ANSAT

ANSAT

February 5, 2007

The remaking of the global order that is underway comes in many forms and is being performed by many different nation-state actors. During the Cold War, the United States and the former Soviet Union were the principal actors in the defining and stability of the global order. The east-west concept of the global order is now being redefined by new nation-state actors that did not have power during the Cold War. As the lone superpower in the world today, the United States faces great challenges in this transnational environment. Some competitors claim that we are imperialists trying to control and dominate the world, while others say that we are not doing enough for the world because we are too focused on the War on Terrorism. As the lone superpower, the United States cannot be all things to all nation-states, especially since many democracies in the west are sitting this war out.

Populations within the United States that influence policy have been sheltered from international events since the collapse of communism. When communism faltered, media shifted its focus away from reporting on important international issues that might affect the national security of the United States. America celebrated what was termed as a “peace dividend” when communism collapsed, or more accurately a dividend that meant the world was stepping down from a militarized posture between east and west that existed when communism was confronted by the west during the Cold War. With no communist enemies unified as they were during the Cold War, the United States then began to focus its energies in creating a global economy and a democratization of the world. The American people then were not informed about the other great dangers that still remained in the international community, chief among those dangers the existence of fundamentalist Islam. While Americans took advantage of the peace dividend and reduced the US active duty force by eight full divisions of troops and equipment, fundamentalist Islam was destabilizing the Middle East. Fundamentalist Islam was defined in the media as some other problem that did not concern the United States and therefore the American people were not informed about it to the extent they should have been. Even after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and American involvement in the War on Terrorism, many Americans remain unconvinced about the Islamic fundamentalist militancy that is engaging the west in direct combat action. The media can shape American public opinion much better than the government can, and the media is clearly against the War on Terrorism. It is anticipated then that the American people will side with the media’s opinion about the War on Terrorism because that is where the majority of Americans derive their information about the war and other matters. Media activity against the War on Terrorism is having the same influence on policy that media was able to achieve during the Vietnam War.

As the American people sort out the War on Terrorism using the structured opinions in media that they have available to them, other threats and dangers are also emerging. These threats and dangers are not in the form of a sole hostile nation-state system as was found in the former Soviet-block during the Cold War. The United States is not facing a lone hegemon counter-power that is challenging US objectives in the War on Terrorism and globalization. A new collective of nation-states is appearing to counter US policy—a taking sides so to speak. In times of great global stress from war, nation-states in the international community will always fall into three very specific categories of influence. As international stress increases, nation-states will either become allies, competitors or neutral actors. For example, Venezuela was once allied with the United States and US policy. Venezuela has now moved away from the United States and US policy objectives and has become a competitor nation-state under President Hugo Chavez. Other nation-states that were allied with the United States during the Cold War such as Spain have become neutral states in the War on Terrorism. This means that nation-states can and do change their diplomatic positions as wars appear and security conditions for those states change. A staunch ally during one conflict can change quickly to a neutral partner as another conflict appears, or even become a competitor. The greater the global stress from transnational conflict, the more nation-states will reassert or redefine themselves in their own best interests. Nation-states always do this at the onset of conflict, especially conflicts that have global implications for them and their people.

Now the US media reported recently about a Chinese ANSAT (anti-satellite weapon) test involving the destruction of an old Chinese weather satellite using a PRC missile at roughly just over 500 miles in altitude above the Earth. The Chinese ANSAT was in fact a kinetic weapon that did not use an explosive warhead to destroy the satellite. The mere velocity of the missile itself was enough to completely destroy the satellite in space. When this test was conducted, the United States and many other countries responded strongly to it through diplomatic channels and the media. The media claimed that the test was conducted as a warning by China to other countries not to “weaponize” space. The Chinese ANSAT test meant more than the media has reported.

First, the United States uses space assets in all military planning for war. For example, US satellites provide US military forces with Global Positioning Systems data so that our military can always know where it is operating around the world at any time of day or night. Second, US space systems provide our military with precision munitions capability, or the means to accurately deliver munitions by land or air using GPS satellite systems. Third, US space systems are used for surveillance purposes to gather intelligence on hostile nation-states. This intelligence capability can prevent wars from occurring because if we can see what is going on inside a hostile nation-state, the fog of war is lifted. Without such capability, the United States would have to rely upon other methods to secure information from within a hostile nation-state system that are not as accurate as direct satellite surveillance. Fourth, since global television and other communications is now being adopted solely from satellite transmissions instead of the UHF and VHF bands that were used before, a safe and secure low-orbit for satellites performing such functions is required so that there is no interruption of such services to consumers. Lastly, humankind’s access to space is also dependent on a weapons-free threat from Earth.

