Ghost of a flea: Climb Mount Niitaka

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January 23, 2008

Climb Mount Niitaka

Noah Shachtman argues that China would lose a space war with the United States.

A year ago to the day, China knocked a weather satellite out of orbit, and threw the international community into panic. Some figured the satellite-killer test was the harbinger of a future war in space -- the kind of conflict that could cripple a tech-dependent United States military. Geoffrey Forden, PhD -- an MIT research associate and a former UN weapons inspector and strategic weapons analyst at the Congressional Budget Office -- examines the possibilities of an all-out Chinese assault on American satellites.

The words "UN weapons inspector" are not ones to inspire confidence. Forden's argument rests on the degree to which he is right about American redundancy of space assets and a limited number of Chinese launch sites. I hope he is right but to me the words overconfidence, complacency and - what was that? - Pearl Harbor come to mind. We only have to be incrementally wrong about ChiCom anti-satellite capabilities to be catastrophically wrong about the rest. For example, a non-incremental difficulty with Forden's figures would be a JL-2 submarine-launched direct-ascent ASAT missile system.

Related: In cooperation with India, Israel launches the first of three radar equipped satellites to complement their Ofek spy satellites.

Also... pictured above: Evidence that fifth columnists and/or government agents on Caprica had advanced knowledge of the Cylon "sneak attack" on the Twelve Colonies. False flag?

Tangentially related: Former armed forces chiefs from the United States, United Kingdom, Germany, France and the Netherlands have called for a new, linked grand strategy for NATO, the United States and the European Union. The proposal prominently includes the use of nuclear weapons as a preemptive measure against other would be powers developing nuclear, biological, chemical (NBC) and radiological weapons. Such is to state the blindingly obvious. It is about damn time.

"The risk of further [nuclear] proliferation is imminent and, with it, the danger that nuclear war fighting, albeit limited in scope, might become possible," the authors argued in the 150-page blueprint for urgent reform of western military strategy and structures. "The first use of nuclear weapons must remain in the quiver of escalation as the ultimate instrument to prevent the use of weapons of mass destruction."

The authors - General John Shalikashvili, the former chairman of the US joint chiefs of staff and Nato's ex-supreme commander in Europe, General Klaus Naumann, Germany's former top soldier and ex-chairman of Nato's military committee, General Henk van den Breemen, a former Dutch chief of staff, Admiral Jacques Lanxade, a former French chief of staff, and Lord Inge, field marshal and ex-chief of the general staff and the defence staff in the UK - paint an alarming picture of the threats and challenges confronting the west in the post-9/11 world and deliver a withering verdict on the ability to cope.

My favourite recommendation: No role in decision-taking on Nato operations for alliance members who are not taking part in operations.

Posted by Ghost of a flea at January 23, 2008 07:04 AM