Russia, China threats may trigger a new space arms race (2024)

Are we ready for offensive weapons in space?

“We need space fires to enable us to establish space superiority,” the head of Colorado Springs-based U.S. Space Command, Gen. Stephen Whiting, announced at the Army Space and Missile Defense Symposium in Huntsville, Ala., on Aug. 6.

Though Whiting didn’t explain exactly what “space fires” means, a recent military document defines “fires” as “available weapons and other systems to create a specific lethal or nonlethal effect on a target.” In space, that means offensive weapons that could either destroy or disable enemy satellites.

For many years, Pentagon officials have been wary of discussing even the possibility of using “offensive” space weapons due to political sensitivities about the militarization of space. And the Outer Space Treaty of 1967, which the U.S., Russia, China and 138 other countries have signed, specifically bans nuclear weapons, weapons of mass destruction and military bases in space.

The treaty is a dreamers’ document, arguing a “common interest of all mankind in the progress of the exploration and use of outer space for peaceful purposes.”

“There shall be freedom of scientific investigation in outer space,” it states, “including the moon and other celestial bodies, and States shall facilitate and encourage international cooperation in such investigation.”

But the revelation this year that Russia is close to being able to deploy a nuclear weapon in space has raised the specter of a space arms race, and senior Space Command officials have been much more willing to talk about the need for offensive weapons in space to counter new threats. The Outer Space Treaty does not specifically ban conventional weapons, though it does ban the "testing of any kind of weapons."

Whiting said a nuclear weapon in space threatens our “entire modern way of life.”

“The People’s Republic of China and Russia now hold at risk U.S. and Allied space capabilities because they know our Joint Force relies on space to fight the way we want— precisely, lethally, effectively, and efficiently,” Whiting said at a recent Aspen Security Forum I attended. “It’s a completely indiscriminate weapon,” Whiting said of the Russian nuclear satellite. “It would affect the United States satellites, Chinese satellites, Russiansatellites, European satellites, Indian satellites, Japanese satellites. And so, it’s really holding at risk the entire modern way of life.”

“If Russia were to detonate a nuclear weapon in space, it is not just going to affect military targets,” Air Force Lt. Gen. Jeffrey Kruse, the director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, said during an appearance alongside Whiting. “The issue is, everything that’s in line of sight at low earth orbit is going to have immediate effects.”

China’s increased emphasis on directed energy weapons, electronic warfare, and anti-satellite capabilities also requires a much more aggressive push by the United States to counter their threats, Whiting said.

“China is building a kill web, if you will, in space — tailor-built to find, fix, track, target” and help guide on-the-ground weapons against U.S. and allied forces throughout the Indo-Pacific, Whiting said. “And so, we have a role there to help defend those U.S. forces from China’s more precise, more lethal, and more far-ranging terrestrial army, navy, and air force.”

Robert Lightfoot, president of Lockheed Martin Space and former associate administrator of NASA, made the point at the Aspen conference that “space is absolutely critical to the day-to-day things that we are doing," and that makes us more vulnerable to attacks on our satellites.

If you used GPS recently, or internet on your plane, or checked radar on your phone for the latest weather forecast, you were relying on space.

China first showcased the ability to disrupt our space networks when it shot down a satellite with a ground-based missile in 2007.

“Since China’s ASAT test of 2007 where they put us on notice that they could shoot down a satellite … we have only seen their development of counterspace weapons rapidly, breathtakingly increase,” Whiting said.

Space Command was created in 2019 in response to that threat and to oversee military operations in space. Space Force was added in December 2019 as “an armed service solely focused on organizing, training and equipping forces for the space domain,” Whiting said.

“So now it’s about having professionals laser-focused on this problem,” Whiting said. “How do we defend against these threats?”

Until recently, space officials including Whiting have talked exclusively about a constellation of defensive strategies:

• Making our current satellites more resilient.

• The development of lower-orbit constellations of satellites that are less susceptible to attack.

• Launching smaller satellite constellations that are more segregated and more widely distributed

• Building in defensive capabilities on new satellites.

• And lastly, better testing and training facilities for these new technologies.

Much of that defensive capability is being organized right here in Colorado. And now the Air Force Academy has launched an Institute for Future Conflict to train cadets in possible space warfighting techniques.

During a recent panel discussion on "New Ways of War" in Denver, the director of the institute, Lt. Gen. Bradford Shwedo, made the point that the military has to stop operating in silos if it is going to succeed in battling threats in space.

All available capabilities — air, land, sea, space, cyber — have to work closely together for the best possible outcomes, he said.

“We know we need that high ground,” he added.

As the institute’s work progresses, Shwedo hopes to include cadets in the actual work of counteracting the activities of our adversaries in space.

But Shwedo was hush-hush when it comes to the specifics of weapons in space. “I prefer not to go too far into that conversation,” he said, because much of that information is classified.

Meantime, Whiting can’t help but express his disappointment that Russia is forcing our hand on putting weapons in space.

“The Soviet Union was the original signer of the Outer Space Treaty, which was signed the year I was born, 1967. My entire life, it has been an expectation for mankind that we will not put a nuclear weapon or weapon of mass destruction in space. And now they are doing that, potentially.”

“It’s just so disappointing,” said Whiting. “They launched the first object, the first animal, the first man, the first woman.

“They were the OG space superpower. And look at what they are doing” now.

I know this new space arms race is probably inevitable and necessary, but I can’t help but share some of Whiting’s regret.

I think those folks back in the 1960s who signed the Outer Space Treaty had a dream that maybe in this new realm they were voyaging into for the first time, maybe we could get it right. Maybe we could ban the mistakes we made back on Earth, the wars and weapons and hate. Maybe space was where us earthlings got a big do-over, to explore in harmony with each other.

You look up at the Milky Way on a dark Colorado night and you get a tiny glimpse of the sheer, gorgeous infinity of space, the ridiculous scale and majesty of the universe. It’s hard not to see a sacred realm on those nights, a hallelujah of starlight and dust.

And that’s when you can’t help but wish we’d still figure out some way, even at this late hour, to leave the heavens well enough alone.