Chinese can hit enemies where it hurts

From The Weekend Australian, January 20, 2007, by Greg Sheridan ...

IF China is going to shoot anything down, it is better that it be one of its own satellites. The Chinese action is instructive on several levels. It proves definitively that China can take out satellites if it wants to. We are reminded, once again, of China's burgeoning technological capabilities.....

....Now we know that it is also looking very, very closely at the US's satellite vulnerability. This is nothing new to strategic analysts, but to have China confirm it so dramatically is an important new development.

For years, critics of the US Star Wars program, which involves shooting down fast-travelling multiple missiles, have noted that it might work against a rogue state like North Korea. But it would not work against a big powerful state like China or Russia because they could shoot down the US satellites down that control such systems.

China's latest action has exposed a more general US military vulnerability. Most US military hi-tech equipment is deeply integrated through satellites, computers and the most advanced IT capacity. It is this "system of systems" that constitutes the much ballyhooed revolution in military affairs. But such deep reliance on hi-tech creates its own vulnerability....

..... whereas the war on terror has shown that against non-state actors it is US soldiers on the ground who are most important, in a conventional conflict against another big power like China, even a limited conflict focused on Taiwan, US military assets would be greatly compromised if its satellites were attacked. In particular, the US technical intelligence capacity could be swiftly and devastatingly degraded and it is this operational intelligence superiority that is at the heart of much US military power.

Calls to demilitarise space are fairly meaningless. It is inconceivable that nations could be in military conflict with each other and observe a protocol that allowed them to kill each other's soldiers, and perhaps each other's civilians as collateral damage, but not touch each other's satellites. Whatever anyone says about the demilitarisation of space, whatever protocols are signed, if there is ever, God forbid, a conflict between two technically proficient big powers like the US and China, it will be fearsomely destructive and satellites will be among the first targets.

....China's action reminds us that hard power trumps soft power every time, and that the nations of Asia are collectively engaged in a big arms build-up....