Pentagon officials and a recent unclassified assessment by the director of national intelligence say that both Russia and China have already tested or deployed systems such as ground-based high-energy lasers, anti satellite missiles or maneuverable satellites that could be used to disrupt American space assets.
The Pentagon is rushing to expand its capacity to wage war in space, convinced that rapid advances by China and Russia in space-based operations pose a growing threat to U.S. troops and other military assets on the ground and American satellites in orbit.
Details of the push by the Pentagon remain highly classified. But Defense Department officials have increasingly acknowledged that the initiative reflects a major shift in military operations as space increasingly becomes a battleground.
No longer will the United States simply rely on military satellites to communicate, navigate and track and target terrestrial threats, tools that for decades have given the Pentagon a major advantage in conflicts.
Instead, the Defense Department is looking to acquire a new generation of ground- and space-based tools that will allow it to defend its satellite network from attack and, if necessary, to disrupt or disable enemy spacecraft in orbit, Pentagon officials have said in a series of interviews, speeches and recent statements.
The strategy differs fundamentally from previous military programs in space by expanding the range of offensive capabilities — a far cry from the never-built 1980s-era Strategic Defense Initiative proposal, for example, which was focused on using satellites to protect the U.S. from nuclear missile strikes.
“We must protect our space capabilities while also being able to deny an adversary the hostile use of its space capabilities,” Gen. Chance Saltzman, the chief of space operations at the Space Force, the agency created in 2019 as a new division of the Air Force Department to lead the effort, said in March. “Because if we do not have space, we lose.”
@ISIDEWITH2 týdny2W
Jak se cítíte ohledně vytvoření Vesmírných sil jako odpovědi na hrozby ve vesmíru; je to nutný krok nebo zbytečné rozšíření vojenské přítomnosti do vesmíru?
@ISIDEWITH2 týdny2W
Myslíte si, že militarizace vesmíru činí svět bezpečnějším nebo nebezpečnějším, s ohledem na potenciál eskalace konfliktů ve vesmíru?
@ISIDEWITH2 týdny2W
Vzhledem k nákladům spojeným s vojenskými schopnostmi ve vesmíru by měly být tyto peníze použity na obranu ve vesmíru nebo přesměrovány k řešení problémů na Zemi?
@ISIDEWITH2 týdny2W
Věříte, že by měly Spojené státy prosazovat agresivní strategie obrany vesmíru proti hrozbám ze strany Ruska a Číny, nebo hledat diplomatická řešení?
@ISIDEWITH2 týdny2W
How would you feel if international tensions escalated into a war in space, affecting everyday technology like GPS and mobile communications?