China successfully destroying a satellite has jolted the space weaponry world. Has another ’star wars’ race begun? Should the world’s commercial satellite business not feel threatened by such overtures! What does this test mean to US supremacy in space weapons and has the world order changed.

Despite the futuristic aura, that surrounds the space and space technology, the strategic military balance has, since the advent of ballistic missiles in the late 1950’s, centered on space technology. The latest test comes amid increasing fears within Washington over latent hostile nations and terrorist groups acquiring such technology to destroy crucial US space systems on which the country - and particularly its military - heavily depends. It will inexorably stoke fears in Washington of a potentially dangerous new arms race in space. In the first such test since the cold war era, the White House confirmed that China had used a medium-range ballistic missile, launched from the ground, to destroy an ageing weather satellite more than 500 miles into space.

Today the world is at the edge of perhaps the most far-reaching military threshold since the beginning of the atomic age. Today as then, a technological breakthrough both threatens unmatched destruction and provides the break to create a fundamentally more secure international order. Space weapons have already destabilized the nuclear arms race and may fatally upset the strategic balance. Yet a ban on space weapons would literally put a ceiling on arms race and block a costly and destabilizing new arms competition. Perhaps more importantly, it would preserve the incomparable vantage points of space for monitoring policy and joint scientific enterprises of a planetary security system.

However, history and logic suggests that technical innovations will broaden and intensify, not end, the arms race.

For years, the American military has spoken in hints and whispers, if at all, about its plans to develop weapons in space. However, the question arises, what positive and constructive role can the United States play in controlling the weaponization of space? Will leadership come from the United States or from the international community broadly?

These related questions become prominent as other countries make increasing investments in space both for military and commercial purposes. But at stake is the commercial use of space that is already an inseparable part of our daily lives. These developments by the Chinese government creates a situation where communication and commerce worldwide will suffer a jolt eventually with the thousand pieces of space debris blown in different directions with a single shoot. Just as space debris can “passively” destroy operational satellites, so it can also be launched into space and used as a ‘Satellite Killer’. This threat alone would be justification for the international community to take a stronger role in arms control in space.

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Via: NYTIMES