The Pentagon believes that China and Russia's rapid advances in space operations pose a growing threat to U.S. forces and other military assets on the ground, as well as U.S. satellites in orbit, and that We are in a hurry to expand our execution capabilities.
Details of the Pentagon's push remain top secret. But Pentagon officials increasingly acknowledge that the initiative reflects a major shift in military operations, as space increasingly becomes a battlefield.
The United States will no longer simply rely on military satellites to communicate, navigate, track and target land-based threats, a tool that has given the Pentagon a significant advantage in conflicts for decades. .
Instead, the Pentagon is considering acquiring a new generation of ground- and space-based tools that can protect satellite networks from attack and, if necessary, disrupt or neutralize enemy spacecraft in orbit. Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications officials said. A series of interviews, speeches and recent statements.
This strategy is fundamentally different from previous space military programs in that it expands the range of strike capabilities. It's a far cry from, for example, the never-built 1980s Strategic Defense Initiative proposal, which focused on using satellites to protect the United States from nuclear missiles. strike.
“We must be able to protect our space capabilities while denying adversaries their use of space capabilities in an adversarial manner,” said Gen. Chance Saltzman, the Space Force's director of space operations. The Department of the Air Force announced in March that it would lead the effort. “If you don't have space, you lose.”
According to a recent unclassified assessment by Pentagon officials and the Director of National Intelligence, Russia and China already have capabilities such as ground-based high-energy lasers, anti-satellite missiles, and maneuverable satellites that can be used to disrupt U.S. space assets. The system is currently being tested or deployed.
Concerns have only increased with reports that Russia may be developing space-based nuclear weapons that could destroy a wide range of commercial and military satellites in orbit. Defense Department officials cited Russia's use of electronic jamming tools during the Ukraine war, at times disrupting advanced U.S. weapons systems, as another reason the U.S. must strengthen its defenses in space. ing.
“It's no longer a theory,” Gen. Stephen N. Whiting, who oversees the Space Force, which is responsible for using space assets to defend the United States, said in a meeting with reporters at the Space Industry Conference in Colorado last month. That's not the point,” he said. “It's real. It's deployed outside the environment.”
However, the move to strengthen space combat capabilities is primarily driven by China's expansion of its fleet of military tools in space.
“China has deployed numerous space capabilities designed to target our military,” Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall said in an interview. “And we can't operate successfully in the Western Pacific unless we can defeat them.”
General Whiting said China has tripled its network of intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance satellites since 2018, which it uses to “discover, modify, track, and, of course, target U.S. and allied military capabilities.” “A kill web in the Pacific Ocean for the purpose of…”
Chinese and Russian officials have denied these claims and insisted that the United States is driving the militarization of space.
A Chinese government statement released earlier this year said, “The United States has long repeatedly hyped China as a 'space threat' to denigrate and attack China,” and said the effort was “an attempt by the United States to expand its military.” It's just an excuse to do so.” Maintain military supremacy in outer space. ”
In response to the U.S. claims, Russia and China unsuccessfully called on the UN Security Council last month to “permanently prevent the placement of weapons in outer space.”
John F. Plumb, assistant secretary of defense for space policy, said Russia and China's proposals come after the United States repeatedly called for a resolution that nuclear weapons should not be deployed in space. It cannot be verified or enforced, and “both are hypocritical,” he said. Russia and China are deploying weapons. ”
The militarization of space is inevitable, he added.
“Human history has led to militaries acting where there is a military advantage,” Plumb said in an interview. “People try to neutralize those advantages and take advantage of them. Space is no exception.”
Instead, U.S. officials are pursuing what they call “responsible counterspace operations,” a term that is intentionally vague and provides direct confirmation that the U.S. intends to deploy its weapons into space. avoid doing.
But it also makes this commitment of the United States to pursue its interests in space without creating a large debris field that would result if explosive devices or missiles were used to blow up enemy satellites. intended to reflect. That's what happened in 2007 when China used a missile to blow up a satellite in orbit. The United States, China, and Russia have all tested such missiles. But in 2022, the United States has vowed never to conduct such an anti-satellite test again.
The United States has also long had ground-based systems that can jam radio signals and disrupt an enemy's ability to communicate with satellites, and has already taken steps to modernize these systems.
But under its new approach, the Pentagon will pursue an even more ambitious mission: broadly suppressing enemy threats in orbit, similar to what the Navy does at sea and the Air Force does in the air. I am about to embark on this mission.
