"Don’t Let China Turn Space Into the New South China Sea" Topic

"It is urgent that Congress make changes to the Unified Command Plan, expanding the roles and missions of the U.S. Space Command. This is imperative not only to emphasize deterring and defending American and allied space systems from hostile attack — including military, civil, and commercial space systems — but also to provide law enforcement in the space domain.

The tasking needs to include support for developing a larger body of international law, ensuring that it enshrines freedom of action in space for all lawful and non-hostile actors. This must include putting mechanisms into place to detect violations of the law, creating strong enforcement procedures that can stop illegal behavior while collecting evidence, and establishing international courts with sufficient jurisdiction to provide legal remedies to malevolent behavior.

Why? China's behavior in the South China Sea and elsewhere is so egregious, and their contempt for international law and human rights so atrocious, that such behavior must not be allowed to extend into space. China poses a serious threat to the rest of the world in space, which remains largely ungoverned, unregulated, and thus lawless and impossible to hold China, or anyone else, accountable for bad behavior…"
Main page
link

Armand

China poses a serious threat to everyone, everywhere.

It is a pity that most of our "leaders" can't see that and won't take strong and concrete actions to redress it, and that Richard M. Nixon can't be held to account for kicking off their premature resurgence.

And what would you suggest would be a "…strong and concrete…" action to rein in their space program?

There's probably nothing we can do to deal with their individual programs, like their space program, but we could and should implement and lead a total boycott against trade with them for their unfriendly actions against us and others:

- spying on and stealing our intellectual property;
- illegally copying our technology;
- hacking our computers, including even our defense and other governmental ones, as well as those of private industry too;
- the treatment of Hong Kong, Tibet, Taiwan, Vietnam, India and others;
- the Uighur situation;
- actions and nonsensical claims in the South China Sea;
- supporting North Korea;
- and making numerous threats against us and other nations – USA, Australia, Japan, and Taiwan, etc.

Clearly, our "leaders" don't have the stomach for that, but even some targeted boycotts and/or actions to hold them to account could and should get their attention.

China is a rogue, pirate state, and should be treated as such.

I am remembered of a famous song from The Play/Movie Cabaret.

Money makes the world go around

YouTube link

Thresher +1.

+1 Thesher

It may be too late or will be soon. The PRC/CCP may have "weaponized" space or again will shortly. Even if this is against UN etc., treaties, etc. Xi and Putin don't seem to always follow those types of things.

I hope the USA plans to or already has weapons in space. E.g. "Rods From God", HK orbital assets, etc.

Again, what are the "…strong and concrete…" actions you would have the west's leaders and in particular the U.S. president do?

You've made a list of things that we'd want the Chinese to stop or change their behavior towards, but what are the "actions" you think would make them do so?

Screaming "stop" is not a command or an actionable threat.

A complete economic and energy boycott by the USA, as well as its allies, and/or the world IS a "strong and concrete action".

Not much we can do beyond that, unless you are advocating for war Dan, which might not be wise, since we both have nukes, though fortunately today, we have a lot more than they do. It only takes one nuke sneaking thru the defenses to ruin one's whole day though.

Isolating China both energy-wise and economically will greatly weaken them, and just might get their leadership to change their ways. I doubt it, but it is worth trying, since the current vector currently isn't working.

Thresher, problem is unlike USSR China is a critical part of the global economy. Shut them down and you've shut the west down.

The result is probably still war.

And of course, trying to cut off their energy supply could be done peacefully, without danger of war.

Oh, way, we tried that with Japan…how did that turn out?

So they ship oil in convoys with naval protection…suppliers will sell them oil as they will not agree to boycott the Chinese (note European states and their energy supplies from Russia not cooperating with US).

We manage, somehow, to get every country in the world to stop importing Chinese goods (assuming the world's economy did not collapse immediately). How? What happens when the Chinese nationalize all the western investments in China? Think the pain would be one way. Who holds the most national treasury notes and can demand payment? What then?

arealdeadone is correct, there is nothing that would stop the Chinese (I'm willing to hear other ideas) that would not risk the very real of war.

I think war is not an option at this time. No one would "win". And hopefully if a war comes WMDs will stay in storage. Again – No winners ..

