The US鈥檚 over-reliance on commercial satellites has emerged as a significant weakness in the country鈥檚 defences. The seriousness of the problem became apparent during a five day simulated war carried out by US Air Force Space Command.
鈥淥ur dependence on commercial space systems, and its multi-dimensional, global implications, played heavily in this game,鈥� says Space Warfare Center commander Doug Richardson.
鈥淭he game highlighted the vulnerability of space systems to attacks,鈥� he says. The war game was fought out at Schriever Air Force base in Colorado and was set in space in the year 2017. A small country referred to only as 鈥淏rown鈥� was threatened by a neighbour called 鈥淩ed鈥�. A third country, 鈥淏lue鈥�, was asked to intervene on Brown鈥檚 behalf. Reports suggest that Red represented China and Blue was the US.
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Laser weapons
During the game, the countries fought to knock out each other鈥檚 satellites. In a conflict these would be vital for military communications, reconnaissance and even guiding missiles to their targets. Without them, a country would be far more vulnerable to conventional attack. At their disposal, the countries had ground-based lasers to blind the enemy鈥檚 satellites and a fleet of microsatellites which could block transmissions from opponent鈥檚 satellites or even destroy them. Interestingly, Blue also had a National Missile Defence system (快猫短视频 magazine, 20 January).
A key issue to emerge from the game was the role of private satellite companies. Blue tried to get foreign companies to stop providing services to Red. In response, Red offered the companies huge sums of money, which Blue then had to top. To Blue鈥檚 horror, however, the foreign companies decided to honour their original contracts.
Space complacency
The US also has other problems with commercial satellites. 鈥淎fter the Gulf War the United States realised just how dependent on space it was in terms of communications, reconnaissance data and so on,鈥� says Robin Ranger of defence think-tank Ranger Associates, based in Bethesda, Maryland and an associate of the Centre for Defence and International Security Studies at the University of Lancaster.
Military thinkers have long suspected the US had been complacent regarding potential threats to satellites. 鈥淲ith the end of the cold war there was a feeling that we don鈥檛 have to worry about the Soviet Union in the same way anymore, therefore we don鈥檛 have to worry about the Soviet anti-satellite programme,鈥� says Ranger.
He adds: 鈥淚t made people think that we don鈥檛 have to go and spend scarce resources on doing much in space, Now a lot of countries are acquiring the ability to attack satellites.鈥