Some American politicians should be relabelled comedians or clowns, no? Hey Ted, what about hollow Earth marauders?
This speech probably sounded a lot more convincing in Ted Cruz’s head.
Maybe Cruz has been watching too much SciFi lately, but while arguing in favor of funding President Trump’s “space force”, the Texas senator suggested that without a space force to protect American commerce, commercial and military space ships might be targeted by ‘space pirates’.
“Since the ancient Greeks first put to sea, nations have recognized the necessity of naval forces and maintaining a superior capability to protect waterborne travel and commerce from bad actors,” Cruz said. “Pirates threaten the open seas, and the same is possible in space. In this same way, I believe we too must now recognize the necessity of a Space Force to defend the nation and to protect space commerce and civil space exploration.”
The clip went viral on Twitter, where users alternated between ridiculing Cruz and delicately hinting that he might have a point (even when those suggestions were couched in humor).
Ted Cruz argues that Space Force is necessary because… wait for it… space pirates. Leave it to Cruz to take a dumb Trump idea and make it sound even dumber. pic.twitter.com/xjjItA3EV3
Cruz made the remark during a hearing of the Senate Subcommittee on Aviation and Space, which he chairs, on Tuesday.
Later, he hit back at some of his critics, insisting that attacks by China and Russia aren’t all that far fetched, though it’s unclear where the ‘pirates’ connection fits in.
Sure, a frigate w/ skull & crossbones in space is unlikely anytime soon, but what MSNBC conveniently omits is the threat of piracy, espionage & violence from rogue & rival NATIONS is very real. Indeed, China has already developed & tested weapons to destroy satellites in space. https://t.co/fVUZUeWVLj
US President Donald Trump has announced an additional $1.6 billion in funding for NASA in order to bankroll American return to space “in a big way,” specifically naming the Moon and Mars as targets.
“We are restoring NASA to greatness and we are going back to the Moon, then Mars,” Trump tweeted on Monday afternoon, adding that the additional funding will enable the US to “return to Space in a BIG WAY!”
Donald J. Trump
✔@realDonaldTrump
Under my Administration, we are restoring @NASA to greatness and we are going back to the Moon, then Mars. I am updating my budget to include an additional $1.6 billion so that we can return to Space in a BIG WAY!
The US currently has no vessels capable of taking astronauts into orbit, let alone the moon or another planet. The Space Shuttle program was canceled in 2011, and NASA has relied on Russia for trips to the International Space Station ever since.
Plans for manned launches using SpaceX’s Crew Dragon capsule have hit a bump after the vessel exploded during a test on April 20. Details about the incident remain unknown, as NASA and SpaceX have reportedly worked hard to suppress any information from leaking to the general public.
The Trump administration’s space ambitions have been in the works for a while, with Vice President Mike Pence recently announcing plans to build a station in lunar orbit and put US astronauts on the Moon by 2024.
Last week, Amazon tycoon Jeff Bezos pitched cooperation with his space company Blue Origin as a way for NASA to meet that deadline. Meanwhile, SpaceX founder Elon Musk has spoken with enthusiasm about the prospect of setting up a base on the Moon and colonizing Mars – using his rockets, of course.
Trump’s interest in space has not been purely civilian, either. After months of hyping the idea of a ‘Space Force’ to defend US national interests in orbit and beyond, the president signed a decree in February it as a subsidiary of the US Air Force, rather than a separate branch of the military in its own right. International treaties dating back to the 1960s prohibit weaponization of space, but the Trump administration has scrapped numerous treaties over the past two years.
Why are India and Pakistan allowed to develop such military technologies while Iran and North Korea are not? What is the difference between all these nations? Let’s all thank the USA for such creating such a scenario that will possibly end the human species.
Hours after India declared a successful test of its anti-satellite weapon, Pakistan called on countries to reverse the militarization of space.