One of the top priorities is so-called force protection, which refers to the Space Force's ability to ensure that other branches of the military are not threatened by the enemy's use of satellites, and to ensure that your own forces are on the battlefield. The mission is to find and target satellites before they arrive.
The recently updated Pentagon fighter doctrine describes the tactic as “achieving space superiority by effectively suppressing enemy space capabilities.”
Given how classified the study is, Pentagon officials declined to discuss details. General Saltzman's aides canceled a scheduled interview with The New York Times after being told they would be asked questions about specific methods of combat.
“There's value in ambiguity, so potential competitors and strategic competitors need to understand what we're doing,” General Whiting said in a separate interview with the Times about the Space Force effort. He said this when he was asked.
But there are hints, including a recent report authored by former Space Force Col. Charles S. Galbreath. He cited three examples that could disable an enemy's satellite network: cyberattacks, ground-based or space-based lasers, and powerful microwaves.
A Pentagon-funded report dating back to the 1990s proposed building space-based “hunter-killer” satellites that would send high-energy beams toward enemy satellites and burn out their electronics, predicted that it could become part of the Air Force. Operation as of 2025.
John Shaw, a recently retired Space Force lieutenant general who helped run the Space Force, agreed that ground- or space-based directed energy devices will likely be part of future systems.
“The trash is minimized. It works at the speed of light,” he said. “These will likely be the tools of choice to achieve our objectives.”
The United States has never publicly admitted that it has space weapons.
Pentagon leaders have said they intend to have “a substantial orbital capability capable of competing in full-spectrum operations” by 2026, as General Saltzman described the plan to senators last year. , declined to discuss details. In offensive ability.
However, the Pentagon already has secret possession of the X-37B, an unmanned space shuttle-like spaceplane that has flown seven missions, leading to speculation that it may be designed as a weapons platform. There is. Military officials said it was being used for experiments.
Separately, the Pentagon is launching a new generation of military satellites equipped with robotic arms that can maneuver in space, refuel, and reach out to grab and potentially destroy enemy satellites. We are working on this.
Another early focus is the protection of missile defense satellites. The Department of Defense recently began requiring that these new generations of space-based surveillance systems include tools to prevent or respond to possible attacks. “Resiliency capabilities to protect against directed energy attack mechanisms” is what one recent missile defense contract describes.
Last month, the Pentagon also awarded contracts to two companies, Rocket Lab and True Anomaly, to launch two spacecraft by the end of next year. One aircraft will act as a mock enemy, while the other will be equipped with a camera to observe the threat up close. The interceptor satellite does not carry weapons, but it does have a cargo hold that can carry them.
General Saltzman said he is trying to reduce the U.S.'s vulnerability to space attacks.
“To avoid operational surprise, we need to maintain an accurate understanding of the space domain at all times,” he told the Senate Appropriations Committee last month, adding that the proposed $29.4 billion Space Force in 2025 Approximately $2.4 billion of the budget is set aside for “space domain awareness,” it added.
Because the program is classified, no one outside the government can reliably estimate how much money is spent cumulatively on systems designed to destroy or neutralize enemy space assets. . But Todd Harrison, an aerospace engineer who studies military space budgets at the conservative American Enterprise Institute, said it would probably be in the hundreds of millions of dollars a year.
Still, Harrison said that assuming such efforts move forward, it will likely be five to 10 years before the United States has a substantial range of offensive weapons in space.
Others argue that the United States is putting too much effort into turning space into a war zone.
“This is a quest for domination by the United States,” said Bruce Gagnon, a longtime peace activist from Maine who calls for a ban on all weapons in space.
The Pentagon is largely undeterred. Through a multinational operation called Operation Olympic Defender, it is working to coordinate so-called counterspace operations with key allies including the United Kingdom, Canada, and Australia.
France has been particularly proactive, announcing its intention to build and launch a satellite equipped with a high-power laser by 2030.
Despite these joint efforts, Pentagon and Congressional officials agree that the Space Force is not moving fast enough.
“We are not acquiring counterspace capabilities at the pace we need to fight and win in space,” Rep. Mike Rogers, Republican of Alabama and chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, said during an Air Force budget hearing last month.
But what is clear is that a certain threshold has now been exceeded. Space has effectively become part of the military combat domain, current and former Pentagon officials said.
“We never want war to extend into space,” Lt. Gen. Deanna M. Burt, deputy chief of space operations, said at a Mitchell Institute event earlier this year. “But if that happens, we have to be prepared to fight and win.”