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星期六, 二月 03, 2007
美国新闻周刊：中国导弹猎杀卫星是个严重的错误
文章来源: 新闻周刊 于 2007-02-02 16:54:07
从某种程度上，中国最近反卫星武器的试验是成功的。然而，在更深层次上，这个试验是个错误。而且如果中国现在继续发展更多的太空武器，那将是非常严重的错误。
然而，在说明原因之前，先停下来想一下，中国的举动是被误导的，但也是可理解的，特别是考虑到美国自己在太空的记录。首先，中国如今是一个崛起中的大国，而且决意完全投入这个角色。美国预计中国已经拥有世界第二大的国防支出，这个调整是根据它成本较低和预算之外的军事项目。历经遭受西方压迫数个世纪，如今中国要自由自在地寻找它的合理位置是很自然的。四十年前，这意味着发展它自己的核武器。如今，这意味着建立反卫星武器。（我们应该记住，这比原子弹的危险性小得多。）
第二，美国很难发怨声。数十年来，华盛顿拒绝与中国和其他国家签订或限制太空武器发展的协议。美国和苏联一起，在上世纪80年代测试自己的反卫星能力，并继续发展导弹防御系统，该系统可以轻易改装为太空应用。这些系统包括已经在加利福尼亚和阿拉斯加部署的发射台，以及仍在研发中的机载激光。这些系统用于摧毁导弹。低轨道卫星也大概在这个高度，如果人们可以击落空中的导弹，击卫星就不难了。
还必须认识到美国已经把许多卫星用作战争用途。美国军事如今依赖实时侦察网络。它还用人造卫星把信息从传感器传达到发射器，而且用全球定位系统指引炸弹前往目标。因此，华盛顿辩称太空仍是一个质朴、无战争的空间是不诚实的。天空可能还没有武器化，但它们肯定会军事化。
把所有这些考虑进去，中国最近的试验似乎是一个崛起中的大国的自然行为，一边对美国保持戒心，一边发展自己的。北京最新的行动可能比美国正在进行的太空努力更笨拙和富于侵略性。
说到底，这次试验仍然是中国的一个战略误算。且不管是谁发动这个问题，北京最新的行动可能创造一个动态，让包括中国在内的所有国家更不安全。
一些学者认为这个试验只是为了给美国施压，让它最终同意限制太空武器的条约。但这种说法是站不住脚的。用这种方式推动军控很奇怪，一方面，除了摧毁它自己的一颗维持了20年之久的旧卫星，而且中国最近发展可以让美国卫星丧失能力的激光。
中国也肯定知道任何对太空武器的禁制都是无法证实的。鉴于最近微卫星的扩散，情况特别如此。这些难以监测到的设备往往是出于实验目的而部署，但可以很容易改装，用来运载爆炸物，从而变成可以除掉较大卫星的运行炸弹。
北京的行动如今削弱了对华盛顿太空武器的限制。最近的试验可能让美国太空武器倡导者重新振作，他们中大部分本来在里根之后就沉寂了。如果中国跟进更多这种试验，美国的太空鹰派将增强实力和人数，并在国会找到新同盟。
因此球仍然在北京脚下。如果它在未来避免此种举动，危险性可能很快得到限制。
但我们要明白：通过发射这种武器，中国进行了一次非常危险的赌博，可能令美中关系恶化。国际社会在几年前批评华盛顿轻率地推翻世界上最糟糕的独裁者之一，它如今应该保持这一贯的立场，给予北京同样的对待。中国的行为代表了一种世界不能再承受的大国老套想法。（作者 Michael O'Hanlon）
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原文：
An Intelligent Test?
China's new antisatellite program makes sense—at least from Beijing's perspective. But it could turn out to be a dangerous mistake.By Michael O'Hanlon
Newsweek International
Feb. 5, 2007 issue - On one level, China's recent test of a new antisatellite weapon was a success: Beijing managed to blast one of its aging weather sensors out of orbit several hundred miles above Earth. On a more profound level, however, the test was a mistake. And if China now continues to develop more space weapons, it could turn into a very serious error indeed.
Before saying why, however, it's worth pausing to recognize that while China's move was misguided, it was also understandable—especially given the United States' own record in space. First of all, China is now a rising power, and determined to play that role to the hilt. The U.S. Defense Department estimates that China already boasts the world's second largest defense expenditures, once adjustments are made for its lower costs and for off-budget military items. After centuries of subjugation at the hands of the West, it is only natural that the Middle Kingdom would seek its rightful place in the sun. Forty years ago this meant developing its own nukes. Today it means building an antisatellite weapon (which, we should remember, is a lot less dangerous than an atom bomb).
