GoKawiilAfter decades of silence, the US military is suddenly chatty on the topic of space weapons.
Earlier this week, Air Force Secretary Troy Meink revealed at the Air, Space & Cyber Conference in Maryland that the US has fielded “on-orbit space control weapons capable of defending the Joint Force against hostile adversary action.” The next day, Chief of Space Operations Gen. Douglas Schiess echoed the same message.
Two days later, I listened to Gen. Stephen N. Whiting, the commander of the US Space Command, put his own spin on the space weapons announcement during the Advanced Maui Optical and Space Surveillance Technologies Conference.
“The Joint Force retains on-orbit space control weapons fully capable of defending the United States and its interests against hostile adversary actions,” Whiting said.
Whiting did not elaborate on what those weapons are, if they’d target objects in space or on Earth or how long they’ve been active.
“We need the ability to affect targets,” he told a group of reporters after his address. “The discussion that we’ve had over the last couple days just highlights that we have those capabilities.”
The idea that the US is fielding space weapons didn’t come as a huge surprise to anyone in the industry. The shock was the timing. Why are Washington’s top commanders suddenly broadcasting the militarization of space this week?
“I still don’t get it. Why now?” said Victoria Samson, chief director of space security and stability, Secure World Foundation. “Russia and China are going to look at this as continued evidence that the US is a bad actor in space. This makes our job of getting international participants to sign on to our vision of responsible behavior in space that much harder.”
I sat down with Whiting and a group of reporters to ask these questions. But like the other commanders discussing space weapons this week, he largely declined to get into specifics.
Military officials blame China and Russia
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