If the United States fights China on China’s terms, it may risk collapse in the opening hours. Such a war would not begin with a slow exchange of fire—it would be a race between the two sides to sever the other’s ability to think and act as a single, coordinated force. Beijing has spent decades forging its warfighting system into a tightly integrated brain and nervous system. Theater commanders fuse data from satellites, over-the-horizon radars, airborne sensors, and undersea arrays into a shared real-time picture. From this picture, precisely timed orders flow to air, sea, and missile forces. That operational coherence—seeing, deciding, and striking as one—is what turns scattered operational assets into a lethal, synchronized kill web.
That coherence is China’s greatest strength and its most brittle hinge. When missile salvos arrive just as bombers spring in from their launch points, when submarines maneuver without orders because their neural network tells them the enemy’s retreat path—this is operational synchronization in action. But when data flows stall, when timing errors creep in, that neural network misfires. Missiles still launch, radars still receive—but the system fights as a collection of disjointed parts. Strikes fizzle. Orders lag. Reflexes fail.
Traditionally, the United States has attacked such integrated systems by methodically rolling them back—destroying radars, missile batteries, and command centers one by one. In Desert Storm, in the Balkans, that worked. But against China’s kill web? It is a slow, costly path to disaster. Mobile launchers reposition before they are struck. Redundant sensors light back up. Alternate comms routes reroute data. The brain and nervous system remain intact even as its limbs are wounded.
This is where Golden Dome enters the discussion. Conceived as a homeland missile shield, Golden Dome envisions a multilayered architecture—with one layer even space-based—using both sensors and interceptors in orbit. This space layer is vital for defense—it is a vantage point above the battlefield no terrestrial platform can match. But as the concept takes shape, it makes clear that such a layer will possibly be necessary to countering China’s kill web. Space-based interceptors are not just tools to strike incoming missiles targeting the US homeland and its interests; they can also hold the enemy’s neural infrastructure at risk.
From orbit, interceptors may project effects across the kill web in a single sweep. Directed-energy weapons could blind or degrade intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance satellites, narrowing the commander’s field of vision. Cyber payloads could infiltrate fusion nodes, injecting phantom ships, ghost launchers, and false threats into their digital battlespace. Precision interference with navigation satellites could scramble missile salvo timing—delaying a strike by seconds or minutes, long enough to turn a coordinated hammer blow into scattered, ineffective fire.
These are not science-fiction fantasies. The United States already tests directed-energy weapons capable of sensor damage, interferes with navigation in civilian and military domains, and employs cyber effects to corrupt enemy command and control systems under its “persistent engagement” doctrine. While not fully mature or operationalized at scale, these technologies are progressing quickly. What is novel is envisioning them combined from orbit—simultaneously, preemptively, and across the entire network.
This strike is likely not gradual; it is instantaneous. Orbiting interceptors could plunge into the enemy kill web’s senses, scorching its eyesight. Then they scramble its synapses and timing. As the kill web stumbles, clandestinely placed unmanned systems move in. Autonomous surface vessels strike coastal radar sites. Air-launched drones swarm mobile missile batteries. Undersea drones cut seabed sensors and submarine comms—all while People’s Liberation Army detection struggles to keep time and space coherent.
The effects continue to snowball. Decision-makers are forced into fragmentary choices. A surface action group may move without air support. A missile battery may fire before the target enters range, or after it has passed. Aircraft may arrive only to find the windows of opportunity to strike have closed. The kill web, once a synchronized organism, becomes a lattice of failing parts. Openings spread. The advantage slides into United States hands.
This is a strategic shift from attrition to disruption, from destruction to paralysis. The goal is not to eliminate every node. The goal is to sever the neural connections that give the system its power. Operational coherence is the target. Weapons, sensors, and platforms may exist—but without coordination, they cannot fight as one. Space-based interceptors, with their speed and ability to exert simultaneous effects across the battlespace, appear the most effective instrument for doing this.
By accepting the premise that space-based assets seem critical to countering China’s kill web, the question then becomes: Which assets? One option, of course, is to plan and develop the capabilities separately from Golden Dome. A more cost-effective option, however, is simply to operationalize Golden Dome with such a use case in mind. Critics will argue using the Golden Dome offensively escalates conflict—that weaponizing a homeland defense asset is reckless. But escalation is not reversed by passivity. China’s doctrine emphasizes seizing the initiative; its kill web exists to do exactly that. Doing nothing cedes the opening salvo. Disrupting coherence is not reckless—it is precise, systemic, and deterrent. It targets the enemy’s central nervous system, not its cities. It renders the first strike less likely, not more. That is escalation control through denial.
Moreover, neither Golden Dome as a homeland defense system nor an implementation that enables offensive use during wartime violates the Outer Space Treaty, and the loudest critic of US plans to place systems like these in space is China—who is leaning ahead aggressively to enhance its own space-based military capabilities.
Regardless of whether the assets required to defeat China’s kill web are included in Golden Dome’s development or not, execution utilizing space-based effectors in wartime will demand resilient United States command and control—hardened against retaliation—and secure, redundant communications linking space effects to unmanned follow-on forces. Timing must be exact. Success is measured not simply by the destruction of individual nodes or munitions expended, but by the degree of operational coherence denied to the adversary.
In a Pacific war, victory won’t come from intercepting every missile or destroying every launch site. It will come from denying China the ability to fight as one coherent force. Space-based interceptors strike at the system’s brain and nervous system, disrupting information flow, timing precision, and unity of action—turning our conceptualization of space from that of a shield into one of a spear capable of ending the war before it begins.
Modern warfare favors those who sense fast, decide faster, and act fastest. Against a centralized and synchronized adversary, that advantage is magnified. By targeting operational coherence at its source, the United States could impose its own rhythm, turning the People’s Liberation Army’s strength into vulnerability. The shield that defends the homeland may instead sever command networks, blind sensors, scramble timing, and leave the kill web disjointed before it can act.
Golden Dome’s greatest power lies not in what it stops, but in signaling what space capabilities prevent. When space-based interceptors reach into the enemy’s system, they strike at the processes that coordinate China’s forces. They make the first strike less certain. They make the kill web less synchronized. They make the adversary less capable. In a Pacific conflict, the first move is the most lethal—and the weapon that can unravel the enemy’s coherence becomes the instrument of decisive advantage. The shield still defends.
The spear still strikes. Operational coherence is the linchpin—and space-based interceptors hold the key to severing it. If the system is fractured first, the war may never fully materialize. In modern war, the first strike is not only judged by what lands, but by also what never arrives.
Major Matthew “Niner” Smokovitz is a current fellow at the United States Air Force Academy, Institute of Future Conflict and a graduated instructor of the United States Air Force Weapons School.
The views expressed are those of the author, are based on personal open-source research, and do not reflect the official position of the United States Military Academy, Department of the Army, Department of the Air Force, or Department of Defense.
Image credit: NASA