Hours after India declared a successful test of its anti-satellite weapon, Pakistan called on countries to reverse the militarization of space.
“Space is the common heritage of mankind and every nation has the responsibility to avoid actions which can lead to the militarization of this arena,” Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement delivered on Wednesday.
Although the Pakistan didn’t point a finger at India, it came shortly after Prime Minister Narendra Modi hailed his country’s successful test of a top-notch anti-satellite missile.
Islamabad hopes that “countries which have in the past strongly condemned demonstration of similar capabilities by others” will also do their part in reducing “military threats relating to outer space.”
“Boasting of such capabilities is reminiscent of Don Quixote’s tilting against windmills,” the ministry sarcastically said.
Earlier in the day, Modi made an unexpected address to the nation, proclaiming that India is now a “space superpower” and a member of a “super league” after the successful missile test.
He didn’t provide details about the test, which he said was part of the ‘Mission Shakti’, but revealed the satellite in question was shot down at 300km.
Yeah. that is great Modi. Now, can you focus on the poverty and wealth inequality suffocating your country? Also, your people need bathrooms, not stupid war games!
India’s high-end missile has shot down a satellite as part of a “highly complex” test launch, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said, proclaiming that his nation is now a fourth “space superpower” after the US, Russia, and China.
India’s high-end missile has shot down a satellite as part of a “highly complex” test launch, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said, proclaiming that his nation is now a fourth “space superpower” after the US, Russia, and China.
“Some time ago, our scientists shot down a live satellite 300 kilometers away in space, in low-earth orbit,” Modi said in a televised address. The test was conducted as part of a “highly complex” Mission Shakti, “which was completed in three minutes.”
“India has made an unprecedented achievement today,” Modi reiterated, adding, “India registered its name as a space power.”
Chowkidar Narendra Modi
✔@narendramodi
#MissionShakti was a highly complex one, conducted at extremely high speed with remarkable precision. It shows the remarkable dexterity of India’s outstanding scientists and the success of our space programme.
#MissionShakti is special for 2 reasons: (1) India is only the 4th country to acquire such a specialised & modern capability. (2) Entire effort is indigenous. India stands tall as a space power! It will make India stronger, even more secure and will further peace and harmony.
India’s technological advances are not to be underestimated, Russian military analyst Mikhail Khodarenok told RT, saying that hitting a satellite at 300km was “quite a result.” India is keen to design anti-satellite weapons systems, he said, adding the country “might even consider developing spacecraft able to defend their own satellites.”
While militaries of major world powers rely heavily on anti-satellite weapons, they are also keen to take measures to protect their own satellites in orbit. Destroying enemy space assets might spark chaos “either in peacetime or during hostilities,” the expert explained. Such an attack would shutter navigation and communications, also affecting the use of precision weapons and early warning systems, Khodarenok said.
He singled out three countries that have made significant advances in this field. The US is hastily working on the Х-37В spacecraft, which could be used as “an anti-satellite fighter” in future, he said. Russia is developing its A-235 ‘Nudol’ anti-ballistic missile system as well as the S-500 missiles capable of waging anti-satellite warfare, and China has a top-secret program to design weapons with similar applications.
“Dependence on space [technology] is very high today,” he noted, adding that bringing warfare into orbit “is inevitable.”
The US is formally committed to dominating the world by the year 2020. With President Trump’s new Space Directive-4, the production of laser-armed fighter jets as possible precursors to space weapons, and the possibility of nuclear warheads being put into orbit, the clock is ticking…
The US is formally committed to dominating the world by the year 2020. With President Trump’s new Space Directive-4, the production of laser-armed fighter jets as possible precursors to space weapons, and the possibility of nuclear warheads being put into orbit, the clock is ticking…
Back in 1997, the now-re-established US Space Command announced its commitment to “full spectrum dominance.” The Vision for 2020 explains that “full spectrum dominance” means military control over land, sea, air, and space (the so-called fourth dimension of warfare) “to protect US interests and investment.” “Protect” means guarantee operational freedom. “US interest and investment” means corporate profits.
