Air Force Secretary: US Needs to Prove Ability to Use Force in Space

While global space military infrastructure seems to be extremely limited, with China having some ground-based lasers and India destroying its own satellite in a way that raised environmental concerns, the Pentagon, and the Air Force in particular, see this as a vital excuse to spend billions of dollars on shows of force.

Air Force Secretary Heather Wilson in particular was keen to see the US demonstrating their capability to use force in space, saying it would prove to the world that they cannot deny America’s use of space “without consequences.”

Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Dave Goldfein also said the US needed to prove it could react if “space assets are threatened,” saying that the US needs to rapidly develop the ability to hit anyone “at the time, place, and manner of our choosing.”

Gen. Goldfein added that the US must be “always the predator, never the prey.” While this is mostly just typical Pentagon bravado about the US needing more offensive capabilities, it is broadly uncertain what it even means in the context of space, beyond it being far more expensive than terrestrial warfare.