Every four years,
the Department of Defense, as required by law, conducts a review of
its forces, resources, and programs and presents the findings of
this Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR) to the president and
Congress. The QDR provides a basic strategy for addressing critical
issues like budget and acquisition priorities, emerging threats,
and Pentagon capabilities for the next 20 years. At a recent
conference at The Heritage Foundation, a panel of distinguished
experts considered two important issuesfacing future U.S. military planning, that the
QDR should address and yet which appear to be "unmentionable" among
policymakers. How should the QDR reflect the long-range
planning that must be in place should China, for whatever reason,
decides to use its rising economic and military power to pressure
the United States? And where should military space fit within QDR
deliberations? What roles will space play in future U.S. military
planning and operations?
China,
Military Modernization, and U.S. Response
Since no nation
directly threatens China, to what ends are its continued escalation
in arms purchasing and military spending intended? This is a
question to which more and more attention is being directed. China
has a different view of the post-Cold War world order than does the
U.S., Russia, or the European Union. China's recently released
Anti-Secession Law, its reaction to the recently published Report
on Chinese Military Power,
and the reform and modernization of the People's Liberation Army
(PLA) all provide necessary context for analysis.
Much of what U.S.
officials are discussing as new or enhanced PLA capabilities is
actually the result of a decade-long modernization push. The first
Gulf War galvanized the PLA and forced it to confront the fact that
it was almost 20 years behind any other developed military. This
provided the impetus for reform and modernization efforts, which
(even before the term came into vogue in the Pentagon) the Chinese
referred to as "transformations." Jiang Zemin enjoined the PLA to
undergo a metamorphosis: from local war under ordinary conditions
to local war under modern, high-tech conditions. The PLA would be
transformed from a military based on quantity to one based on
quality. Since the inception of this change in focus, which is in
line with America's "capabilities based" construct, almost every
part of the massive Chinese defense establishment has been
affected:
- New operational
concepts and war-fighting doctrines;
- Modernization of
weapons systems;
- Acquisition and
integration of new technologies;
- Rethinking
command and control relationships;
- Rationalization
of R&D and procurement systems;
- Changes in
personnel recruitment, retention, and management; and
- New standards for
training of units and individuals and an enhanced professional
military education system.
Even if there were
no Taiwan contingency, the basic thrust of the PLA's reforms-which
are impressive given the institutional challenges they have
faced-would still be on the same trajectory. Chinese military
transformation has five ultimate goals:
- Maintain the
decisive advantage in any cross-Straits crisis;
- Deter, delay, or
disrupt any third-party intervention in a cross-Straits
crisis;
- Protect the
growing political and economic interests along China's periphery
and in Central Asia;
- Complicate or
disrupt attempts to use military force against the mainland;
and
- Maintain order
and improve counter-terrorism capabilities.
It would be
imprudent for U.S. Department of Defense not to consider China's
place on the world stage and its future military power. Concern
about China has always been at the forefront of military thinking
and is addressed in numerous strategic planning processes and
documents. China looms large in the strategic landscape, an
"unmentionable" by virtue of size, complexity, and political
sensitivities. An important measure of success for the QDR will be
how well it addresses the long-term challenges posed by China's
growing military and economic power, while addressing the near-term
challenges of the global struggle against violent extremism, rogue
states, and other operational commitments. The U.S. must maintain
the ability to operate in near-mainland waters and airspace or be
able to overcome any PLA access denial capabilities and to deny, on
a selective basis, the advantage of any mainland "sanctuary." A
conflict with China would be a contingency of major proportions,
and certain capabilities would be required by the United States and
should be considered in the QDR:
- Long-range
precision strike capability, especially stealth strike
capability;
- High-technology
capabilities and advanced electronics;
- Theater and
homeland cyber defense;
- Naval capability
to enter and remain in contested waters; and
- Ground forces
capable of taking the conflict to China.
Investment in such
capabilities, which are also useful in the continuing war on
terror, would ensure that American forces 10 to 15 years in the
future are adequately prepared.
Space: The Future
and Contentious Frontier
With regard to
military utilization of space, the U.S. lead has never been greater
than it is today. Space applications and satellite technology saves
lives every day, not only in the military but also across the
spectrum of human activity. How do we maintain, protect, and expand
our current advantages in space?
Currently,
satellites are expensive and fragile and can be disrupted by
relatively inexpensive weapons. Although several countries possess
the latent capability to engage in space warfare, this option has
never been exercised. A direct attack against a satellite would be
a first and would be unlikely to be an isolated attack. The
consequences of engaging in such a conflict would likely be severe.
Depending on the scale of the exchange, it is possible that many
low-Earth orbit assets could be affected, thereby denying both
military and civilian users these resources. This is precisely why
the United States must work to dissuade hostile parties from
further developing these capabilities, deter them from using them
if they do develop them, and be prepared to both respond and
minimize the consequences should deterrence fail.
Satellites are
especially important for nuclear forces, which depend on them for
early warning and targeting. Mutual recognition of this linkage was
one of the reasons that the United States and the Soviet Union were
so careful to avoid interference with each other's satellites.
Although this circumspection has not ended with the Cold War, it is
unlikely that future potential adversaries would play by these
rules. The U.S. must recognize that space operations could be
critical to assuring victory in future conflicts and take whatever
steps, programmatically and in policy, to prepare for this
future.
Some have charged
that such a policy would lead to the "weaponization of space." Some
participants in the debate over military use of space say that we
should protect this threshold and not cross it." In current QDR
deliberations, these critics express concern about the Department
of Defense's vision for military applications in space. Others
realize that the threshold has already been crossed technologically
and that space was a major focus of military planners in the 2001
QDR, the 2002 Joint Doctrine for Space Operations, the 2004 Air
Force Doctrine on Counterspace Operations, and the 2005 National
Defense Strategy. The debate-when space is not regarded as so
contentious as to be "unmentionable"-has been reduced to one over
competing definitions. This debate is not readily subject to
compromise or policy solutions. As a measure of the complexity of
this issue, the competing definitions are:
- Space is not now
weaponized, versus space is weaponized;
- U.S. space policy
as a choice of dominance or reassurance, or one of reassurance
through dominance;
- Space as a value
(sanctuary), or simply as a place (the geographic constant in
military policy);
- The U.S. as the
initiator of a space arms race, or the U.S. dissuading others from
engaging in such an arms race; and
- Stand-by
counterspace capabilities (what we have now) as adequate, or the
necessity for on-hand capabilities.
The side whose
definitions prevail will win the debate. Space-especially the
military use of space-is an extremely technical issue, the
specifics of which are sure to be addressed in the QDR. However,
the issue of space also provides an excellent example of how the
discussion over fundamental capabilities sometimes requires a
greater breadth of intellectual and philosophical engagement.
For more
information and analysis of the Quadrennial Defense Review, China,
and military space issues, see Heritage Foundation Lecture
No. 877, "Slipping
the Surly Bonds of the Real World: The Unworkable Effort to Prevent
the Weaponization of Space;" WebMemo No. 804,
"
Pentagon Report on Chinese Military Power Deserves Careful
Reading;" and Executive
Memorandum No. 954,
"Principles
for the Next Quadrennial Defense Review," all available
at heritage.org
Jack Spencer is Senior Policy
Analyst for Defense and National Security in the Kathryn and Shelby
Cullom Davis Institute for International Studies at the Heritage
Foundation. Kathy Gudgel, Research Assistant in Defense and
National Security, contributed to this piece. This paper is based on presentations given
at "The 2005 Quadrennial Defense Review: China and Space-The
Unmentionable Issues," held on July 7, 2005, at The Heritage
Foundation.