The glossy brochure explains that, in the past, the Army evolved to protect US settlers who stole land from Native Americans in the genocidal birth of the nation. Like the Vision for 2020, a report by the National Defense University acknowledges that by the 19th century, the Navy had evolved to protect the US’s newly-formulated “grand strategy.” In addition to supposedly protecting citizens and the constitution, “The overriding principle was, and remains, the protection of American territory … and our economic well-being.” By the 20th century, the Air Force had been established, in the words of the Air Force Study Strategy Guide, to protect “vital interests,” including: “commerce; secure energy supplies; [and] freedom of action.” In the 21stcentury, these pillars of power are bolstered by the Cyber Command and the coming Space Force.
The use of the Army, Navy, and Air Force—the three dimensions of power—means that the US is already close to achieving “full spectrum dominance.” Brown University’s Cost of War project documents current US military involvement in 80 countries—or 40% of the world’s nations. This includes 65 so-called counterterrorism training operations and 40 military bases (though others think the number of bases is much higher). By this measure, “full spectrum dominance” is nearly half way complete. But the map leaves out US and NATO bases, training programs, and operations in Estonia, Latvia, Poland, and Ukraine.
As the US expands its space operations—the fourth dimension of warfare—the race towards “full spectrum dominance” quickens. Space has long been militarized in the sense that the US uses satellites to guide missiles and aircraft. But the new doctrine seeks to weaponize space by, for instance, blurring the boundaries between high-altitude military aircraft and space itself. Today’s space power will be harnessed by the US to ensure dominance over the satellite infrastructure that allows for the modern world of internet, e-commerce, GPS, telecommunications, surveillance, and war-fighting.
Since the 1950s, the United Nations has introduced various treaties to prohibit the militarization and weaponization of space—the most famous being the Outer Space Treaty (1967). These treaties aim to preserve space as a commons for all humanity. The creation of the US Space Force is a blatant violation of the spirit, if not the letter, of those treaties. In more recent decades, successive US governments have unilaterally rejected treaties to reinforce and expand the existing space-for-peace agreements. In 2002, the US withdrew from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty (1972), allowing it to expand its long-range missile systems. In 2008, China and Russia submitted to the UN Conference on Disarmament the proposedTreaty on the Prevention of the Placement of Weapons in Outer Space, the Threat or Use of Force Against Outer Space Objects. This would have preserved the space-as-a-commons principle and answered US claims that “enemies” would use space as a battleground against US satellites.
But peace is not the goal. The goal is “full spectrum dominance,” so the US rejected the offer. China and Russia introduced the proposed the treaty again in 2014—and again the US rejected it. Earlier this year, the US withdrew from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty. Last month, President Trump sent an unclassified memo on the new Space Directive-4 to the Vice President, Joint Chiefs of Staff, NASA, and the Secretaries of Defense and State.
The document makes for chilling and vital reading. It recommends legislating for the training of US forces “to ensure unfettered access to, and freedom to operate in, space, and to provide vital capabilities to joint and coalition forces.” Crucially, this doctrine includes “peacetime and across the spectrum of conflict.” As well as integrating space forces with the intelligence community, the memo recommends establishing a Chief of Staff of the Space Force, who will to join the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The memo also says that US space operations will abide by “international law.” But given that the US has rejected anti-space weapons treaties, it is barely constrained by international law.
In late-2017, Space.com reported on a $26.3m Department of Defense contract with Lockheed Martin to build lasers for fighter jets under the Laser Advancements for Next-generation Compact Environments program. The report says that the lasers will be ready by 2021. The article links to Doug Graham, the Vice President of Missile Systems and Advanced Programs at Lockheed Martin Space Systems. In the original link Graham reveals that the Air Force laser “is an example of how Lockheed Martin is using a variety of innovative technologies to transform laser devices into integrated weapon systems.”
