Op-Ed: The politics of shooting down a satellite- risks and reasons on the line

The idea is to shoot down the satellite over the Pacific. This reduces risks on the ground from toxic fuels on the satellite, and prevents any possibility of the satellite surviving and its secrets being discovered. (See cgull's article, grouped above) The New York Times: “The challenging mission to demolish it instead on the fringes of space will rely on an unforeseen use of ship-based weapons developed to defend against ballistic missile attacks. That makes it a real-world test both of the nation’s antiballistic missile systems and its antisatellite capabilities, even though the Pentagon said that they were not using the exercise to test their most exotic weapons or send a message to any adversaries.” I think the global reaction to that last sentence would be “You don’t say?” Given the amount of heat generated by the proposed ABM system in Europe, it’s a matter of opinion if any level of tact is involved in this approach. The US didn’t actually have to advertise how it proposed to deal with the satellite, even the existence of which, you’d think, would be intelligence-level information. Cynical people might think this level of detail had other meanings. There’s probably a legitimate need to make sure the satellite isn’t compromised, and there’s a lot of territory where it could fall and have no chance of being recovered without virtual fisticuffs. NYT again: “Even so, the ramifications of the operation are diplomatic as well as military and scientific, in part because the United States criticized China last year when Beijing used a defunct weather satellite as a target in a test of an antisatellite system.

The United States has opposed calls for a treaty limiting antisatellite or other weapons in space. On Thursday, officials pledged that the United States will remain wholly within compliance of treaties requiring the notification of other nations before it launches a missile at the disabled satellite.” Uh-huh. “We’re going to do it anyway”… Actually, the notification is designed to reassure other nations they’re not under attack. It’s really about how you interpret the notification. Difference being that the Chinese, who had some reason to feel nettled by comments at the time by US officials regarding their military spending, were making a point by shooting down that satellite. The US advantage in space has been eroding rapidly, and spy satellites, which were once the sole prerogative of America, are now vulnerable. The Russians, who still have a fully functional nuclear arsenal, have also been very sensitive to the whole concept of ABMs since the 70s. When that incarnate form of human brilliance known as the Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD) principle, (the idea that guaranteed mutual destruction was the best way to discourage a nuclear war), was formulated, it was felt that ABMs undermined the idea, would spoil the fun, compromise the MAD concept, so a treaty prohibiting the development of ABM systems was signed. The US, after the fall of the Soviet Union, developed ABM systems for defence against “rogue states”. Nobody outside the US has ever quite bought that idea. The risk to the US isn’t trivial, but actual use of a nuclear missile against the US would be suicide. Retaliation would be inevitable. It is just possible that someone might be idiot enough to try it, but as justification for a large, global-oriented ABM system, it lacks plausibility. Russia and China are also quite clearly determined not to be in the position of being defenceless, or perceived to be defenceless, with inferior technology. Technology gaps are sensitive things, and some of the rhetoric, and a lot of industrial espionage and “borrowing” of technology, has strategic and commercial reasons. There’s a bit of prestige and credibility on the line, too. Some US anti missile systems have been grotesque failures, and development has been plagued by technical issues. A satellite, which is a relative sitting duck, shouldn’t be a problem, but if it is, you can assume some embarrassing questions will arise. The other side of the coin would be a world wide move to develop large scale anti-satellite systems.