China's Threat to America's Weather Systems

摘要

China's cyberwarriors have been busy, hacking not only into the U.S. Postal Service but also the National Weather Service. This would surprise some. After all, the provision of weather information is a classic example of a "common good." Corrupting the data, or damaging the satellites, would presumably redound to ill effect upon one's own weather forecasting. This is one of the arguments that has been made for relying on China's weather satellite constellation to provide weather data, while the American weather satellite constellation steadily decays and deteriorates. This approach presumes that one's own weather data are wholly tied into the global weather information network, rather than running independently. However, it is this very Chinese constellation that arguably allows the Chinese to interfere with others' weather data - China doesn't have to depend on the kindness of others. It is also important to recognize the importance that the Chinese attribute to weather data, not simply in terms of farming and storm warnings but as a military asset. In this regard, analyses from the People's Liberation Army (PLA) make clear that provision of space-based weather information is an essential security task. Because future wars will be "informationized wars," the ability to establish "information dominance" (zhi xinxi quan) will be a key struggle in future conflicts. That dominance, in turn, will rest in part upon the ability to establish "space dominance" (zhitian quan), because so much of modern information is collected, transmitted or exploited via space-based systems. Establishing space dominance, according to PLA writings, entails the ability to exploit space-based assets while denying an opponent the ability to do the same. The exploitation of space is essential, in part, because of the importance of providing "information support" to friendly forces. This includes not only position, navigation and timing; communications; and reconnaissance functions, but also data regarding physical battlefield conditions. These include geodesy and meteorological information.