As if all this wasn’t bad enough, the British Ministry of Defence (MoD) states in a projection out to the year 2050: “Economies are becoming increasingly dependent upon space-based systems … By 2050, space-based weapon systems may also be deployed, which could include nuclear weapons.” But this is extremely reckless. Discussing technologies, including the artificial intelligence on which weapons systems are increasingly based, another MoD projection warns of “the potential for disastrous outcomes, planned and unplanned … Various doomsday scenarios arising in relation to these and other areas of development present the possibility of catastrophic impacts, ultimately including the end of the world, or at least of humanity.”
“Full spectrum dominance” is not only a danger to the world, it is a danger to US citizens who would also suffer the consequences, if and when something goes wrong with their leaders’ complicated space weapons.
Moscow regards as irresponsible Washington’s preparations for putting weapons in space, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova told a news briefing on Friday.
“The United States’ steps taken lately to prepare for the deployment of weapons in space, including creation of a space-based missile defense group, confirm the growing need for international efforts to resist such irresponsible plans,” Zakharova said. “We hope for the prompt beginning of negotiations on this issue at the disarmament conference in the context of maintaining international security and strategic stability.”
Russia sees its priority, Zakharova said, in “drafting a multilateral and legally binding instrument for the prevention of an arms race in space and of the use of force or threats of using force in relation to space objects.”
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov will participate in a full-scale session of the disarmament conference in Geneva on March 20.
After what many are describing as Trump’s attempted channeling of Reagan’s ‘Star Wars’ program with Thursday’s unveiling of a missile defense strategy heavily focused on space as “the next war-fighting domain”, Moscow has issued a predictably harsh rebuke, calling the newly published US Missile Defense Review (MDR) “openly confrontational” and a danger to global stability and peace.
Warning that Washington’s missile defense strategy could restart the Cold War-era arms race, the Russian Foreign Ministry on Friday accused the White House of seeking to weaponize space while removing any limitations to development. Indeed President Trump did appear to reaffirm his controversial decision to pull out of the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty with Russia during his remarks at the Pentagon Thursday affirming, “We are committed to establishing a missile defense program that can shield every city in the United States and we will never negotiate away our right to do this.”
In response, the Russian Foreign Ministry announced, “We would like to note that the very same logic served as the foundation of the widespread nuclear missile race that brought the world to the brink of disaster multiple times.” The statement added that US defense planners “apparently decided to step on the same rake, with predictable consequences,” in reference to 20th century nuclear brinkmanship.
Trump and the MDR itself called for investment into “new technologies” focused on space such as space-based launch detection sensors that would coordinate anti-air missiles on the ground in places like Alaska, in order to “shield every American city”. The president said the US must “recognize that space is a new warfighting domain, with the Space Force leading the way.” He further promised it will be a “very, very big part” of America’s future defense:
My upcoming budget will invest in a space-based missile defense layer. It’s new technology. It’s ultimately going to be a very, very big part of our defense and obviously of our offence.
We will ensure that enemy missiles find no sanctuary on Earth or in the skies above. This is the direction that I’m heading.
But Moscow fired back that the plan “practically gives the green light to deploying elements with strike capability in space,” which will “inevitably lead to an arms race in space, which would have the worst kind of consequences for international security and stability,” according to the Foreign Ministry statement.
The statement further urged Washington to “come to its senses” and abandon any restart of a new ‘Star Wars’ program, first proposed under the Reagan administration. It described that the opposite of global stability and peace would be the outcome, as any weaponization of space would result in a “heavy blow to international stability, which is already falling apart thanks to irresponsible actions by Washington.” The statement concluded, “Obviously, no one wins in this scenario.”
