Gonzaga Debate Institute 2011 Mercury China Coop Aff


Space Race – Taiwan Scenario (1/4)



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Space Race – Taiwan Scenario (1/4)




Sino-American space tensions risk Taiwan conflict escalation

MacDonald, Council on Foreign Relations, ‘8

(“China, space weapons, and U.S. security” By Bruce W. MacDonald, Council on Foreign Relations, 2008, http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=lang_en&id=o0GkabrNftIC&oi=fnd&pg=PP2&dq=china+space&ots=OTkniE7uA-&sig=wC4ye20QpZY-ECCnrpPTf-Tr9yY#v=onepage&q&f=false, p. 3, 6.30.10, SWolff)


China's far smaller space dependence, which hinders its military potential, ironically appears to give it a potential relative near-term offensive advantage: China has the ability to attack more U.S. space assets than vice versa, an asymmetry that complicates the issue of space deterrence, discussed later. This asymmetric Chinese advantage will likely diminish as China grows increasingly dependent on space over the next twenty years, and as the United States addresses this space vulnerability. Thus, the time will come when the United States will be able to inflict militarily meaningful damage on Chinese space-based assets, establishing a more symmetric deterrence potential in space. Before then, other asymmetric means are available to the United States to deter China, though at possibly greater escalatory risk. That is, the United States could threaten to attack not just (Chinese space assets, but also ground-based assets, including ASAT command-and-control centers and other military capabilities. Itut such actions, which would involve attacking Chinese soil and likely causing substantial direct casualties, would politically weigh much heavier than the U.S. loss of space hardware, and thus might climb the escalatory ladder to a more damaging war both sides would probably want to avoid. War between China and the United States seems unlikely, given their increasing economic interdependence and ongoing efforts in both countries to improve relations. Looming in the background, however, is the possibility of war over Taiwan, a plausible if unlikely scenario that could bring the United States and China into conflict. China might then be tempted to attack U.S. military satellites as a casualty-free way to signal resolve, dissuade Washington from further involvement in a Taiwan conflict, and significantly compromise U.S. military capabilities if such dissuasion failed. Such Chinese actions could well escalate any conflict between the United States and China. As a result, both countries have interests in avoiding the actual use of counter space weapons and shaping a more stable and secure space environment for themselves and other space-faring nations, which could easily be caught in the undertow of a more militarily competitive space domain. Many nations benefit from space assets used for military purposes, including communications, reconnaissance, and positioning.

Space Race – Taiwan Scenario (2/4)




China’s space technology is key to attacking Taiwan

Friedman, Naval Institute Guide to World Naval Weapon Systems author, ‘07

(Norman, March 2007, U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings, 0041798X, Mar2007, Vol. 133, Issue 3 “War in Space?” EBSCOhost, accessed 7/1/11, BLG)


The network approach to such tactics is not to retreat to the older ones of mass, because mass is still unaffordable. Instead, it is to gather and correlate more information. Technology may not yet be up to the correlation function, but we can imagine what it would be. For example, we can imagine setting up pervasive and persistent monitoring. We would automatically obtain images of insurgents attacking, even if we could not respond in real time. The images in turn could be used to track particular individuals identified as insurgents, and that tracking in turn would make interception possible. Whether such operation is practical now is another question, but we should be thinking through the implications of the style of warfare we are adopting. There are real consequences if we change styles (transform) in a half-baked way. When they decided that shooting down satellites was a good way to demonstrate their power, and thus to deter us from protecting Taiwan, the Chinese military leadership probably did not realize how far it had gone in the same direction we are following. China is no longer the desperately poor country that had to use human wave attacks in Korea. It is buying expensive technology, and it. like us, cannot have both numbers and the best information technology. If the Chinese do attack Taiwan or anywhere else, they will need good situational awareness, which will mean air and satellite reconnaissance on a real-time basis. Losing their satellites will not do them enormous good, and it would be naive for them to imagine (hat they can fight a modern information war without such resources. It may be up to us to make this truth obvious, but it would also be up to us to neutralize the Chinese antisatellite system.

The Taiwan Strait conflict could be the trigger for a US-Sino space war

Martel, Naval War College professor of national security affairs & Yoshihara, Institute for Foreign Policy Analysis research fellow, 3

(William C. and Toshi, Autumn 2003, Washington Quarterly, “Averting Sino-US Space Race”, p. 25, http://www.twq.com/03autumn/docs/03autumn_martel.pdf, accessed: 7/1/11, SL)


A congressionally mandated bipartisan commission, which annually reviews security ties between the United States and China, concurs with the Pentagon’s conclusions.20 The U.S.-China Security Review Commission noted that China will need space-based reconnaissance to precisely target its new generation of ballistic missiles, land-attack cruise missiles, and antiship cruise missiles. The latter would be of decisive importance in military operations against U.S. aircraft carriers in the Taiwan Strait.Arguing that China was devising strategies to counter U.S. space-based warfare, the Rumsfeld Commission also identified a conflict in the Taiwan Strait as a threat to U.S. space systems. China could, for example, preemptively attack U.S. assets in space prior to the outbreak of conflict in the Taiwan Strait in an effort to prevent the United States from coordinating military intervention. China could also disrupt commercial satellites upon which everyday American life depends in the hopes of dampening U.S. political will to intervene. 21 Chinese officials and commentators have drawn similar conclusions about the United States. In a rather blunt article published in a Hong Kong–based newspaper, which reportedly enjoys close ties with the Chinese military establishment, Chinese analyst Gao Yan, argued that, because space power determines a nation’s destiny, it is imperative for China to pursue military capabilities in space aggressively. He warned that, because of fundamental differences in ideology, national interests, geopolitics, and military strategies, the PRC must be prepared for the imminent strategic rivalry with the United States.




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