The West doesn't have to shut down.

We existed before China became a manufacturing powerhouse, and we can again. We can produce the goods, or get India, Singapore, Taiwan, the Philippines, and others to do that too.

I'm sure Russia, Iran, North Korea, and perhaps some/many others will side with China. That is their choice.

Still, if the USA imposed a boycott, and other Western nations followed, it would hurt China financially, and perhaps even force a regime change internally there.

I suspect the Chinese have more to lose than we do, given the current trade imbalance.

Thresher,

You don't just reverse 40 years of industrial transfers over night.

Prior to China (and Japan and South Korea, both of whom also transferred a lot of production to China in recent decades) the west manufactured its own consumer and other goods.

Eg Australia pre-1980 used to have a highly diversified economy with a large manufacturing base. It now has a highly simplified resource extraction driven economy with declining industrial capability (this according to Harvard School of Business).

We even barely produce basic essential water treatment chemicals and oil refining is becoming extinct here with closure of oil refinery after oil refinery.

For all the jibes against China, they are still the factory of the world and hold competencies in manufacture of many electronic and other goods (eg rare earth metals) compared to a lot of other countries.

Still, if the USA imposed a boycott, and other Western nations followed, it would hurt China financially, and perhaps even force a regime change internally there.

And how do you think western consumers will react when they find out the supply of cheap consumer goods will have run out? It will be hyper inflation, panic buying and economic collapse.

Even if you do it over time, it will take decades to regain any competencies. I've already posted articles up here as to how an iPhone produced in the USA would more than double in price.

And you do realise that boycotting China will see a lot of western companies lose billions in investments in China? It could literally cause massive corporate collapse in the west especially for ones that lose their entire manufacturing capacity and thus their entire revenue stream.

So your solution is to destroy the global economy for no gain. It still wouldn't stave off a war.

Might as well skip the depression and go straight to war.

Yes this is very true. We would be hurting ourselves almost immediately. Our economies are too intertwined. This is the big thing. Money rules everything. Maybe China is not doing as well as you all are saying and the sabre rattling is more about economic nerves and internal discontent.

Business is at the heart of this, not Chinese weapons they are happy to have us learn about. Its a dictatorship. They want to be rich at the expense of everyone else. But they don't want to blow up the cash cow. Its a lot nicer sitting by the pool with a drink than riding a nuke into US territory.

Thresher, your list is a good one and its got to be dealt with. This is an economic war. Legion, I think you are right. Just because we are not telling everyone all about our weapons systems doesn't mean we don't have them. And China's quality control always makes me wonder what theirs are like.

And China's quality control always makes me wonder what theirs are like.

I have no doubt that like Russia, China's military technology is about 30, if not 40 years behind the US. Your average Chinese or Russian unit is still equipped with 1980s-90s equivalent equipment even if that equipment is new built.

A T-90 or Type 99 or Su-30SM or J-16 is still 1970-80s technology with some elements from 1990s.

When it comes to C3, the Chinese and Russians are really still at 1970s levels (and by some accounts many Russian units are stuck somewhere around 1939 due to a chronic lack of radios at lower levels).

The issues are more about:

1. Willingness to use it in a peer level combat.

2. Geography – China has certain geographic advantages in a war over SC Sea or Taiwan.

3. Density – the US military is spread out across the planet and have to maintain considerable reserves to be able to respond to hotspots in three very separated geographic areas – Europe, Middile East and Asia.

The Chinese can focus firepower and especially naval firepower a lot easier.

4. Availability – alas the USN especially is hindered by lack of sufficient shipyards for maintenance and by the fact that a large chunk of its surface combatants are garbage with no combat role (ie LCS).

The US also lacks certain capabilities due to divestment (eg minesweeping or long range carrier based ASW or even antiship missiles for many ships) or over emphasises certain extremely expensive areas which limits capability- eg all US attack subs are expensive nuclear boats. There are no cheap conventional powered subs despite their usefulness.

US numbers are hindered by certain bad weapon systems – the LCS is probably the worst. The F-22 is a mixed bag – a superb aircraft but a hangar queen with dire availability (often below 50%) even in peace time.