Moscow partly appears to be reacting to the fact that the Pentagon’s review of the nation’s missile defenses (the first since 2010) specifically names Russia as among bad actors and potential threats. For example,the concluding section to the newly published Missile Defense Review identifies Russian cruise and hypersonic missile capabilities as a rising threat:
As rogue state missile arsenals develop, space will play a particularly important role in support of missile defense.
Russia and China are developing advanced cruise missiles and hypersonic missile capabilities that can travel at exceptional speeds with unpredictable flight paths that challenge existing defensive systems.
The exploitation of space provides a missile defense posture that is more effective, resilient and adaptable to known and unanticipated threats… DoD will undertake a new and near-term examination of the concepts and technology for space-based defenses to assess the technological and operational potential of space-basing in the evolving security environment.
It will be interesting to see the extent to which the Kremlin responds with a “gloves off” approach, as it has increasingly and very publicly hyped its own advanced weapons programs over the past year while talk of finally abandoning the INF comes out of Washington, and as Trump urges greater defense spending among European NATO allies.
Meanwhile one former high level Russian defense official has told RT “militarization of space is inevitable” — perhaps signalling that Moscow is ready and willing to answer Trump’s call (above its own skies) to protect the homeland “anywhere, anytime, anyplace”.
Donald Trump and his “war cabinet” have struck again. In the wake of record defense spending; the creation of a Space Force that would violate the Outer Space Treaty agreed to fifty years ago; the abrogation of the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces Treaty from thirty years ago; and the chaos of random decision making for use of force, the Trump administration is returning to the madness of President Ronald Reagan’s “Star Wars” idea with costly and ineffective ideas regarding missile-defense technologies.
Trump’s Pentagon is reviving ideas that were abandoned after the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, including weapons that can shoot down missiles from space and high energy lasers that can destroy missiles shortly after they are launched, the so-called boost phase. Trump plans to go further than Reagan by deploying missile defense in Europe and Asia to protect U.S. forces and regional allies. Congress was skeptical of Reagan’s “Star Wars” in the 1980s, but the current Congress has been unwilling to challenge the outrageous national security policies of the Trump administration.
Unlike Reagan’s “Star Wars,” which was designed to protect against a strategic attack from Russia or China, Trump’s version is oriented to stopping an attack from so-called rogue nations such as Iran or North Korea. According to the Washington Post, the United States would put high-powered lasers on drones flying off the Korean coast and create a third ground-based missile interceptor site in the United States to defend against Iran. The North Korean and Iranian scenarios are quite fanciful, but then again the exaggeration of the threat from the Soviet Union and China in the 1980s was equally far-fetched.
There is probably no greater illusion in the field of national security than the idea of credible missile defense. Over the past sixty years, the United States has invested hundreds of billions of dollars in the research and development of missile defense. Most tests have been failures, and no test has been conducted under realistic conditions. When the Soviets had a missile defense around Moscow in the 1960s, U.S. military planners gave it no weight in their targeting strategy. The defensive systems are highly vulnerable to inexpensive countermeasures, and there has never been a defensive system that could distinguish between warheads and decoys, which emit almost identical signals.
Twenty years ago, a U.S. National Intelligence Estimate concluded that making and deploying countermeasures is technically far simpler than building and deploying defensive capabilities. Countermeasures are well within the capability of developing nations that could deploy missiles. Countermeasures, moreover, are far less expensive. The likely response of an adversary to any perceived missile defense would be increasing offensive intercontinental missile forces, which would leave the United States in a worse position than before.
The Pentagon has been playing games over the years with its testing program for missile defense. Targets typically follow a preprogrammed flight path to a designated position; interceptor missiles also fly to a preprogrammed position. Global positioning satellite receivers are placed on the target to send its position to ground control, and the necessary target location is downloaded to a computer in the kill vehicle. Finally, decoys are given a significantly different thermal signature than the target, making it easier for sensors on the kill vehicle to distinguish between objects.
