Space warfare: US, China, and Russia are gearing up for the next frontier of armed conflict

The next big war may be fought in space. 

As the Pentagon is gearing up for a future celestial conflict, so are our chief adversaries, China and Russia. Here’s why “Star Wars” is no longer merely a topic of science fiction. The best way to avoid space warfare is to be ready for it.

On Dec. 28, Elon Musk’s Space X launched into space the Pentagon’s highly secretive X-37B Orbital Test Vehicle, an unmanned reusable robotic spacecraft operated by the Air Force, in collaboration with Space Force. Most details about the Boeing X-37B’s payload and missions are top secret, and even its orbital regime is classified. 

Former Air Force Secretary Heather Wilson revealed in 2019, however, that X-37B can change its orbit “when it’s close enough to the atmosphere.” She boasted that the spacecraft can catch our adversaries off guard because the maneuver takes place “on the far side of the Earth from our adversaries,” so they don’t know “where it’s going to come up next” and “that drives them nuts.”

During my service in the Defense Intelligence Agency, I specialized in foreign space doctrines and operations and participated in war games simulating a conflict in space. I can attest that China and Russia consider the X-37B a counter-space weapons platform and are obsessed with trying to gain insights into its capabilities. Both have space warfare programs, targeting their main perceived enemy, the United States of America.

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It is no coincidence that two weeks prior to the X-37B’s launch, on Dec. 14, China sent up to the skies an enigmatic spaceplane of its own, “Shenlong” (Divine Dragon.) Four days after being launched, Beijing’s robotic spacecraft deployed six “mysterious wingmen” in Earth’s orbit, some of which were transmitting signals, according to amateur spacecraft trackers. The U.S. Space Force’s Chief of Space Operations, General Chance Saltzman, characterized China’s Shenlong as a “powerful capability.” He cryptically described it as “the ability to put something in orbit, do some things, and bring it home and take a look at the results,” according to Air and Space Forces Magazine.

Russia has been building its space weapons arsenal for almost a quarter of a century. Moscow stood up its Space Forces on June 1, 2001, less than five months after a commission led by the then-Defense Secretary-designate Donald Rumsfeld issued a report which revealed that U.S. satellites were vulnerable to attacks and warned about a space Pearl Harbor in January of that year. Their primary mission has been to target U.S. satellites in a conflict that Russia believes is inevitable, because Moscow and Washington have been vying for control over the post-Soviet states, which Russia considers as part of its sphere of influence and strategic security perimeter. 

A view of SpaceX and U.S. Space Force compound at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida on Dec. 18, 2021. (Photo by Yasin Ozturk/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)

In the run-up to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Russian President Vladimir Putin threatened Washington with space warfare, albeit subtly. On Nov. 15, 2021, three months prior to the attack on Feb. 24, 2022, as Russia pre-positioned more than 100,000 soldiers, tanks and heavy weaponry, the Russian Space Forces successfully conducted a test, in which a direct-ascent interceptor missile PL19 Nudol destroyed a nearly 40-year-old defunct Soviet spy satellite. This was a strategic message to the Biden administration to stay out of the conflict in what Russia views as its backyard.

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Russia’s robust counter-space arsenal, which includes jammers, lasers, anti-satellite missiles and other satellite killers and its war-fighting doctrine that envisions orchestrating a space Armageddon or nuclear Armageddon scenario in the U.S. homeland, is almost certainly the reason why President Biden announced in the very beginning of Russia’s war on Ukraine that he would not deploy armed forces into the theater to help the Ukrainians fight the Russians. 

Russian President Vladimir Putin, right, shakes hands with Chinese President Xi Jinping during a signing ceremony following the Russian-Chinese talks on the sidelines of the Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok on Sept. 11, 2018. (Photo by SERGEI CHIRIKOV / POOL / AFP)

Chinese and Russian military strategists have observed U.S. war fighters’ tactics in conflict zones for nearly a quarter-century in Kosovo, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and Syria. They learned that America’s superior space capability is also its Achilles’ heel because of the U.S. military’s near-total dependence on it. 

Moreover, these adversaries have taken note that Americans are dependent on satellites for many aspects of our civilian lives — global navigation, water management, power grid monitoring, weather forecasting, broadband access, and telecommunications for applications ranging from banking to education to telemedicine, among other things. Whether you are taking a trip from Washington, D.C., to New York or driving to the nearest 7-Eleven, you are reliant on GPS, a constellation of 31 satellites flown by the U.S. Space Force at an altitude of 12,550 miles. 

This reliance makes the GPS and other U.S. space constellations enable missions in combat zones – from reconnaissance, missile warning, command and control, to synchronizing operations, pinpointing targets, and locating personnel – military targets. American space birds present attractive sitting ducks, according to General John Hyten, former head of U.S. Strategic Command which operates U.S. nuclear forces and weapons, who in 2017 called U.S. satellites “big, fat, juicy targets.” China and Russia, who have designated space as a war-fighting domain, akin to ground, sea and air, have devised plans and tactics to cripple our satellites, in order to “deafen and blind” our forces.

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A rocket carrying a satellite launches into space in the Sichuan Province of China. (Li Jieyi/VCG via Getty Images)

Our military evidently is prepared for war on the next frontier, according to Brigadier General Jesse Morehouse at the U.S. Space Command. Morehouse told journalists last May that “the United States of America is ready to fight tonight in space if we have to.” 

The U.S. lags behind Russia and China when it comes to space warfare doctrine and capabilities, having established our Space Forces in 2019, 18 years after the Russians stood up theirs and also likely having been blindsided by China’s 2007 anti-satellite test. However, the X-37B, which probably combines an offensive capability to attack adversarial space birds and to reconstitute our own space constellation if degraded by foreign attacks, is a major technological breakthrough and milestone in our preparedness for war in space.

What Washington’s decision-makers must remember, as they devise deterrence strategies to fight or prevent a conflict in space, is this. No offensive capability can deter an adversary unless you can credibly demonstrate your will to use it. 

In this handout photo released by Roscosmos State Space Corporation, a view of the International Space Station taken on March 30, 2022 by the crew of the Russian Soyuz MS-19 spaceship after undocking from the station. ((Roscosmos State Space Corporation via AP, File))

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For instance, the United States possesses the capability to wipe out the Iranian-backed Houthi rebels who have disrupted global shipping traffic by turning the Red Sea into a battlefield. Similarly, with our cyber weapons arsenal, we can plunge Iran into darkness. Yet, President Biden waited months, only to launch pinprick strikes against the ragtag gang that has been humiliating our military and harassing civilian vessels. Consequently, the attacks continue.

As “Star Wars” is no longer a hypothetical form of conflict, given our near total reliance on space, Americans must decide whether our country should be led by someone who is gripped by fear of space Armageddon or a commander in chief who instills that kind of fear into our enemies. 

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