Sputnik'd Again?
On October 4, 1957, the Soviet Union launched Sputnik I, the first man-made object to achieve earth orbit. NASA's website labels this as a shock felt round the globe, the event that triggered the Cold War's long and dangerous U.S. versus Soviet Union space race. In an eerily parallel development one-half century later, on January 12, 2007 local time, the People's Republic of China successfully tested a kinetic-kill antisatellite (ASAT) ballistic missile, destroying one of their own aging weather satellites. Why care? Because once perfected and deployed, any operational ASAT system can hold at risk hundreds of assets vital to American network-centric intelligence, deterrence, and warfighting. What are we to make of this latest strain to the Beijing/DC relationship, specifically in the sphere of China's future military intentions?

Much commentary has already been published. Reactions by experienced China watchers seem to range all over the map. The ASAT weapon test has variously been called a direct challenge to America's superpower status, or a symbolic bargaining chip, or a possible rogue operation, or a foreign policy blunder that's certain to have bad repercussions, or an irresponsible act of pollution with hazardous orbital debris. Even media outlets that traditionally have come across as sympathetic to China warn that the test might be the harbinger of a new arms race in space. My own take is that most but not all of these interpretations are at least partly correct. It's not a question of picking only one as the most fitting. The ASAT test is best weighed by putting it within a much broader context, of China's pronouncements in print and her observable behaviors upon the world commons.

Perhaps by no coincidence, the rather dramatic test came only two weeks after the PRC government released its biennial white paper in official English translation, "China's National Defense in 2006," and not quite three months after the troubling encounter on the high seas between a Song-class diesel sub and the USS Kitty Hawk carrier battle group; it also came barely half a year after a Chinese ground-based laser painted an orbiting American satellite. (A sufficiently powerful laser can knock out a satellite; a weaker one can illuminate it for accurate terminal homing by a kinetic-kill antisatellite missile.)

While continuing to proclaim that China is "following a peaceful development road" and "standing for effective disarmament and arms control," the defense white paper in self-contradiction makes reference to strengthening PRC nuclear counterattack capabilities, enhancing offensive air operations, modernizing C3I and ECM through "informationization," and building a powerful navy which as President Hu Jintao put it must be prepared for combat "at any time." The white paper, though well organized and crisply written, has been rightly criticized as doing nothing real to clarify China's future martial intentions. Reading between the lines is not reassuring. If anything, China's latest pacifist verbiage comes across as boilerplated, disingenuous propaganda.

One example of Chinese aggressiveness is that the ASAT test wasn't formally announced in advance. This violated well-established international norms, where prior notice is both an expected diplomatic courtesy and a critical method of avoiding misunderstandings that could start a war. Such an omission by Beijing is unmistakably provocative and has to be intentional.

The vexed question remains of whether the PRC is actually becoming -- either by design or as a collateral effect of its overall rise -- a serious military threat to the United States and our allies and interests abroad. When publicly discussing Washington's policy of constructive engagement toward a peaceful partnership with Beijing, the (joint, theater-wide) Commander, U.S. Pacific Command emphasized that a foreign nation can't be categorized as a threat unless it has or will have both actual capabilities and verifiable intent to challenge America in some form of armed conflict. This clarification of nomenclature is more than semantics or sophistry; it reiterates the onus placed on the U.S. defense, intelligence, and diplomatic communities to pin down China's genuine aspirations, whatever they may be.

I'd make the case that any consistent pattern of overt actions, combined with a climbing or falling trend in military muscle, viewed together in detail can sometimes unambiguously telegraph a country's main goals, no matter how tight-lipped its leaders. China's continuing de facto insistence on opacity regarding the ASAT test and her massive military build-up in general are important data points for figuring out what Beijing ultimately wants. One would think that a peace-loving nation, which China stridently professes to be, should be much more forthcoming as to transparency demanded from abroad.

But the PRC insists that democracy is something practiced between nations, not necessarily within them. Sovereignty is claimed to take absolute primacy on the global stage; outside pressures about human rights, free speech, foreign currency exchange, etc., amount to unwelcome meddling. This PRC doctrine applies equally to security issues. Things do look problematic regarding China opening up sincerely about her military intent. Thus one useful approach is to carefully watch what China does, not just listen to and naively accept whatever she says -- or treat her silences as meaning good news.

At the start of the 20th century, famous British naval strategist Julian Corbett articulated that the world's oceans could be viewed as a form of "common." By that he meant territory open to all for the unfettered conduct of commercial, exploratory, transportation, and defense affairs. But like any common in the conventional sense, such as a city park, police enforcement was needed to prevent illicit or belligerent activities. This is how sea power became prominent in Corbett's writings, consistent with his great near-contemporary, American sea power theorist A. T. Mahan.

