Did President Bush provoke China’s ASAT test with the “tough talk” of his administration’s new national space policy? Theresa Hitchens thinks so. So does Russian General Leonid Ivashov. Now Michael Krepon has added his voice to the chorus, saying “if further evidence were needed that the Bush administration’s tough talk backfires, China’s test of an anti-satellite weapon will do.” Sure, Krepon was agitating against the new policy from day one. And he neglects to mention that the Chinese made three failed attempts at bringing down a satellite between October 2005 and November 2006 before finally succeeding this month. And he also concedes that any negotiated restrictions would be unlikely to deter the Chinese from further research and testing–“rules don’t stop rule-breakers,” he says. Yet he would have the United States negotiate a new set of rules and abide by them. Why, you ask? “[H]aving one set of rules allows us to identify, isolate and punish bad actors.” Does anyone really believe that the international community would take action against China under such circumstances?
