Gonzaga Debate Institute 2011 Mercury China Coop Aff


Space War – Escalates (2/2)



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Space War – Escalates (2/2)




Conflict China means that the US will first strike – that goes nuclear

Tellis, Senior Associate at the Carnegie Endowment, 8

(Ashley, Senior Associate at the Carnegie Endowment, “China’s Space Capabilities and U.S. Security Interests,” October 2008, Carnegie Endowment For International Peace, http://www.carnegieendowment.org/2008/10/01/china-s-space-capabilities-and-u.s.-security-interests/68r, JSkoog)


Third, the growth of China’s space and counterspace capabilities contributes to raising the costs of American victory in any future conflict with Beijing. Should the United States find itself in an unlimited war with China, the outcome cannot be in doubt: Washington will win such a conflict and perhaps even win “decisively”, if there are no restraints imposed on its use of force. The presence of nuclear weapons, however, ensures that such unlimited conflicts are thankfully unlikely. Assuring victory in a limited war with China, however, becomes more problematic not because the United States suddenly loses all its military advantages in such a scenario but because a limited conflict, over Taiwan or elsewhere, would involve restrictive rules of engagement and other political-operational constraints which, even if not ultimately subversive of victory, would nonetheless increase its burdens. Because most future conflicts that can be envisaged with China involve limited wars of some kind or another, Beijing’s increasing space and counterspace capabilities – if well used – could become critical, if not decisive, in some quite representative scenarios. Fourth, China’s evolving space and counterspace capabilities promise to expand the dimensions of the battlespace – virtually and physically – in the context of any future Sino-American conflict. Because space-supported conventional operations will become critical for victory for both sides; because the space component of military actions – that is, the space, ground, and link segments in their totality – is conspicuous, highly valuable, vulnerable, and contains relatively few nodes; because defensive and offensive counterspace operations may be hard to distinguish especially in the early phases of a conflict; because both sides will seek to competitively use space to expand their situational awareness while denying the same advantage to the adversary; and, because Chinese operational planning, given its overall conventional weakness, calls for counterspace operations as an integrated element of its military response, it is likely that a future Sino-American conflict, even if intended to be limited in a political sense, will be unable to either bound its offensive operations to the local battlefield alone or resist the temptation to launch crippling attacks first. The demands of victory, even in limited wars, will thus require that the force applied – in both material and virtual senses – range far beyond the physical battlefront to the “rear”: in the adversary’s homeland, possibly in territories of third-parties, and certainly in the realms of space, electronic combat, and computer network operations. Moreover, it may create strong incentives for “first strikes” because of the perceived benefits to conventional operations arising from being able to blind an adversary decisively, even if only for a short time. In such circumstances, ensuring that a future limited war between China and the United States stays restricted will itself become a significant challenge.


Space Race – Hegemony



China’s attempts to become a major power have led them to make technologies that challenge US dominance in Space

Tellis, Senior Associate at the Carnegie Endowment, 8

(Dr. Ashley, Senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, “CHINA’S PROLIFERATION PRACTICES, AND THE DEVELOPMENT OF ITS CYBER AND SPACE WARFARE CAPABILITIES,” Hearing before the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission, May 20, 2008, Pg. 15-16, http://www.uscc.gov/hearings/2008hearings/transcripts/08_05_20_trans/08_05_20_trans.pdf, JSkoog)


The first is that it is a truly comprehensive program. China is not just another developing country that has capabilities that are discrete and isolated. The Chinese space program essentially is an end-to-end program. It has everything from space science to international cooperation integrated into a whole and designed to serve the purposes of national policy. The purposes of national policy in this context are essentially the accumulation of Chinese national power and the hope that this accumulation of national power will once again restore China to being a major global power in the international system. So the first element is its comprehensiveness. The second element is that the program is essentially integrated. It's hard to find within the Chinese space program any clear distinctions between the civilian and the military. In fact, many have characterized the Chinese space program as essentially being a military program which has certain civilian projects undertaken as part of that larger rubric. The important policy point of consequence of this reality is that any cooperation with China in space must be understood to benefit at some level its military capabilities. So the second element is that the program is integrated. The third element is that it is really a very focused program. The Chinese have refused to invest in space capabilities that involve a frittering of resources. Rather they have tailored the program to meet very specific developmental and military needs. So don't look to the Chinese space program and hope to see an isomorphic replication of what the U.S. space program looks like. It's a much smaller program, but because China's resources are constrained, it's a program that is tailored very clearly to meeting certain national goals. To the degree that competition with the U.S. is involved in this program, it's a program that's focused on essentially acquiring technologies from any source at the lowest cost possible and integrating these technologies so acquired to advance Chinese national interests. Let me say a few words about China's military space capabilities which are the dimension of the space program that assists Chinese military forces. China's military space capabilities are essentially defined by its national military strategy, which is focused on preparing for active defense in the context of local wars which are fought under informationalized conditions. The essence of this framework is essentially to seek, secure, and maintain information superiority in the context of a conflict. Because this is the strategic aim of the Chinese military space program, the military space program has three basic dimensions: China seeks to develop a wide spectrum of capabilities designed to advance its conventional military operations. The second is that China seeks to develop capabilities that will deny its adversaries access to space. And third, because there is a clear understanding that space is central to information dominance, China recognizes that a struggle for space is inevitable and therefore must prepare for it. Given this fact, most Chinese military space investments today seem to be focused in three broad mission areas: Developing capabilities for space support. That is essentially being able to launch systems of different kinds into space. Providing capabilities that enhance force application, that is, the use of military forces, primarily China's conventional military forces. And third, developing capabilities that allow China to deny the use of space to other more superior adversaries, especially the United States.




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