book - Twilight War: The Folly of U.S. Space Dominance

Ian Parker wrote:
Good point. In fact what you are saying reenforcs the point. Lets us
look at the problem in a games theory context. Suppose we have 3
countries A, B, C To achieve hegenomy A B + C, since B allied with C
will defeat A. In fact to be secure a country needs |B - C| If A |B
- C| a country can always defeat the stronger by allying itself with
the weaker. Hence China will not have hegenomy if the US in alliance
with India can defeat it. As we can see a tripolar world will tend to
ratchet its armaments downwards as there willl be a big gap between
security and hegenomy.

Unfortunately this only works if the countries fight a conventional
conflict.
All three countries are nuclear armed, and Russia is still in the
equation, with considerable military might of its own.
In a situation where actual conflict can lead to destruction of any of
the opposing powers, economic force replaces military force as the means
of fighting that conflict.
Things in India are fairly predictable as far as future economic
development goes (more of the same) but China is a wild card depending
on how its government interacts with its economy.
Right now it's undergoing a boom similar to the Robber Baron period in
American industry, but the government could pull the leash in if it
wants to, and sees its own power slipping away, to a unacceptable degree.
The scary thing for the US is the potential impact of a export embargo
by China of its low cost products to the US, which is one of the only
things that is keeping the cost of living down.
That gives China a huge amount of political clout in the world, and the
US little choice but to let China do pretty much what it wants in
regards to its foreign policy.
The Chinese ASAT test worked brilliantly in reminding the West that
China could wreak havoc in space if it wanted to at fairly low cost, and
that any ASAT combat would hurt the US far more than China, as we have
far more space-based assets than they do.
It also means that the US allies (few that they are these days) will put
pressure on the US to not start a ASAT race, as then their space assets
would also be endangered by the orbiting debris.

Pat

Ian Parker wrote:
Indeed yes, a war between nuclear armed adveraries will inevitably be
Pyrric. However what you say only adds force to the basic arguments.
No there can be no question of hegenomy, or even war of any sort
against major adversaries. The sensible thing to do is get a treaty of
some sort.


Past experience with military weapons treaties shows that the first
thing the signatories do is try to evade their clauses in some way to
achieve a presumed advantage over the other signatories who are presumed
to be obeying the treaty.
Cases in point would be the Soviet Temp-2S small mobile ICBM based on
the SS-20, and how our Patriot missiles suddenly became able to down
Scuds during the Gulf War.
In the case of the Chinese and Russians it's going to be pretty
difficult via satellite observation to determine what sort of warhead a
particular missile has on it, or if the normal one can be replaced by a
ASAT interceptor one in short order.
Major powers have an interest in [preserving the space environment.
For this reason there has to be agreement on what is permissible in
space and what is not.

On the general question of asymmetry, what worries me is this. Let us
tot up the budgets for homeland security, military budgets, not to
mention the hidden costs of security restictions. You get a figure
running into trillions. Now how much do you think Al Qaeda is
spendiing? The figures just don't bear comparison. In the same way the
cost of dealing with space debirs, just one thing, is very much
greater than the cost of creating it.

As I say all you have done is tell me I was understating my case.


Game theory came a cropper during the Vietnam War, because the North
Vietnamese had never read up on game theory, and didn't know they were
supposed to negotiate a peace at the appropriate level of applied
military force.
In this case a country with only a small space presence (China now,
probably India, Pakistan, Japan, Israel, Iran, Brazil, and Argentina in
the future) can wield a degree of asymmetric force by having the ability
to destroy other nation's space assets while being fairly immune to
damage themselves due to lacking them.
In any sort of a ASAT combat situation, it's almost certainly the US
that comes out as the loser, as we have the majority of all satellites
in orbit at the moment, so statistically ours would be more prone to
being hit by debris.
China on the other hand loses a few satellites due to fratricide from
their own intercept's debris, but nothing they can't live without.
And they know this, which gives them the high cards in negotiating any
ASAT treaty.
Then follows problem three after the difficulty in monitoring compliance
and the fact that each of the presumed signatories doesn't have equal
risk or benefit from such a treaty's acceptance...what about ASATs and ABMs?
Most ABMs will have ASAT capabilities, as the Navy intercept of USA-193
showed...so do they get banned as well?