Whenever the General Accounting Office or congressional oversight committees have been allowed to inspect the testing program for missile defense, they have found a pattern of misleading claims. “Star Wars” officials were particularly guilty of falsely portraying failures as successes. The one thing we have learned over the years is that nothing in the realm of missile defense is quick, cheap, or easy.
It was the ban on missile defense in the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty between the United States and the Soviet Union that allowed serious arms control measures to limit offensive systems. The ABM Treaty was the cornerstone of strategic deterrence and allowed the arms control regime of subsequent decades. President George W. Bush’s abrogation of the ABM Treaty created the justification for seeking greater offensive capabilities. National Security Adviser John Bolton, who opposes arms control and disarmament and favors greater offensive and defensive systems, was an advisor to Bush in 2002, making the case for abrogation.
Just as there are better alternatives to border security than a wall on the border with Mexico, there are better options for strategic security than an illusionary missile defense. We need to upgrade our medical infrastructure to deal more effectively with chemical or biological attacks, to improve our border security with Canada and various ports of entry; and to protect our essential computer systems from interference.
The most effective alternative would be arms control and disarmament. We need to return to the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty; engage in disarmament talks with both Russia and China; revive the Iran nuclear accord; and genuinely pursue an arms control dialogue with North Korea. Unfortunately, we have an administration that has no members on its national security team with sufficient knowledge of disarmament and diplomacy, let alone the inclination. Trump’s “war cabinet,” consisting of a bellicose secretary of state; a dangerous national security adviser; and an ineffective acting secretary of defense, is engaging in the peculiar American fascination with anything that projects power into space and a phantom missile defense. There seems to be no end to the destructive designs of Trump’s national security team.
Money manager Catherine Austin Fitts says, “The global economy is going to be controlled from space.” Even the U.S. dollar’s viability will depend on “how good the U.S. space program is . . . . President Trump gets it.” Fitts contends, “Trump has done a remarkable job educating the American people about the real deal. He’s currently educating people that you have to make the cash flows work on trade work. That’s number one. There is such a thing as financial accountability. . . . Number two, so he’s saying look, if we are going to stay dominate, we need to be successful in space. We need to have a ‘space force,’ and p.s. we have all these magical and mysterious weapons and wink, wink, they have something to do about space. So much of the current plan of ‘Make America Great Again,’ pull back behind the oceans, really depends on projecting power through space. I always say the satellite lanes are the sea lanes of the 21st century. That’s why this competition in space is so very important.”
Fitts says President Trump has a mammoth job turning America around and contends, “Trump is trying to turn the aircraft carrier around before we hit the iceberg. It’s a very, very messy process. If you and I were going to turn it around, we would want to get in a room and have an honest conversation. There is so much criminal liability involved nobody can have an honest conversation. It’s making it very difficult. . . .Trump has done more than any other leadership around the world to try and inspire transparency, and he has taken enormous risks to do it. I give him credit for it.”
Fitts goes on to say, “The establishment has stolen $50 trillion plus, and they want to keep it, and they want to invest it in the space based economy and not have to give it back to the pension funds. One of the most important techniques they are going to use to do that is basically with digital control, with both of the currency, as well as the systems that do surveillance and control. So, (they think) if we can get 7 billion people on smart phones and 5G coming in from satellites or land, anyway you do it, and everybody has a digital currency, and if you don’t behave, you turn off their currency. We are talking about ways of controlling people through the digital systems which are very, very invasive. . . . If you look at the policies going on, whether it’s the effort to bring in the guns or effort to force cashless, those who are centralizing control of the economy, they want to make sure they have control because when they invest that money, they want to make sure it makes their wealth go up and not the general population’s wealth go up. They don’t want to have to refund those monies back into the pension funds or Social Security. They want to be able to say, well, the money is gone, and we spent too much of it and did not balance the books and etcetera, etcetera. So, this is what this is about. This is about who is going to allocate what resources that are there, and are they going to be in a position to harvest and drain the American taxpayer.”
