China goes ballistic at Trump’s ‘Star Wars’ II plan

It had echoes of “Star Wars.” No, not the classic film franchise, but the name critics used in the 1980s to describe the late American President Ronald Reagan’s futuristic missile shield.

Known as the Strategic Defense Initiative, SDI was a bold blueprint to protect the United States from nuclear attack by using space-based lasers and interceptors.

The technology had more in common with Hollywood special effects than was available at the time. But the threat still shaped arms control talks between the US and the Soviet Union.

Fast forward more than 40 years and President Donald Trump’s missile defense vision, known as “Golden Dome,” is causing a similar stir about “weapons in space.” This time from China.

“[Golden Dome] creates an unconstrained, global, multi-layer and multi-domain missile defense system. It plans to expand the US arsenal for combat operations in outer space,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning told a media briefing earlier this week.

“It will heighten the risk of turning space into a war zone and creating an arms race, [shaking] the international security and arms control system,” she said.

We haven’t truly thought about the long-term consequences.

Victoria Samson at the Secure World Foundation

Back to the future:

• Trump’s Star Wars II will cost at least US$175 billion and include weapons systems in space to deter threats from China and Russia.
• “We’ll have it done in three years,” he said at a media briefing in the Oval Office on Tuesday, although that might be wishful thinking.
• Criticism is also rife, harking back to Reagan’s 1983 Strategic Defense Initiative.

Delve deeper: “I think it’s opening a Pandora’s box,” Victoria Samson, the director of space security and stability at the Secure World Foundation think tank in Washington, said.

Between the lines: “We haven’t truly thought about the long-term consequences,” she added as reported by the Reuters news agency.

Big picture: Still, a report by the Pentagon had warned for years about state-of-the-art “missiles developed by China and Russia.” They are so advanced that urgent countermeasures by the United States “are necessary.”

Bottom line: “China and Russia have put offensive weapons in space, such as satellites with abilities to disable critical US satellites, which can make the United States vulnerable to attack,” ABC News stated.

China Factor comment: High-tech military systems have advanced rapidly in the past 40 years, making Reagan’s ‘dream’ a reality. Or, should that be a ‘nightmare’?