On Jan. 11, the leaders of major U.S. intelligence agencies gathered on Capitol Hill to deliver their annual report to Congress assessing security threats to the nation.

Absent from that report was any mention of China's program to develop space weapons. Which makes what happened that same day in China all the more dramatic: The Chinese military launched a ballistic missile into space and blasted a decrepit weather satellite the size of a refrigerator about 540 miles up.

It was a technologically astonishing act — strategic analyst Richard Fisher told the Wall Street Journal that the missile shot shows that China's anti-satellite capabilities have now leapfrogged over our own — and a diplomatically audacious one. Only the United States and Russia had ever done anything like this, and not since 1985.

This was clearly a shot across America's bow from a rising and aggressive world power.

Despite its official stance against the militarization of space, Chinese military planners have for some time viewed space as a potential weak link in America's defensive capabilities. This is partly because of heavy U.S. dependency on satellites to gain and transmit information.

An influential 1999 book by Chinese military writers revealed a key to that nation's strategic thinking when it observed, "To cripple or destroy the enemy's information system would drastically degrade the enemy's combat capabilities by making it blind, deaf or paralyzed."

Though U.S.-China relations are good, this anti-satellite test belies Beijing's stated policy of pursuing peaceful relations.

Some analysts have suggested that the Chinese move was a reaction to Washington's assertion of the right to develop space weapons and American efforts to develop anti-satellite technology.

Beijing has now shown itself unwilling to grant U.S. hegemony over the heavens. This is big.

Are we doomed to undertake an arms race in space? The thought is a gloomy one, and it would be foolish for the United States to dash to the starting line.

Still, a challenge as bold as this one demands a serious, well-considered American response. Having proven its capability to cripple the U.S. military and economy with a first strike on our satellites, China is not going to unlearn or holster this technology.

In fact, as the Journal reported, the Chinese have revealed plans for a much longer-range missile, one capable of reaching 22,000 miles high — even farther aloft than America's critical GPS satellites. Do we dare trust in treaties and Chinese good will to protect our satellite network in the event of war?

Because the United States is so vulnerable in space — more than half the satellites there are American — developing weapons systems to protect them will be extremely expensive. The Heritage Foundation estimates a cost of "billions or tens of billions of dollars a year" — and this coming at a time when the Iraq war is draining the defense budget.

And yet, what is the alternative?

To yield the highest ground possible to China?

That is the one thing that we cannot afford.

— The Dallas Morning News

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid earned credit this month for guiding a strong ethics-reform package to approval. But Reid's personal commitment to ethics keeps coming into question.According to a Los Angeles Times report this week, Reid paid a bargain price in 2002 for land to a pension fund controlled by a friend. The Nevada Democrat had tried to pass legislation that would benefit that friend; he tried again after the sale. He also lined up federal funds for a new bridge a few miles from the land.While Reid's office denied any impropriety, the Times report is the latest in a series of news accounts detailing the majority leader's ethically dubious behavior.If they are serious about ethics, Senate Democrats need to find a more deserving standard bearer.<b><i>— The Orlando Sentinel</b></i>