Why the United States Should Not Fear a Space Pearl Harbor

In the early 2000s, U.S. defense analysts sounded the alarm about a potential “Space Pearl Harbor.” They warned that the U.S. military was becoming increasingly dependent on a small number of vulnerable satellites that would become tempting targets during a crisis or conflict. Those fears grew exponentially after China’s landmark demonstration in 2007 of a direct-ascent anti-satellite (DA-ASAT) missile that destroyed a Chinese weather satellite. Some analysts have argued in the years since that satellites are becoming a liability rather than an asset, potentially even “the American military’s Achilles heel.” Policymakers have warned that a Space Pearl Harbor risks leaving U.S. forces “deaf, dumb, blind, and impotent.”

These fears have significant implications. If the United States depends heavily on satellites that it cannot defend effectively, that raises fundamental questions about its grand strategy and ability to defend allies and partners in the Pacific. If China believes that counterspace attacks could paralyze the U.S. military, that could fuel crisis instability by incentivizing China to strike first.

Fortunately, the magnitude of the challenge remains more manageable than pessimists fear. While China’s counterspace capabilities pose a serious challenge, worst-case scenarios of quick and easy counterspace campaigns that leave the U.S. military incapacitated are unrealistic. Encouraging trends in the resilience of U.S. space architectures and terrestrial backups to space capabilities are mitigating the extent of the threat, though not eliminating it. Additionally, the Space Pearl Harbor framing overlooks that, rather than just playing defense, the United States also needs sustained investments to counter the dramatic growth of China’s own space capabilities that could enable long-range strikes and put U.S. forces at increasing risk.

Historical Pessimism About Resilience Against Counterspace Attacks

There are three main reasons that policymakers and analysts have expressed alarm about the U.S. ability to defend against Chinese counterspace attacks. First, the conventional wisdom is that the attacker has significant structural advantages over the defender in space. Analysts point to factors such as the predictability of orbits and the difficulty of hiding satellites as reasons that space is “an inherently vulnerable and offense-dominant domain.” Additionally, because DA-ASATs have historically been much cheaper than satellites, some observers believe that “defense is impractical in the long term” unless the defender makes unsustainably high investments.

Second, the U.S. military has historically relied on exquisite constellations with small numbers of very capable but very expensive satellites. U.S. officials have referred to these exquisite satellites as “big, fat, juicy targets” and cautioned that they are as survivable as a “glass house.” The concern is therefore that the United States has a weak defensive starting point in a domain that already favors the offense.

Third, China has invested in a wide range of counterspace capabilities to target U.S. satellites. These include a DA-ASAT missile that can destroy satellites in low Earth orbit, lasers that can dazzle or blind imaging satellites, jammers that can disrupt communications and GPS signals, co-orbital satellites that could move or otherwise interfere with U.S. satellites, and offensive cyber capabilities. If China has a strong offensive starting point in a domain that already rewards the attacker, that further compounds the problem.

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From Lawfare