Pat

On 19 Mar, 19:46, Pat Flannery wrote:
Ian Parker wrote:
Indeed yes, a war between nuclear armed adveraries will inevitably be
Pyrric. However what you say only adds force to the basic arguments.
No there can be no question of hegenomy, or even war of any sort
against major adversaries. The sensible thing to do is get a treaty of
some sort.

Past experience with military weapons treaties shows that the first
thing the signatories do is try to evade their clauses in some way to
achieve a presumed advantage over the other signatories who are presumed
to be obeying the treaty.
Cases in point would be the Soviet Temp-2S small mobile ICBM based on
the SS-20, and how our Patriot missiles suddenly became able to down
Scuds during the Gulf War.
In the case of the Chinese and Russians it's going to be pretty
difficult via satellite observation to determine what sort of warhead a
particular missile has on it, or if the normal one can be replaced by a
ASAT interceptor one in short order.

Major powers have an interest in [preserving the space environment.
For this reason there has to be agreement on what is permissible in
space and what is not.

On the general question of asymmetry, what worries me is this. Let us
tot up the budgets for homeland security, military budgets, not to
mention the hidden costs of security restictions. You get a figure
running into trillions. Now how much do you think Al Qaeda is
spendiing? The figures just don't bear comparison. In the same way the
cost of dealing with space debirs, just one thing, is very much
greater than the cost of creating it.

As I say all you have done is tell me I was understating my case.

Game theory came a cropper during the Vietnam War, because the North
Vietnamese had never read up on game theory, and didn't know they were
supposed to negotiate a peace at the appropriate level of applied
military force.
In this case a country with only a small space presence (China now,
probably India, Pakistan, Japan, Israel, Iran, Brazil, and Argentina *in
the future) can wield a degree of asymmetric force by having the ability
to destroy other nation's space assets *while being fairly immune to
damage themselves due to lacking them.
In any sort of a ASAT combat situation, it's almost certainly the US
that comes out as the loser, as we have the majority of all satellites
in orbit at the moment, so statistically ours would be more prone to
being hit by debris.
China on the other hand loses a few satellites due to fratricide from
their own intercept's debris, but nothing they can't live without.
And they know this, which gives them the high cards in negotiating any
ASAT treaty.
Then follows problem three after the difficulty in monitoring compliance
and *the fact that each of the presumed signatories doesn't have equal
risk or benefit from such a treaty's acceptance...what about ASATs and ABMs?
Most ABMs will have ASAT capabilities, as the Navy intercept of *USA-193
showed...so do they get banned as well?

I see what you are driving at, but I do not completely agree. All
countries are becoming increasingly dependent on GPS/Gallileo. Even if
you do not own, or only partly own a constellation you will want to
ensure that your aircraft are kept on track and you emergency vehicles
on land know where they are. It is possible, but not cost effective,
to have a navigatiional system based purely on terrestrial
transmitters.

If what you say is true then it is rather bleak as far as this group
is concerned. It means that anyone sensible is going to ensure that
all their vital equipment is terrestrialy based. I will accept that an
agreement may be difficult, but unless we have one no one sensible is
going to base anything in space. Anyone sensible is going to rely
exclusively on fiber optics for global transmissions.

You ask are ABJMs tio be banned. Let me put a proposition to you. ABMs
should be allowed, but only for nations that have a degree of
dependency on space. If for example a country has autromatic speed
control 120km/h on motoways, but 50km/h on the road running parallel
to the motorway then it will be allowed ABMs, but not unless. No
country should be allowed to have both ABMs and a terrestrially based
navigation system.

There is one further point about ABMs. They are ASAT, but for the most
part only at LEO. GPS is MEO.


- Ian Parker