The Chinese test prompted the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission, the congressional advisory panel, to release a lengthy study on the country's potential anti-satellite weapons capabilities. The study was prepared by China expert Michael Pillsbury and is based on open-source Chinese documents.
It said that even a small-scale anti-satellite attack in a crisis against 50 US satellites "could have a catastrophic effect not only on US military forces, but on the US civilian economy."
Other concepts proposed by the Chinese military, according to the study, called for jamming and attacking ground stations rather than destruction of US satellites.
In both the anti-satellite and ground station attacks, the United States could have difficulty knowing which nation was responsible for the hostilities, the report said. (Source: AP, Jan. 20, 2007).