Mallika Dureja
A growing arms race has “fundamentally changed” space in just a few years, a US Space Operations general said. China is the “most challenging threat” right now, followed by Russia.
General Bradley Chance Saltzman, the US Chief of Space Operations, told AFP and a small group of other media outlets that our strategic competitors are making a wide range of weapons.
“The most challenging threat is China but also Russia,” he said, speaking late Saturday on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference, listing technologies including anti-satellite missiles, ground-based directed energy and orbit interception capacities.
“We have to account for the fact that space as a contested domain has fundamentally changed. We have to change the way we work in space, and this is mostly because China and Russia have tested and in some cases put into use weapons “he said.
His words are even more important now that tensions between the US and China are rising. This was shown by tense talks about a suspected Chinese spy balloon between Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Beijing’s top diplomat Wang Yi in Munich on Saturday.
Blinken told Wang that China shouldn’t do something as “responsible” as sending a balloon over US airspace again. Wang, on the other hand, said that Washington’s response — shooting down the balloon — had hurt the relationship between his country and the US.
Also read: North Korea: it fired ICBM to warn US
Space arms race
The space arms race is nothing new. As early as 1985, the Pentagon used a missile to destroy a satellite in a test.
Since then, the US’s rivals have been trying to show they can compete. China did this in 2007 and India will do the same in 2019.
In February 2020, an American general noted that there were two Russian satellites placed into orbit that were tracking a US spy satellite.
And at the end of 2021, Russia used a missile fired from Earth to destroy one of its own satellites. NATO’s leader, Jens Stoltenberg, called this a reckless show of force.
US Space Operations General Saltzman said, “The enemy is using space to target and extend the range of their weapons.”
“That’s what really changes inside the domain.”
When it comes to their military activities in space, countries are becoming more and more secretive. However, the race is so close that the Pentagon predicted that Russia and China could possibly pass the United States in 2019, which is the year that it will launch its Space Force.
Saltzman disagrees with the idea that the U.S. government is behind.
But the fight has changed. Instead of trying to destroy satellites with missiles or “kamikaze” satellites, people are now trying to find ways to hurt them with laser weapons or strong microwaves.
The general said, “I will always make sure I keep the ability to do the most important jobs, like national command and control or nuclear command and control.”
Responsible behaviour
The Ukraine war has shown how important space will always be in wars, both now and in the future.
Saltzman said, “Space is important to the way we fight now.”
“You can attack space without actually going into space. You can do this through cyber networks or other way US Space Operations. We have to make sure to protect all of these things.”
In addition to more military activity, there is also more commercial production. This could lead to problems like collateral damage, dangerous debris, and a need for an international code of conduct.
AFP was told by Saltzman’s staff that he has never met with his Chinese or Russian counterparts. In Munich, he spoke on a panel and met Norway’s defence minister.
