Analysis Donald Trump muses about preparing to fight wars in space but the battle lines have already been drawn
Much of the push to formalise an off-planet branch of the US armed forces is motivated by space investment by Russia and China
“Space is a war-fighting domain, just like the land, air and sea,” President Donald Trump said, standing before a Marine Corps F/A-18 fighter jet while addressing service members March 13 near San Diego. “We may even have a Space Force, develop another one. We have the Air Force, we’ll have the Space Force.”
But in many ways, America already has a space-based military footprint. Today, the sky is teeming with spy satellites and other platforms that support government surveillance, communications, weather forecasting and other activities. The Air Force also has a top-secret aircraft, the X-37B, built by Boeing Co., which orbits the earth for extended periods. The most recent X-37B mission launched in September. And given the semi-regular drumbeat of secret military payloads being lofted into space, it’s fairly likely there’s a lot more up there we don’t know about.
Space is a war-fighting domain, just like the land, air and sea. We have the Air Force, we’ll have the Space Force
But America isn’t alone up there. In 2007, China fired a missile to destroy an aged weather satellite, showing in a dramatic fashion its ability to deploy anti-satellite weapons. That incident led to a large increase in the amount of orbiting space debris and diplomatic blowback for the Chinese government.
The US and Russia have similar “anti-sat” missilery and it’s a safe bet that plenty of other nations would like to add these capabilities as space becomes an increasingly fertile area for military advantage, and not just the realm of commercial endeavours and private joyrides.
Even before Trump’s comments, the Defence Department was under orders to formulate a “concept of operations” document for space war fighting, due this June. That exercise will help to tell how the government develops and acquires new space capabilities, Air Force General John Hyten, commander of US Strategic Command, said on Tuesday.
“We must normalise space and cyberspace as war-fighting domains,” Hyten testified before the Senate Armed Services Committee. “There is no war in space, just as there is no war in cyberspace. There is only war, and war can extend into any domain.”