Second, the United States is hardly in a position to complain. For decades, Washington has resisted proposals by China and other countries to ban or limit the development of space weapons. Along with the Soviet Union, it tested its own antisatellite capability during the 1980s, and it continues to develop missile defense systems that could be modified fairly easily for use in space; indeed, spending on such projects continued through the Clinton years and has risen under George W. Bush. These systems, which include already deployed (albeit imperfect) launchers in California and Alaska and an airborne laser still under development, are built to knock down ballistic missiles, which travel at about 4.4 miles per second and spend around 15 minutes several hundred miles above Earth. Low-orbiting satellites move at about the same altitude, and only a little faster, along predictable trajectories. If one can shoot down missiles in space—hitting satellites would not be much harder.
It is also important to recognize that the United States already uses many of its satellites for war fighting. The U.S. military now regularly relies on real-time reconnaissance networks that can spot targets from orbit. It also uses satellites to pass information from sensors to shooters, and uses space-based Global Positioning Systems to guide bombs to their targets. It would therefore be dishonest for Washington to argue that space remains a pristine, war-free zone. The heavens may not have been weaponized yet, but they certainly have been militarized—and by a country that would likely come to the defense of China's archrival, Taiwan, in the event of conflict over that disputed island.
Take all this into account and China's recent test starts to look like the natural action of a rising military power that is keeping a wary eye on U.S. military capabilities as it builds its own. Beijing's latest move may have been more clumsy and aggressive than America's ongoing efforts in space. But—forgive the pun—it hardly took place in a vacuum.
All that said, the test was still a strategic miscalculation by China. Leaving aside the question of who started it, Beijing's latest action risks creating a dynamic that could leave all countries, including China, less secure.
Some pundits have argued that the test was meant merely to pressure the United States into finally agreeing to a treaty to limit space weapons. But this argument doesn't hold water. For one thing, by obliterating one of its old orbiting weather sensors, China also managed to destroy an informal two-decade-old moratorium on such tests. This would be a strange way to promote arms control, as would recent Chinese moves to develop lasers that could disable American satellites.
China also must know that any ban on weapons in space would be unverifiable. This is especially true given the recent proliferation of microsatellites. Weighing 100 kilograms or less, these hard-to-detect devices are often deployed for experimental purposes but could be fairly easily and surreptitiously modified to carry explosives—turning them into orbiting bombs that could take out larger satellites. America's ballistic missile defense programs further compound the verification problem, since they could quickly be converted for use against satellites. If there is one type of arms control that makes sense, it is a ban on the kind of test that China just conducted, since it filled the sky with dangerous debris that will remain in orbit for decades and could damage other satellites. If Beijing was hoping to prevent such actions, it chose a counterintuitive way to go about it.
So how should Washington respond? It should for now resist the temptation to start developing, testing and deploying antisatellite capabilities of its own. While China's new weapon does jeopardize low-altitude U.S. reconnaissance sensors, it poses no risk to America's targeting and communications systems, which fly at a much higher orbit. If Washington really wants to protect its space assets, the best way to do that would be by giving them relatively simple defensive measures, and by building redundant systems—not by developing new weapons as a deterrent.
Indeed, racing to build such deterrents would be counterproductive. It would only accelerate the arms race in space—which would hurt the United States far more than any other state, since it already relies on space-based military systems much more heavily than everyone else. Such a move could also reinforce the international image of Washington as dangerously unilateralist and impervious to the will of other countries (a huge majority of which favor a ban on space weapons). And it would increase tensions between the United States and China.
Unfortunately, Beijing's actions have now weakened the case for restraint in Washington. The recent test could reinvigorate American advocates for space-based weapons, who have largely kept quiet since the Reagan years. If China follows up with more tests, the American space hawks will grow in strength and numbers and could find new allies in Congress.
The ball therefore largely remains in Beijing's court. By shooting down an old satellite, China may have done nothing worse than emerging great powers typically do in such situations. Nor was its move particularly belligerent; indeed, China's mistake was simply to allow bureaucratic forces within its government that favor military competition and confrontation to carry the day. If it avoids such moves in the future, the danger could be limited fairly quickly.
But let's be clear: by launching the weapon, China made a very dangerous gamble that risks worsening the U.S.-China relationship. Given the way the international community criticized Washington a few years ago for acting rashly to overthrow one of the world's worst dictators, it should be consistent now and give Beijing some of the same treatment. China's behavior represents a sort of great-power old-think that the world can no longer afford.
O'Hanlon is a Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution and coauthor of "Hard Power: The New Politics of National Security."
© 2007 Newsweek, Inc.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16840361/site/newsweek/
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