By This is an interesting piece of news that may have greater strategic consequences than the North Korean nuclear test:
China last week successfully used a missile to destroy an orbiting satellite, U.S. government officials told CNN on Thursday, in a test that could undermine relations with the West and pose a threat to satellites important to the U.S. military.
According to a spokesman for the National Security Council, the ground-based, medium-range ballistic missile knocked an old Chinese weather satellite from its orbit about 537 miles above Earth. The missile carried a "kill vehicle" and destroyed the satellite by ramming it.
Why do I say this may have greater strategic impact than the North Korean nuclear test? Despite all the media hype over the North Korean nuclear test, little has changed on the Korean peninsula because of it. Until the North Koreans can demonstrate that they can put a nuclear warhead on a missile and fire it at someone, than the fact that they detonate an extremely small nuclear explosion in a cave is of little consequence at this time.Â
Now the fact that the Chinese have proven they can shoot down a satellite is of huge strategic importance. The US military has gone to great lengths to digitize the force was GPS devices and blue force tracking equipment that can plot and track friendly and enemy locations over a digitized map. Additionally the military has continued to upgrade the Air Forces "smart bombs" to the JDAM GPS guided versions. If hostilities broke out over Taiwan for example, the Chinese could shoot down America’s GPS satellites thus rendering all the American JDAM bombs as ineffective. Does anyone now wonder why the US military won’t do away with conventional bombs such as cluster bombs that have been a popular cause-celeb for anti-military groups to ban?
So what now? The US and other countries are going through the motions of condemning this test through the UN and other diplomatic channels, but realistically I can’t blame the Chinese for conducting the test. It is in their national interest to develop this capability and they know Ban Ki-moon and the United Nations will do nothing to stop them. To expect a great power like China to abide by some agreement to not militarize space is ridiculous. Does anyone think that if China and the US went to war over Taiwan that either side would abide by some treaty not to destroy each others satellites? What the US needs to do is react to this reality by developing technologies not depended on satellites or defensive systems to protect the satellites. Notice that ever since the North Korean nuclear tests you hear no one talking against missile defense. I suspect that with this Chinese missile test that you will hear no one talking against militarizing space now either.Â
After reading about this I immediately thought back to a National Training Center rotation I did a few years back when the evaluators there were making my brigade’s leadership use nothing but the digital technology and the senior leaders were very resistant to it because they were comfortable with using the traditional paper maps, plastic overlays, and grease pencils to manage a battle. It is ironic that we may need to start taking out and training with the paper maps, plastic overlays, and grease pencils again.Â
5:32 am on January 20th, 2007 1
This is huge. The Chinese and Russians think they can get a generation ahead of us in air, space, and missile defense technology while we're bogged down in GWOT, just like they got a generation ahead of us in tanks, APCs, and aircraft while we were bogged down in Vietnam.
9:38 pm on January 20th, 2007 2
You are right, but you do not see no where near as much of a media reaction to this compared to the NK nuclear test.
10:46 am on January 21st, 2007 3
I think that's because China is not yet in the Axis of Evil.
If Iran or North Korea were tomorrow to test something as routine as a Silkworm it would probably be bigger news.
3:08 pm on January 22nd, 2007 4
To be perfectly honest,
I think it's time the adults took charge of world affairs. The generation who thought children should be seen and not heard have done more injustice in this world than any other, and now we're here to clean up the mess.
Thank god the majority of leaders around the world will go to their graves soon, I say majority because there are very few (in west as well) that deserve the positions they hold.
Whilst people in Australia are already out of water because of the drought, we still spend how many million? on an unjust war over oil and now the U.S and its political enemies will again waste billions of dollars driving technology development through the blindfold of war…
To all the children in offce in all western countries, and those in developing economies, pull your fingers out of your arse and take care of the people who support you and make your countries wonderful..
Reading these articles makes me so angry, when will we as a race, not a divided set of sub-cultures learn to embrace one another and share to make this world great for everyone, not just for shareholders and political agenda….
Leigh – Australia
2:34 am on November 20th, 2010 5
Leigh. you do not understand human nature. Read the bible. Humans are evil. It would be wonderful if everyone became good all of the sudden and helped each other out. That will not happen, that is why you must protect yourself against people who follow their evil nature with no outside influence. Nations that have at least some base of the ten commandments in their laws are a totally different animal from countries like Nazi Germany and Atheistic Russia and China, North Korea and Cuba. The government is god and they can do what they please. That's why you end up with things like hospitals ( in china) that cut needed organs out of perfectly good human bodies with no anesthetic, Torture people with power tools and plastic shredders and destroy the environment ten thousand times worse than the united states(Russia). Check out the history of Which countries care. Sure there are things wrong with the US and our allies, but We do CARE.
7:31 am on November 20th, 2010 6
"Reading these articles makes me so angry, when will we as a race, not a divided set of sub-cultures learn to embrace one another and share to make this world great for everyone, not just for shareholders and political agenda…."
Sounds good in theory and unfortunately, it will remain just that; A wholistic peace-loving view of some completely unrealistic utopia. A divided set of sub-cultures has been the norm since day one. The political agendas will remain sub-divided along with ideals, "race" and attitudes.
One might suspect that with the global economy changing the demographics of the world, that the human "race" might indeed change, leading towards more peaceful and harmonious relations between different "sub-cultures". I wouldn't……………..