What Chinese Violation of U.S. Airspace Means for U.S. Space Force Plans and Policies

The events of the past two weeks make clear why the establishment of a United States Space Force in 2018 was needed. Furthermore, these events make it obvious why the new space force should urgently pursue a balanced architecture comprised of offensive and defensive, passive, and active force to ensure continuous operations and to serve as an effective deterrent.    

In responding to these active or potential threats, the U.S. utilized three different strategic defensive approaches. In the case of the first Chinese spy balloon, the most charitable explanation of delayed U.S. action would be the employment of passive defensive measures like cover, concealment and perhaps deception.  By hiding or concealing crucial information perhaps even attempting to confuse or spoof by altering or faking activities on the ground the U.S. sought to deny or imped Chinese intelligence collection to deny advantage and hopefully deter future intrusions.  

One week later second and third airspace penetrations occurred, and this time a preemptive offensive strike was adopted as the defensive measure of choice. By shooting down vehicles before entering U.S. airspace, U.S. willingness to act andcapability were demonstrated as well as assertion of the authority to act preemptively.

The choice of strategy application in these cases can only be explained by the national command authority.  And we have yet to understand how all of this will impact future U.S. strategy and policy on airspace violations.

However, an obvious additional conclusion must be that the Chinese approach to the space domain and space theater of military operations will be at least as bold and brazen as their approach to sovereign airspace.

Today, the Chinese actively surveil, and threaten vital U.S. space assets for intelligence, for exposure to operational response and to test the will and resolve of U.S. commands.

What is the U.S. Space Force doing to counter the Chinese space force threats?  And what should it do? Is it preparing to defend U.S. assets and continuity of critical space operations utilizing ALL defense and deterrence methods or is it pursuing an unbalanced or unrealistic approach?  The open literature suggests that the Biden administration’s primary defense strategy in space is passive. Satellite maneuver, situational awareness, and shielding at the component level and disaggregation of assets, redundant deployment of capabilities, rapid reconstitution of constellations at the systems level comprises the lion share of current deterrence and defense program planning.  This approach while having the potential to be ultimately effective, is limited.  

Distributed architectures, redundant capabilities, and large standby replenishment forces are extremely expensive, may take decades to deploy and offer little or no deterrent capability in transition.  In fact, one could argue that sole or nearly sole reliance on this as a deterrent response is provocative as the costs and benefits to the adversary of preemptive attack slowly diminish over time.  “Use it or lose it” incentives should never be the consequence of implementing a U.S. defensive strategy. Also, defense only postures create an implied competition between offensive degradation and defensive reconstitution with likely economic cost benefit ratios accruing to the offense.

From day one, actively defending U.S. space assets by all means should be on the table and in plain view, preemption, retaliation, denial of objectives and demonstration of will to act.

In addition, we need a clear and compelling declaratory policy for protection of vital U.S. and allied space assets right now.  The U.S. will operate in space without interference, will respond swiftly, decisively and with deadly force to any attempts to impede, interfere or interdict these forces.  We reserve the right to prevent attack even before an attack is launched.  We intend to be able to impose our will in space, and while we have peaceful objectives, we reserve the right to maintain and enforce the peace.

What is clear from the Chinese balloon incident is that the Chinese are brazen and bold, are willing to publicly challenge and test the will of American military forces and regard so called norms and conventions as optional, at best.

We should expect more and even more brazen Chinese probes and feints to our defenses and those of our allies and should clearly understand that their approach to space is on the same track, with even more resources and compelling objectives.  We cannot permit or tolerate a ‘balloon’ incident in space.  If it hasn’t already happened.

Dr. Mark Albrecht is the former Executive Secretary of the National Space Council and was the principal advisor on space to President George H.W. Bush.