WASHINGTON — Picture this: A Chinese fighter jet accidentally crashes into a Navy P-8 Poseidon surveillance plane while attempting to buzz it over the South China Sea, killing all on board both aircraft. Fearing US retaliation, China goes a relatively unexpected route: It uses surface-to-air missiles to shoot numerous US satellites out of the heavens in quick succession.
Very quickly, the Navy is forced to navigate the Pacific with little use of GPS and degraded communications, causing chaos and uncertainty. The Chinese strikes also have knocked out some of the Pentagon’s ability to control its arsenal of precision-guided weapons.
None of this has happened. But the hypothetical scenario points out the reliance the Pentagon has on space and the military technology it keeps in it. Satellites have soared over the earth’s atmosphere for decades, providing the United States with a huge advantage militarily, even at a time when the conventional weapons US rivals have are formidable.
A new report released on Wednesday by the Center for a New American Security highlights the vulnerabilities the Pentagon has in space and calls for a shift in strategy to safeguard it and prepare for conflict there. It’s written by senior fellow Elbridge Colby, a former member of the presidential campaign staff of Governor W. Mitt Romney of Massachusetts and argues that potential adversaries like China and Russia have noticed the degree to which the United States is reliant on its ‘‘space architecture,’’ and begun to seek ways to threaten it.
‘‘Indeed, many observers have noted that these potential opponents judge the US space architecture to be the Achilles’ heel of US military power, in light of the depth of American reliance on these systems and the vulnerability of the US military satellite architecture,’’ the report said.
Threats to satellites include not only missiles but also cyber and electronic attacks that could disable them. In effect, Colby argues, ‘‘space is becoming a domain like any other — air, sea, land, and electromagnetic — in which the United States will have to compete and fight the ability to access and exploit the domain rather than assume safe and uncontested passage within and use of it.’’
The Pentagon already has begun to prepare in response. Last year, for example, Defense Secretary Ashton B. Carter directed the military to begin looking at reducing its reliance on GPS satellites, arguing in a podcast that the Defense Department probably won’t buy them within 20 years.
‘‘Here’s a sentiment and a prediction for you: I hate GPS,’’ Carter said in the podcast, produced by the investment firm Andreessen Horowitz. ‘‘The idea that we are all hooked to a satellite — formerly bought by me to my great resentment — in a semisynchronous orbit that doesn’t work in certain circumstances, does not work indoors or in valleys in Afghanistan, is ridiculous.’’
Colby argued that regardless what steps the military takes, it is unlikely that the United States will ever have unchallenged dominance in space again. Therefore, the United States needs to consider adjusting what it will do if a satellite is attacked. During the Cold War, Colby notes, there was the threat that the United States would respond to any attack in space with devastating force. He suggests adopting new norms, including that attacks in space can result in retaliation outside space, like airstrikes on ground targets.
‘‘This is crucial to the United States’ particular interests, given the greater current US reliance on space and the consequent preference of its potential adversaries to confine legitimate retaliation in the face of such strikes to space itself,’’ he wrote. ‘‘Yet such a candidate principle stands a strong chance of being more widely accepted as a wide gamut of countries have come to rely on space and appreciate its value and connectivity to the fullest range of civil and military applications.’’
