The Surface Warfare community is quite pleased with itself this week, and to some extent rightly so. From a tactical perspective, it was quite impressive to successfully shoot down the degraded satellite. It is also a strong validation of our BMD capabilities.
I'm not some rabid, anti-BMD guy, but this event bothers me on two levels. First, honesty is the best policy. Who do we think we're fooling with the "save the world from hydrazine" story? This was about sending a message. If we're so sure this is a good idea, a good capability, why not say so?
Secondly, it underscores the vulnerability of our satellite infrastructure. China shot down a satellite in 2007, and such capabilities probably aren't far outside of Russian capabilities either. We should be wary of being too provocative in this field given our dependence on satellites for GPS, communications and other military capabilities.
Bravo Zulu to the crew of USS LAKE ERIE for putting the round on target. I just remain wary that just because we can, it doesn't mean we necessarily should.
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