soup

Keeping the probability of this event quite low. Not necessarily because I don't think China is interested in expanding their influence in Africa, but because US trade wars are giving China an alternative avenue of further entrenching their footprint in the African continent without needing to establish military installments. China recently announced plans to establish tariff free trade with 53 African nations: https://odi.org/en/insights/china-courts-africa-with-tariff-free-access-a-new-era-of-trade-or-just-the-first-step/

China is pushing a rhetoric of the world choosing between "peace or war" and they definitely want to present themselves as the "peace" option at a time global tensions are high due to the Trump era foreign policies. Chinese state-owned firms already have built, financed or operate more than one-quarter of all African ports. There's already plenty of dual use infrastructure in place, there's no need to ruffle feathers by changing their designation to military installations. https://www.yahoo.com/news/chinas-african-port-interests-expanding-093000083.html?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuYmluZy5jb20v&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAMdbk7C1jZLIusvRuByydlGbF6s_YovZTN9gkMHOLlDK0rcTpLCEgwtDmv8AdBv3s09mN389O_0ADpbctpobbbFLSlUlp3MGUcqAWHR_77N8ACDobiB3nLEzkrUg05y_BV9lU9ZodMXFNXyuuSJBQI_YGCV8D2_6EUnNuegKdAT2

And Djibouti still remains an outlier in China's long history.  The unique context around Djibouti hosting multiple military bases allows China enough ambiguity and plausible deniability about their military expansion ambitions. 

I'm starting with a high probability for this event based on two factors:

1. Potential adversaries of the US and allies already have credible ASAT capabilities
2. Circumstances leading to the use of ASAT tech seems likely by 2027

Two countries US and allies would deem as "not so friendly" are already equipped with credible ASAT capabilities. China is consistently investing in a wide variety of ASAT tech. If the US Space Force Chief is this concerned, maybe there's a reason for it: https://www.defenseone.com/threats/2025/04/how-china-expanding-its-anti-satellite-arsenal/404283/ 

China has already tested kinetic effects of their ASAT tech on their own satellites: https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/chinas-anti-satellite-test

and so has Russia:  https://www.spacecom.mil/Newsroom/News/Article-Display/Article/2842957/russian-direct-ascent-anti-satellite-missile-test-creates-significant-long-last/

Now would there be a circumstance where either China or Russia could use this tech against US and allies by 2027? Russia is already at war and increasingly, the war extending beyond Ukraine seems entirely likely given Russia's escalatory behaviour in recent months: https://apnews.com/article/nato-russia-drones-estonia-ed72156951e6ef62f802d9f1f786c8b5

There's certainly enough cause for Russia to potentially use ASAT in this conflict, and there's a lot of buzz around this threat recently in the news: https://www.ibtimes.co.uk/world-war-3-orbit-space-warfare-accelerates-russia-china-build-space-weapons-1744440 & https://dsm.forecastinternational.com/2025/09/23/the-new-era-of-space-warfare/

The 2027 timeline for a potential Taiwan conflict could also involve ASAT. Lead up to a conflict between China and Taiwan would likely involve major disruptions to satellite systems operated by US and allies. This would cripple information sharing and early warning systems US and allies would need to respond to an escalation: https://asiatimes.com/2025/07/crystal-clear-china-sharpening-its-anti-satellite-laser-edge/

And in my personal opinion, space warfare has an inherent ambiguity that China likes dabbling in. By nature, most space assets are dual use technology. And given the lack of comprehensive laws around the space domain, it makes it easier to perform greyzone operations and claim plausible deniability. There are currently no binding international agreements on space warfare. Even in the case of Russia's ASAT test, which directly threatened the international space station, had no real consequences: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-05-21/space-weapons-how-the-world-is-preparing-for-war-in-space/103634106 and https://armorysaga.com/international-laws-on-space-warfare/

So persistent Chinese investment in this domain of warfare makes a lot of sense, and it's certainly feasible that China could use these weapons against US or allies in an escalatory situation. 

And while India remains a friendly face to US and allies, this could easily change given the recent thawing of India-China relations: https://eastasiaforum.org/2025/09/18/trump-tariffs-prompt-india-to-rethink-china-ties/

Going all in

A lot has changed since my last forecast... Did not realise the end of season outbreaks this year would be so abnormal, but I suppose anti-vaxx movement has gained significant traction and had led to a far worse health crisis than I initially assumed. 

Updating again based on CNN tracker, which already has surpassed 1500 by 23rd of Sept: https://www.cnn.com/health/measles-cases-us-dg