U.S. Knew Sat-Killer Was Coming

Speaking of space weapons, the New York Times is reporting that the Bush Administration knew all about China's satellite-killer test in January -- and didn't do beans to stop the demonstration, which has put orbiters at risk and sent global tensions skyrocketing.

“We did get warning that the test was being prepared,” said a senior administration official...

The United States had already detected two previous tests of the system — on
July 7, 2005, and Feb. 6, 2006. Neither struck a target...

In December 2006 and early January of this year, American intelligence agencies picked up signs that preparations for a third Chinese antisatellite test appeared to be under way...

“There were discussions about different options of how to deal with a potential test that was coming up...” said Lt. Gen. Walter L.
Sharp, the director of the staff under Gen. Peter Pace, the chairman of the Joint
Chiefs of Staff...

The idea of asking China to forgo the test had been broached by some Pentagon officials.
The suggestion, they said, was rejected... Officials concluded that China was unlikely to cancel the test and that there were few good options to punish China if they ignored an American warning to hold off. American intelligence agencies were loath to let the Chinese know they were aware of the state of their preparations...

But some experts outside government say that American officials might have been able to discourage the Chinese from launching the missile, had the officials been willing to enter into a broader discussion of ways to regulate the military competition in space. China had long advocated an agreement to ban weapons in space, an approach the Bush administration has rejected in order to maintain maximum flexibility for developing antimissile defenses.

"Had the United States been willing to discuss the military use of space with the Chinese in Geneva, that might have been enough to dissuade them from going through with it," DANGER ROOM's own Jeffrey Lewis tells the* Times*.

And by the way, the intelligence agencies' "excuse about protecting sources and methods is bullshit," he adds on his blog. "The
Chinese conducted two flybys that were obviously tracked by unclassified US assets and then left the launcher on the pad for over a month, where it was perfectly visible to overhead imaging. We knew that they knew that we knew."

The real argument is that the Bush
Administration wanted to “maintain maximum flexibility.” The hoary appeal to “keeping our options open” drives me nuts — keeping some options open requires closing others. Adults recognize that they can never keep all the options open. Policy-making is about making choices.

After all, Chinese anti-satellite weapons [ASATs] will restrict US freedom of action in space, too, just as would a ban on certain military missions. That we chose not to pursue a ban — either because we thought it might fail to prevent China from acquiring ASATs, because we’d rather have certain military systems or for any other reason — is not keeping our options open, it’s choosing some options at the expense of others.

None of this excuses China's obviously provocative, destabilizing move, of course. Blowing up that satellite has been bad news for everyone.
(Lighting up the American satellite with a laser didn't help, either.) The question is whether it makes more sense to try to talk countries out of doing dumb things (see Iran, North Korea), or to stick our fingers in our ears and squeal. But I guess that's always the question with this administration, right?