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.
Who are those experts? First, Joseph Cirincione of the Center for American Progress–an organization the authors describe as “a research group.” The Center for American Progress is run by former Clinton chief of staff John Podesta–and it is not “a research group.” It is plainly a partisan outfit. If Hillary Clinton wins the presidency in 2008, I expect this “research group” might shut-down as its entire staff returns to government. The other expert the Times quotes is Jeffrey Lewis–The ArmsControlWonk. Lewis is a lefty, though, in fairness, he is not a Democratic operative as Cirincione is. Lewis tells the Times:
“The Bush administration watched them conduct two earlier tests and did not say a word,” he said. “Then they issued a National Space Policy that talked about freedom of action and denying adversaries access to space. The Chinese probably concluded that we were in no position to complain about their test.”
Lewis was all over this story before just about anybody else, and it is his area of expertise, so perhaps it is instructive to see what he wrote on his blog when reports of the test first surfaced:
If China has conducted an ASAT test, this is extremely bad. I had been hoping that the Bush Administration would push for a ban on anti-satellite testing, either in the form of a code of conduct or some rules of road. The Bush folks, however, have been fond of saying that wasn’t necessary, because “there is no arms race in space.”
Well, we have one now, instigated by an incredibly short-sighted Chinese government. (I suspect this test will have also created a massive debris problem).
The United States and other space-faring states should demarche the Chinese government for what is a stupid, clumsy and short-sighted decision.
Although this idiotic move by the Chinese government will demonstrate why we don’t want hit-to-kill ASAT testing in orbit-that will be a long-term recognition. In the short-term, the Chinese will simply not be credible partners in efforts to keep space peaceful.
So at the time, Lewis concluded that the Chinese were not “credible partners,” but now he says that if only we’d negotiated some kind of treaty–then all this might have been averted. Everyone else that is quoted in the article takes the exact opposite view on all this of course, including John Pike:
John E. Pike, the director of Global Security.org, a military information Web site, has a less charitable view of the Chinese motivations. “It makes a mockery of China’s space weapons diplomacy,” he said. “Their proposals were always aimed at American space-based systems and always excluded a ground-based, pop-up antisatellite weapon such as theirs. I don’t think we could have talked them out of testing against a target.”
The Times is trying desperately to blame the Bush administration for failing to negotiate an unenforceable prohibition on ASAT weapons, with a country that has no interest in doing so, and which, according to their own expert, simply isn’t a credible partner for negotiations. But we still have the Center for American Progress saying this is Bush’s fault…so it must be true.