Join Greg Hunter as he goes One-on-One with Catherine Austin Fitts, Publisher of The Solari Report. This interview will talk about trillions of dollars of stolen taxpayer money, the burgeoning space economy and total control forced on the world by the elite.
Catherine Austin Fitts says that smart money is buying physical assets such as businesses with cash flow, land and physical gold and silver. Fitts says that crypto currencies are being used by the elite to keep people out of gold and silver so they can buy it all at a cheap price.
As with all things that require vast amounts of manpower and capital, the Chinese are making swift advances in their space program. Despite threatening nearly the entire planet with a falling space station and dropping mysterious surveillance devices onto villages, the Chinese are on their way to becoming global leaders in space exploration. Chinese scientists recently developed plans to ‘colonize’ the moon with silkworms and launch a giant space laser into orbit – you know, for “peaceful” stuff. With all of this growth in their space program, it’s natural that the Chinese might be up to some more shadowy operations behind the scenes. Aren’t we all?Whatever the Chinese are doing in Vanuatu, it’s got its neighbors spooked. Diplomats from Australia and New Zealand have expressed concern over a growing Chinese military presence on the small island nation. The Sydney Morning Heraldnotes that “access to open ocean can be useful for testing missile and space capabilities” and that “a future naval or air base in Vanuatu would give China a foothold to coerce Australia, outflank the US and its base on US territory at Guam, and collect intelligence in a regional security crisis.”
War is coming to outer space, and the Pentagon warns it is not yet ready, following years of underinvesting while the military focused on a host of threats on Earth.
Russia and China are years ahead of the United States in developing the means to destroy or disable satellites that the U.S. military depends on for everything from gathering intelligence to guiding precision bombs, missiles and drones.
Now the Pentagon is trying to catch up — pouring billions more dollars into hardening its defenses against anti-satellite weapons, training troops to operate in the event their space lifeline is cut, and honing ways to retaliate against a new form of combat that experts warn could affect millions of people, cause untold collateral damage and spread to battlefields on Earth.
“We are now approaching a point where ‘Star Wars’ is not just a movie,” said Steve Isakowitz, CEO of The Aerospace Corp., a government-funded think tank that serves as the military’s leading adviser on space.
He said the U.S. can no longer afford to take its dominance for granted.
“That supremacy in space has enabled us to have the world’s greatest war-fighting capability … whether it is our soldiers on the field, our drones that fly overhead, our bombers that travel around the world, intelligence we collect,” he told POLITICO. “More and more every day, literally, we become more dependent on it.
“And our adversaries know that,” he added in an interview.
Americans’ fears of a possible Soviet military advantage helped inspire the first space race after the Sputnik launch in 1957, and former President Ronald Reagan’s “Star Wars” program in the 1980s sought to create a space-based shield against a nuclear missile attack. In recent decades, though, space has mostly been a realm for peaceful exploration and collaboration, typified by the Russian rockets that carry American astronauts to the International Space Station.
But the worry that cooperation could turn to confrontation has been in the background for years. A 2001 report issued by then-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld warned that an attack on space systems during a conflict “should not be considered an improbable act.”
“If the U.S. is to avoid a ‘Space Pearl Harbor,’ it needs to take seriously the possibility of an attack on the U.S. space system,” the report said.
Some experts speculate that military leaders never followed through on the warnings, in part because the terrorist attacks later that year drew far more attention to what resulted in two ground wars in the Middle East.
One sign of the new urgency is President Donald Trump’s recent call for establishing a “space force” — a separate military branch responsible for ensuring American supremacy in space, a role now primarily played by the Air Force.
“My new national strategy for space recognizes that space is a war-fighting domain, just like the land, air and sea,” Trump said last month. He added: “We have the Air Force, we’ll have the space force.”
Already, the Air Force, which oversees an estimated 90 percent of the military’s space operations, regularly conducts space war games, including one in which troops simulate how to attribute potential attacks on U.S. satellites. One that took place last year was set in 2027 and included international partners from Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the United Kingdom.