Since the dawn of aviation, international air space turned into another common, with its own set of rules and safety protocols. Much more recently, analysts have said that both outer space and cyberspace can also be seen as world commons. Unfortunately, China is increasingly militarizing all these commons, in a way that seems substantially more belligerent than benign.

In the common of outer space, China has disturbed and angered many other countries by her ASAT weapon demonstration followed immediately by a stubborn refusal to even confirm or deny that the testing took place. And one thing this definitely wasn't is a fait accomplit by rogues or a clique of "disgruntled generals." Via shrewd machinations President Hu has contrived to consolidate his position as both head of state and commander in chief, with tight control over a loyal People's Liberation Army, Air Force, Second Artillery Force (includes ICBMs), and Navy. Another one of the hats Hu wears is General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party. As the defense white paper indicates, the PLA "is dedicated to providing an important source of strength for consolidating the ruling position of the Communist Party of China." It also says that one key task of the PLA's General Political Department is "guaranteeing -- politically, ideologically and organizationally -- the nature of the people's army under the absolute leadership of the Party." The ASAT test must have been authorized at the highest levels of government.

In the common of air space, China's increasing offensive ambitions have already been alluded to (as documented in the white paper). Her unveiling of the advanced Jian-10 fighter bomber jet reportedly surprised many Western analysts. China's interest in building aircraft carriers implies a desire for even greater might in the arena of power projection over vast distances.

In the common of cyberspace, the Chinese government last autumn conducted a highly disruptive hacker attack, called Tiger Rain, into the Naval War College's computer systems. When I attended a two-day seminar at the College's campus in early December -- interestingly enough, on the subject of China's energy needs and implications for American maritime strategy -- the systems were still shut down for a careful forensic analysis of the methods of forced entry, and for a thorough damage assessment concerning the scope of the intrusion. This premeditated cyber offensive -- which at a minimum created considerable expense and major inconvenience -- doesn't come close to being an act of war under prevailing international law. But the unbridled expansion and increasing complexity of the cyberspace common might eventually force the equivalent of Geneva Conventions on when such an electronic intrusion amounts to an actual casus belli invasion.

In the oceanic sphere -- the oldest of the global commons -- China continues to increase her sea power reach and potency, toward anticipated levels well beyond what could possibly be justified solely for national defense. This holds even if we generously include in "defense" the dissuasion of any move by Taiwan toward independence with support from America. China's burgeoning New Fleet, with modern diesel and nuclear-powered submarines, is being constructed (or purchased from Russia) at a pace that overwhelms our current one-per-year Virginia-class SSN build rate. Right now the People's Liberation Army Navy is in about the same position relative to us as the Kremlin's navy was soon after Sputnik I was launched. But the Cold War went on for another thirty grim years after Sputnik, during which submarines and spy satellites proved essential for eventually bringing down the USSR. The same thing could happen again over the next three decades, except with America ending up the underdog, diminished by the PRC's "comprehensive hard and soft national power."

China doesn't have to be perfect to gradually contain us and then wear us down while we're distracted and drained by the War on Terror (including the controversial, divisive fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan). China just needs to be more farsighted, more ambitious for global hegemony, and less casualty-averse than America -- while harnessing her steady economic growth and gigantic trade surplus to fund constantly improving and ever more numerous weapons systems, simultaneously training and indoctrinating the skilled, motivated personnel required to field them successfully in battle. The cumulative effect over time could well be that the most technologically sophisticated armed forces in the world (ours) eventually do get eclipsed.

Some have defined the ASAT test as a shot across our bow. I prefer to position it more positively and actionably as a wake-up call. One crucial indicator of whether the U.S. does wake up will be the timing of an increase in the Virginia-class submarine build rate. I say this because there's really just one big world commmon nowadays, inseparably and interdependently multidimensional. An occurrence in space must not be allowed to become a PRC sleight of hand that prevents us from looking hard in the opposite direction, underwater. Properly enforced federal oil royalties, agribusiness subsidies rationalized as appropriate to the 21st century, and suitably rigorous tax audits of major corporations ought to provide more than adequate funding to construct two Virginias a year without compromising vital domestic social programs. The overweening rule of engagement for dealing effectively with Beijing on every plane should be idealism, not ideology, tempered by a healthy dose of pragmatic defense preparedness, not fiscally dysfunctional partisanship.