The Chinese ANSAT weapon then has tremendous implications not just for satellites the weapon may target, but overall access to space itself. The weapon destroys satellites and other space objects and leaves a very large debris cluster in its wake. This debris cluster, if it becomes large enough, can deny other nation-states from accessing space with their space programs. For example, if a US Space Shuttle were launched and passed through the debris field created by the Chinese ANSAT weapon, the Space Shuttle would not survive and NASA may be forced to suspend all current and future space missions.

ANSAT weapons are clearly unethical because their use could be defined as having one particular purpose (to destroy a hostile satellite) while exasperating unintended consequences in other peaceful areas such as Space Science (denying space to NASA vehicles).

Why would China act so unethically in testing such a weapon? The short answer as the Chinese government is concerned is access to oil. The communist PRC government won’t come out and explain its full motives for testing the weapon, so it is important to explore that now. The Chinese communists in Beijing control an ever-increasing and valuable capitalist economy. We are talking about an economy that is approaching $4 trillion dollars per year and growing rapidly at 7% per year. The Chinese ANSAT test was all about power and US influence in the Middle East. The Chinese government is becoming very concerned about several factors in the War on Terrorism:

The PRC government does not want to lose control over China’s capitalist society because the only real power in China rests in those few within the proletariat that control the economy and their benefactors.

China’s economy is heavily dependent upon oil imports, and any security situation internationally that sees open warfare occur in oil-producing nation-states will make the Chinese very nervous.

The Chinese may be sending the United States a signal to turn off the war in Iraq. The Chinese have $1.4 trillion dollars invested in US hard currency reserves and if oil prices rise or oil supplies become threatened because of conflict in the Middle East or elsewhere, the Chinese stand to lose a large segment of their position in the global economy. An expanded war in Iran, for example, would be unpalatable to the Chinese.

The destruction of the Chinese weather satellite by the new PRC ANSAT weapons system can be replicated against any low orbit space object, to include the International Space Station. The ANSAT weapon can also be modified to release steel debris in space to contaminate orbits above the Earth that could prevent access to space by US space vehicles and other assets. Since the US military uses space as a cornerstone of military operations in foreign theatres of war, denying the United States access to space or destroying US equipment in space would make it much more difficult for the United States to use precision-guided munitions, maintain effective battlefield communications and also contributes to an increased fogging of war that would foster dangerous escalations due to inadequate intelligence both on the battlefield and in evaluating global security.

The United States has invested more than any other country in the world on sophisticated and humane weapons that are delivered to their targets with the assistance of space assets. Precision-guided munitions are humane because they attempt to minimize collateral damage on the battlefield, rather than having to resort to carpet-bombing methods used in previous wars. The engagement and destruction of US satellite systems that allow the United States to conduct war with precision guided munitions will actually send warfare back in time in terms of how wars are fought and will again expose non-combatant populations to collateral damage. As a foundation of modern war, the destruction of US satellite systems by an aggressor nation-state would mean a return to area-effect conventional bombing such as what occurred in Dresden and other examples, if the United States were even able to find the resolve to do so in the face of a very hostile international media. The “make a war and no one shall come” advancements in Military Science would be replaced with warfighting operations derived from the experiences of World War Two, Korea and Vietnam. Also, denying the United States access to space for civilian space science programs as developed by NASA would hurt the entire global scientific community and cooperation between states today in space science research will deteriorate. There would be no further incentive for the United States to share scientific breakthroughs related to space science if states use that information to advance space weapons programs.

These events, when compiled together with other security conditions, paint a mosaic of shifting alliances transnationally in the United Nations. With Syria now supplying insurgents in Iraq with SA-7 MANPAD Surface to Air Missiles that have shot down four US helicopters in the past week and Iran supplying laser-activated anti-tank mines used as IED’s, this is systemic to interference in US military operations. At the same time, Venezuela has been pushing for the confiscation of privately-held US corporations under the guise of Marxist socialism, attacking the US economy. Add to that China’s ANSAT test which can demonstrably threaten the very functionality of all US military operations, and we now see attacks upon the US economy, the US military in a theatre of war and threatened operations against US space assets that could cripple future military operations and potentially deny the United States access to lower orbits of space.

These are not activities of peace, and yet the media and growing segments of the US domestic population now seek peace from hostile global forces that are not interested in peace and western conflict resolution. In fact, these events may trigger even greater global conflict and force a reluctant and politically polarized America into more dangerous war scenarios or isolation and a collapse of the western globalization concept.

Withdrawing from Iraq and the War on Terrorism would allow other nation-states to redefine globalization and force the US into isolation and marginalization.

Christopher Farmer

MS, National Security

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