Chinese have a lot more ship building and ship maintenance capability. And their large fleet of surface combatants and submarines is cheap enough to create density whilst maintaining combat capability even if it is outdated.

Remember a Sherman or T-34 was inferior to a Tiger or Panther in terms of armour and gun yet both were war winners due to ease of production, maintenance and other logistics.

Its simple math, really.

How many a/c can China put within 4-500 miles of its coast? How many can the US?

How many hulls, surface and sub can the Chinese put within 4-500 miles of its coast? How many can the US?

How many SS/AS missiles does each side have to spend? Who can build more quickly?

Will anyone risk a nuclear exchange by taking out sats? Hard to sneak around at sea if sats are watching every move and who'd be willing to lose them and be blind?

Which ally does the US have with enough throw weight to count? Which ally is willing to risk their investments, infrastructure and/or national existence to go to war with China? China is (now) a major regional power, who in the neighborhood is also and willing to risk war with China?

The U.S. would lose any ground war with China so that will not happen, there are real questions as to the effectiveness and survival of US Navy forces within (pick your distance) of China, other than Guam (which is within missile range of China) where would the USAF base to strike China, so exactly what would be the strategy?

Their economy goes, so does ours and the world's with it.

Its a lose/lose all away around. I'm not saying that the US could not really hurt China, but could it do it without actual war and a chance of the ICBMS flying?

The real question, just like a number of other countries in the past 100 years, will one side decide that it can get away with a coup by grabbing something (Taiwan for example) and then make it too expensive in blood and treasure for the other side to react in a manner that would set the price too high? It is mistakes like that or an accident that might lite the world on fire.

Our real hope is that like two western gunfighters who are unsure of each other and somehow manage to never be in town at the same time, both the US and China will make faces at each other, scream double dog dare you at each other, and time will pass. Hopefully both sides will remember that the consequences of going too far. If the US and the USSR could, there is hope.

So, last year the Former Guy said more than once that the American military had been completely rebuilt under his leadership at a cost of 2.5 trillion.

Does anyone know what this entailed? It sounds like we should be ready to roll.

So, last year the Former Guy said more than once that the American military had been completely rebuilt under his leadership at a cost of 2.5 trillion.

Does anyone know what this entailed? It sounds like we should be ready to roll.

It was all just pointless posturing and marketing. You don't rebuild a military in 4 years especially when lead time for new equipment can be 3 years for a fighter or up to 8 years for a destroyer – eg DDG-113 USS John Finn – early lead items ordered in 2009, ship itself ordered 2011 and it entered service in 2017..

The navy for example will continue to shrink for the next several years especially in terms of submarines (20% decline by 2028).

The number of new ships ordered did not increase substantially over the Trump administration. So that 355 ship navy was pie in the sky marketing and the real result is going to be a decline with some clever accounting (eg Hospital ships counted in combatant counts – this actually happened).

And this is not a political statement – US military has been tracking the same trajectory for years now.

Just because we are not telling everyone all about our weapons systems doesn't mean we don't have them. And China's quality control always makes me wonder what theirs are like.

Bingo !

Remember a Sherman or T-34 was inferior to a Tiger or Panther in terms of armour and gun yet both were war winners due to ease of production, maintenance and other logistics.

"Amateurs study tactics, professionals study logistics … " … I studied/study both like many here … but my opinion means little in the big pic. Like us all here, AFAIK …

When it comes to C3, the Chinese and Russians are really still at 1970s levels (and by some accounts many Russian units are stuck somewhere around 1939 due to a chronic lack of radios at lower levels).

And that is critical …

China's Weaponization of Space

link

Armand

Yes in it an old military standard to take the high ground. Space being the highest "high ground" …

Army's SMDC Tech Center races to get space-base capabilities for soldiers

link

Armand

U.S. generals planning for a space war they see as all but inevitable

link

Armand

Yes … sooner or later Space will become an "active" battlefield.

Space Force Commander Says Russia And China Are Attacking US Satellites 'Every Single Day' With Lasers, Radio Jammers And Cyber Attacks

link

Armand

Fighting Comes Into Focus for the Space Force in 2022

link

Armand

Wait you mean the Russians and PRC/CCP are attacking our orbital space assets? "I'm shocked ! Shocked I tell you! "