If the United States and China ever go to war, the opening salvo will not come from a naval fleet or an air wing. It will come in space, where both nations will race to blind the other by destroying its satellite network. That is the scenario George Friedman lays out - and he believes both sides already have the tools to do it.
As "Hvylya" reports, Friedman, the chairman of Geopolitical Futures, described this logic in the latest episode of Talking Geopolitics. "If the United States and China went to war, the first phase of that war would be carried out in space," Friedman said. "If you blind the enemy in space, well then the only things that can be seen are aircraft - which can be shot down - or the troops themselves, waiting as they have for millennia for the enemy to show up."
The stakes are enormous. Whoever controls the satellite network controls the flow of battlefield intelligence - troop positions, drone targeting, missile guidance. Losing that capability would force a military back to a pre-digital mode of warfare. "I strongly suspect both have anti-satellite systems available in space," Friedman said. "The first battle would be blinding the other side."
The methods of attack are varied. Friedman described satellites that can physically crash into their targets, energy beams designed to disable sensors, and jamming systems that cut the link between a satellite and forces on the ground. Defenders, meanwhile, are building redundancy - thousands of satellites in low Earth orbit so that losing some does not cripple the network - and developing AI-driven maneuvering to dodge incoming threats.
"I suspect there are satellites in space that have laser beams that they can use to shoot the other guy," Friedman said. "It is hard to tell precisely what is happening in space, because this is some of the most classified material that you can imagine."
Both the United States and China are also developing space planes capable of operating in cislunar space - the vast region between the Earth and the moon - adding yet another layer to orbital competition. Friedman noted that India, Israel, and Iran all operate military satellites as well, making space an increasingly crowded arena where the next great-power confrontation may begin.
"Hvylya" previously analyzed why China's leadership believes its window to achieve strategic dominance is narrowing.