Space Force is ready to fight. The Pentagon may not be

There was quite a bit of media buzz (and more than a little mocking) when the Space Force was introduced as the newest branch of the United States military during the Trump presidency. But what have they been up to since then? I don’t recall seeing clips from NASA about battles going on in low earth orbit. What, if any role would they play in America’s next war, be it with Russia, China, Iran, or someone else? It turns out that the senior leadership in the Space Force has been wondering about some of the same things. In a recent policy paper, Maj. Gen. David Miller, the Space Force director of operations, training, and force development, said that the time for debate is over and Space Force needs to develop new offensive and defensive “counterspace weapons.” This must be done to prepare for possible conflicts in space, most likely with China. (Breaking Defense)

The Space Force urgently needs to develop a broad range of offensive and defensive counterspace weapons based on orbit to counter China — starting with a clear policy statement of US government intent and the development of an integrated plan for building such an arsenal, argues a new paper from the Mitchell Institute.

They’re recommendations that “resonate with almost every Guardian that’s out there” and with “United States Space Command in particular,” said Maj. Gen. David Miller, US Space Command director of operations, training, and force development (J3), during an online Mitchell Institute event today to unveil the policy paper.

“We’ve got to … stop debating if it’s a warfighting domain, stop debating whether there are weapons, and get to the point of how do we responsibly, as part of the joint and combined force, deter conflict that nobody wants to see, but if we do see it, demonstrate our ability to win?” he said.

The title of the paper he introduced is “Building US Space Force Counterspace Capabilities: An Imperative for America’s Defense.” It discusses topics that we’ve brought up here in the past, particularly the reality that the United States has fallen well behind China in offensive and defensive technology that can be deployed in space.

The Chinese have already developed highly mobile satellite systems that can disrupt or destroy other orbiting technology. America has chosen to focus on peaceful space technology, but Maj. Gen. Miller warns that we are leaving ourselves dangerously exposed. Every advanced country is militarily dependent on satellite technology, but China has taken the lead in the ability to knock out those capabilities.

There has been some developmental work going on in this field, but it hasn’t been prioritized in the Pentagon or in Congress. Now that we finally have a branch of the military perfectly suited to developing and testing projects like this, it’s clear we should be taking advantage of it. It’s not as if Space Force has its own fleet of rockets to fly out there and imitate Buzz Lightyear. (We do have the X-37B, but it reportedly doesn’t even have room for a pilot.)

For a very long time, the United States and our allies looked at space as the great frontier of peace. We were able to cooperate with the Russians in space even when we were squabbling with them on the surface of the planet. When the Chinese began going into space in earnest, we welcomed them and even offered technical help initially. We were all going to be one big happy family in orbit.

That was a shortsighted and unrealistic dream. Fighting in space for control and technological advances is on the way, even if we aren’t sending human pilots up to do it. We’re falling behind and we need to be playing catch-up. If we’re going to have a Space Force we should be using it. If not, direct those resources back to the other branches.