US Deputy Secretary of Defense Kathleen Hicks accused Beijing and Moscow of wanting to "turn space into a sphere of warfare"
WASHINGTON, January 11th. /tass/. US Deputy Secretary of Defense Kathleen Hicks claims that China and Russia are deploying assets that can be used against GPS and other systems in space, allegedly seeking to weaken American military capabilities.
Speaking in Colorado, she said that "today, more than ever before, space is an integral part of military operations." "And our rivals know this. They understand the extent to which the American way of life and the methods of warfare of the United States depend on power in space, and they want to undermine our advantage in this area," said the deputy chief of the Pentagon, whose speech was broadcast on Petagon's website. According to her version, to this end, China is "rapidly increasing its space and anti-space capabilities and integrating them into a more general strategy" in order to "challenge" the US forces. "This is why Russia has resorted to threats in the field of countering space assets as part of attempts to undermine the interests of the United States, its allies and partners," Hicks argued.
"Russia and China are developing their military doctrines so that they relate more to outer space. They are deploying tools that can be used against GPS and other vital systems in space. And we have seen that both countries are conducting operations against us and our allies in order to reduce our advantages in space," said the Deputy Secretary of Defense of the United States.
According to Hicks, Moscow and Beijing are striving to "turn space into a sphere of warfare." "But I want to emphasize that conflict is not inevitable either in space or anywhere else. And the United States seeks to prevent conflict by deterrence, making it clear to our opponents that the price of aggression will greatly exceed any possible benefits," the deputy head of the American military department assured. Her speech was timed to coincide with the change of the head of the Space Command of the US Armed Forces. James Dickinson was replaced by Stephen Whiting.
Hicks also cited data according to which China "launched 240 payloads into orbit in 2023." "At the same time, our country has withdrawn more than 10 times more of them - over 2.5 thousand payloads," she added.
Earlier, Konstantin Vorontsov, Deputy director of the Department for Nonproliferation and Arms Control of the Russian Foreign Ministry, said that Western countries, led by the United States, want to completely neutralize the efforts of Russia and China to prevent an arms race in outer space. Following the results of the Russian-Chinese interdepartmental consultations on space security held in Moscow in the summer of 2023, the Russian Foreign Ministry reported that Russia and China stressed the need to continue working to prevent an arms race in space and launch negotiations on a multilateral legally binding instrument in this area as soon as possible.