 gross domestic product

GPS	 Global Positioning System

IADC	 Inter-Agency Space Debris Coordination

Committee

ITAR	 International Traffic in Arms Regulations

ITU	 International Telecommunications Union

JSPOC	 Joint Space Operations Center

MFP	 major force program

NASA	 National Aeronautics and Space

Administration

NASIC	 National Air and Space Intelligence Center

NATO	 North Atlantic Treaty Organization

NORAD	 North American Aerospace Defense Command

NRO	 National Reconnaissance Office

PLA	 People’s Liberation Army

PRC	 People’s Republic of China
ABBREVIATIONS

102

RMA	 revolution in military affairs

ROE	 rule of engagement

SALT	 Strategic Arms Limitations Talks

SBIRS	 Space-Based Infrared System

SBSS	 space-based space surveillance

SDI	 Strategic Defense Initiative

SMC	 Space and Missile Systems Center

SSA	 space situational awareness

SSN	 space surveillance network

SSS	 shared space surveillance

TAA	 technical assistance agreement

UN	 United Nations

USECAF	 under secretary of the Air Force

USMC	 US Marine Corps

USML	 United States Munitions List

USSTRATCOM	 United States Strategic Command

WGS	 Wideband Global Satellite Communications
103

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The US Response to China’s Mastalir

ASAT Test: An International

Security Space Alliance for

the Future

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The US Response to China’s ASAT Test

An International Security Space Alliance

for the Future

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