China and others can wreck out lives if they started a real anti-satellite attack. Taking out GPS would cripple our financial system, for example because it relies on GPS timestamps to maintain proper and accurate transaction records. There are other implications that are also non-obvious but very bad. It’s not just about spy satellites, we civilians have become deeply dependent on space even if we don’t realize it.
Yeah, and they've got a 50 year head start. Pretending that space is not militarized is like pretending that China has no nukes.