Alexander Stepanov — on why the United States continues to militarize near-Earth orbit, while envying the joint space exploration of the Russian Federation and China
© Red Huber/ Getty Images
Image source: © Red Huber/ Getty Images
The growing opportunities of Russia and China in the field of space exploration, the ongoing bilateral projects in near-Earth orbit and within the framework of a joint program for the exploration of the Moon cause undisguised jealousy on the part of Washington, which has long been trying to plant its habitual hegemony in space.
"Bees against honey"
As part of the growing militarization of outer space, the key engine of which is the Pentagon, according to The New York Times, the US Space Forces have been tasked with building the potential of anti-satellite weapons "to reduce the vulnerability of the United States to attacks from outer space." In general, the scheme is standard — "bees against honey" — in pursuit of record budgets and broadcasting threats to their opponents. Everything is in the usual spirit of Washington's aggressive policy.
According to representatives of the US Department of Defense, this initiative symbolizes "a serious strategic shift as space becomes a battlefield." "Mind you, we didn't propose this," representatives of the domestic space industry and our Chinese comrades might have reacted.
So, the Pentagon's program suggests supplementing the intelligence potential of the military satellite group with "a new generation of ground and space instruments that will protect the satellite network from enemy attacks and, if necessary, disable its spacecraft in orbit."
The head of the Pentagon's Space Forces (created in 2019 to solve military tasks in space), General Chance Saltzman, said in March this year that the United States "must protect space assets, as well as be able to prevent the enemy from using their own." According to him, if the United States loses space, it will lose.
This expansive space strategy is fundamentally different from previous American military programs in space and significantly expands the range of offensive capabilities. In fact, a toolkit is being formed to prohibit access to orbit to all US competitors under threat of destruction.
US Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall recently publicly stated that China had allegedly deployed a number of space assets designed to attack the United States. And in order to successfully operate in the western Pacific, you need to surpass them.
It is absolutely obvious that this is part of the enemy's escalated information campaign, the purpose of which is to consistently demonize Moscow and Beijing in the eyes of the Western public and the world community as a whole. However, it is obvious that such schemes are no longer effective, and most of the audience in the countries of the Global South is now skeptical about this kind of stuffing.
"The Web of Death"
Also, as an additional argument for the Pentagon's proactive militarization of space, the thesis is often given about the successful use of the Russian Armed Forces during the conflict in Ukraine of electronic suppression means to disable advanced American weapons systems. Of course, it is difficult to argue with this. The effectiveness is certainly obvious and proven on the battlefield by the mass of burned equipment and disabled drones.
But for some reason, the genesis of the conflict and American weapons on the border with Russia do not cause Washington to feel cognitive dissonance when assessing the real source of global threats, trying to foment wars tens of thousands of kilometers from its territory.
In April of this year, the head of the Space Command, General Stephen Whiting, at a space industry conference in Colorado, commenting on plans to deploy weapons in space, said: "Now this is no longer a theory — this is reality. These funds have already been deployed, they are in the environment." And the other day, he reported that since 2018, China has tripled its network of reconnaissance satellites, and called it "a web of death hanging over the Pacific Ocean, designed to search, fix, track and, yes, strike at the military potential of the United States and its allies."
However, an analysis of statements by other American defense officials suggests the opposite. For example, Assistant Secretary of Defense for Space Policy John Plumb stated: "The militarization of space is inevitable. The history of mankind unfolds where there are military advantages. People will try to neutralize them or use them themselves. And space in this sense is no different [from other spaces]." That's such an obvious and straightforward logic. The logic of permanent war.
The Pentagon's Space Doctrine
With another method of justifying its aggressive line within the framework of the "Overton window" principle of legalizing the unacceptable, the Pentagon declares a "responsible countercosmic campaign". Non-trivial ambiguity and juggling of formulations actually cover up proactive intentions to deploy their own weapons in space.
In addition to anti-satellite missiles, the United States has also long deployed ground-based systems that can suppress radio signals and make it difficult for the enemy to receive data from satellites, actively taking steps to modernize them.
A recent report by retired Space Force Colonel Charles Galbrit reveals certain areas of the Pentagon's promising developments in the field of anti-satellite weapons: cyber attacks, ground-based or space-based lasers and high-energy microwave installations.
Recently retired Lieutenant General of the Space Forces John Shaw believes that land-based or space-based directed energy devices will certainly become part of the future combat orbital system. "They will minimize space debris and operate at the speed of light," he said. "This is probably the tool to achieve our goal."
At the same time, the Pentagon has a secret X-37B project — an unmanned spacecraft, the shuttle, which has already made seven flights. Its functionality, in addition to the inspector, which allows you to steal satellites or influence them, also suggests the potential launch of missile weapons into orbit, including, probably, with a special warhead. The X-37 is capable of carrying up to six nuclear warheads. The United States will build eight such spaceships in the coming years, which creates new challenges in terms of improving aerospace defense capabilities.
In addition, the US military is working on launching a new generation of military satellites that will be able to maneuver and refuel in space, and will receive robotic weapons capable of capturing and disabling enemy satellites.
But it is clear that the rubicon has already been passed: space has actually become a potential and one of the most likely theaters of military operations in the near future. And the main enemy is actively contributing to this, including by creating conditions for placing weapons of mass destruction in orbit.
