Leaks of the Pentagon Papers continue, exposing new secrets by the day, and the latest reveals China’s ability to target, disrupt, and seize America’s surveillance network and wartime satellites.
According to the Financial Times, a classified CIA document dated this year revealed China’s ability to “exploit or hijack” enemy satellites.
While talk of China developing Western anti-satellite technology has been reported in the past, a recent leaked report confirmed growing concerns about China’s focus on space warfare capabilities.
The latest leak confirms concerns within the Pentagon that there are still classified files in the public domain that could harm national security by exposing U.S. intelligence assessments of a rival force’s combat capabilities.
Congestion system
One of the electronic weapons highlighted in the document includes an elaborate jamming system designed to confuse and eventually neutralize satellites by simulating signals received from ground station operators and disabling them.
This makes China “unusable to take control of a satellite and support communications, weapons or intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance systems”.
While the leaked document contains no classified information on how the US plans to counter China’s anti-satellite systems, it is no secret that the Pentagon, along with its Cyber and Space Command, is spending millions of dollars to counter this Chinese threat. Russia.
The United States has an advanced program to develop advanced offensive electronic weapons and improve its defenses against attack by strengthening the materials used in the construction of satellites.
Likewise, the United States, like China and Russia, has the ability to attack enemy satellite systems with missiles and electronic jamming technology. The United Kingdom also has advanced capabilities in the field of cyber weapons.
Last year, the United States became the first country to adopt a voluntary ban on destructive testing of anti-satellite missile systems.
Anti-satellite tests cause huge debris clouds in space, as Russia condemned in December 2021 when it tested to destroy a low-orbit satellite.
China has electronic warfare systems
The US intelligence community’s annual threat assessment released last month found China’s People’s Liberation Army deploying “destructive and non-destructive ground-based and anti-satellite weapons.”
Ground weapons include “electronic warfare systems, laser-guided energy weapons and ASAT anti-satellite missiles designed to disable, damage and destroy targeted satellites”.
The PLA also held orbital technology demonstrations that would “demonstrate China’s ability to operate remotely based anti-space weapons in the future.”
American satellite
Although the United States has the world’s most efficient and extensive satellites, hundreds of military and intelligence satellites are used to communicate through encrypted channels.
China and Russia
In addition to hitting enemy targets with precision strikes, early warning of a nuclear attack, spying on other countries’ communications and assisting in the navigation of warships and fighter planes.
This is why China and Russia, especially the former, are investing heavily in developing anti-space weapons to attack US satellites.
The leaked document is one of at least 100 allegedly leaked by Jack Teixeira, a 21-year-old member of the US Air National Guard in Massachusetts.
He was arrested by the FBI last week and charged under the Espionage Act for the removal, retention and transmission of classified national security information.
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