A national security expert is sounding the alarm on China's developing cyber capabilities after a classified U.S. intelligence leak reportedly exposed their efforts to build weapons to overtake enemy satellites.
John Hannah, former national security adviser for Vice President Cheney, issued a dire warning Friday on China's aggressive investments in technology, arguing that their strategy is intended disrupt, degrade and destroy U.S. space capabilities.
"The future of warfare, one of the most contested domains, is going to be space. Space, in essence, is the new high ground. [The] country that controls space and the next battlefield is effectively, I think, got the best chance of actually winning the war," Hannah explained on "Cavuto: Coast to Coast."
In this photo released by Xinhua News Agency, from left, Chinese astronauts for the upcoming Shenzhou-15 mission Zhang Lu, Fei Junlong and Deng Qingming wave during a meeting of the press at the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northwest China on Monday, Nov. 28, 2022. Final preparations were being made Monday to send the new three-person crew to China's space station as it nears completion amid intensifying competition with the United States. | AP Newsroom
"If China is able to knock out our ability to see what the enemy is doing, our ability to exert command and control and communications between our own forces, it's virtually game over for us on the battlefield here on Earth," he continued.
The revelations were included in classified U.S. intelligence allegedly leaked by 21-year-old Massachusetts Air National Guardsman Jack Teixeira, The Financial Times reported Friday.
The CIA report assessed China's plan to use cyber weapons to "deny, exploit or hijack" Western satellites used for wartime communication and surveillance.
China has increasingly invested in and enhanced their space programs in recent years, creating new threats to U.S. security. According to officials with the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), the communist nation has been reorganizing and reforming their space forces, using the majority of its 541 satellites sent to space for reconnaissance or intelligence gathering.
Hannah noted China's recent cyber-technology advancements have allowed them to not only disrupt U.S. satellites, but to "mimic" our frequencies.
"What we heard about it most recently in the leaks was this very advanced cyber capability that they have to not only disrupt our satellites and what they're able to see, but to actually have the same frequency and mimic our frequencies and actually communicate and take over our satellites," he said.
"We've known for a long time the Chinese have ground based anti-satellite missiles that they're working on. It's directed energy and lasers being used to blind our satellites. And it's satellites up in space that the Chinese are working on that would be able to actually attack our satellites in orbit around the Earth."
The former national security adviser concluded by issuing an urgent warning to the Biden administration.
"We've got to have more satellites, better protected, more resilient, cheaper, because these systems are very, very expensive. So we've got to meld industry and government, work on this, DOD, work on this together," Hannah concluded.
"It's going to take a whole of society approach to figure out, because the Chinese… are a genuine peer competitor. And in some areas, particularly on the offensive side of the equation, they're exceeding us right now."
Fox News' Bret Baier and Amy Munneke contributed to this report.