Army soldiers also now regularly undergo training to operate in the field as if their GPS signals went dark.
Meanwhile, Trump’s new National Security Strategy, issued late last year, designated space a “vital interest” for the first time and directed military to “advance space as a priority domain.”
“Any harmful interference with or an attack upon critical components of our space architecture that directly affects this vital U.S. interest will be met with a deliberate response at a time, place, manner, and domain of our choosing,” it says.
Trump’s attitude has made a big difference, Air Force Secretary Heather Wilson told POLITICO.
“We have a president who has said now, publicly, that we have to expect that space will be a war-fighting domain,” Wilson said in an interview. “That’s a very big deal.”
The Trump administration’s latest budget request seeks $12.5 billion for military space efforts — not including secret projects. One focus will be what Wilson calls a “more dependable architecture” for the four Air Force satellites designed to provide early warning of missile launches.
Those satellites are crucial to U.S. readiness in one of the most perilous global flashpoints, the Korean Peninsula.
“We stare at the Earth and look for the telltale signs of a rocket launch and within seconds, detect that launch and detect where it’s heading and alert the National Command Center,” she explained. “So whenever the television shows that picture of North Korea launched a missile, that arc actually comes from the Air Force.”
A major focus of the new effort will also be defending the Air Force’s 31 Global Positioning System satellites.
“The Air Force provides GPS for the world, for about 1 billion people every day,” Wilson said. “The timing signal for the New York Stock Exchange comes from the Air Force GPS satellites. If you’ve gone to an ATM machine, that is connected to GPS satellites for the timing signal so you can’t simultaneously take money out of two ATM machines. GPS enables Uber Eats, all kinds of things.”
“In this budget,” she added, “we’ve proposed to upgrade GPS to what we call GPS III, which is more resistant to jamming.”
In some ways, GPS is already under assault. During the Iraq War, forces loyal to Saddam Hussein used electronic jammers to try to block the signal for precision-guided munitions that relied on GPS for targeting, according to Brian Weeden, director of program planning at the Secure World Foundation, which promotes sustainable and peaceful uses for space.
More recently, Russia has used GPS and satellite jammers to try to disrupt space communications in the conflict in eastern Ukraine, Weeden said. “In that sense, it’s already a part of conflict on Earth.”
The Pentagon is also making new investments in technologies that allow the military to track, in real time, all space assets and ensure that the two dozen military communications satellites rely on an advanced frequency that cannot be jammed.
“We must expect that war of any kind will extend into space in any future conflict, and we have to change the way we think and prepare for that eventuality,” Air Force chief of staff Gen. David Goldfein told the Air Force Association, an industry group, in February.
Some still think it’s not enough. War in space “is going to happen,” said Rep. Mike Rogers, the Alabama Republican who chairs the House Armed Services Strategic Forces Subcommittee, in an interview. “It’s just a matter of whether it happens in the next couple of years or the next five or six years.”
He said he worries about whether the Air Force is making space enough of a priority. “They always say, ‘We got this, we’re planning for this in the future,’” Rogers said. “But when you ask them to prioritize space this year, they say they can’t. People have to remember when it comes to fighting a war, our eyes and ears are in space. We can’t let adversaries take our eyes and ears out.”
When the Pentagon talks about a space war, it doesn’t mean troops in celestial camouflage, maneuvering with jet packs and targeting the enemy with laser guns. The conflict could take many different — and largely silent — forms, ranging from jamming a GPS satellite to temporarily blinding a sensor with a laser or relying on a cyberattack to disrupt services.
“Our citizens should know the urgent facts…but they don’t because our media serves imperial, not popular interests. They lie, deceive, connive and suppress what everyone needs to know, substituting managed news misinformation and rubbish for hard truths…”—Oliver Stone
Tales from the Conspiratum 