Pentagon: US Must Ensure Space Superiority for Future War-Fighting

Strategy calls for development of space war-fighting culture

On Wednesday, the Pentagon released the Defense Space Strategy document, which recommends policy positions for what they are anticipating will be an upcoming era of war-fighting in space, identifying China and Russia as primary adversaries.

The goal is for the US to maintain “space superiority” and develop a strategic environment in which the US military has a culture compatible with space war-fighting, where future US wars will just naturally include a dimension in space.

As always, the practical need of all of this is the big hole in these reports. The report notes China and Russia have, like the US, the capability to interfere with one anothers’ satellites, whether through cyber-attacks or more conventional means. It does not follow that this necessarily means space conflicts will result, or that capabilities beyond mutual deterrence are really needed.

As with the advent of the US Air Force, the US Space Force is stepping up the scale and complexity of hypothetical wars to such an extent that the cost of funding the program would grow substantially. This is almost certainly a favor in justifying the “need” for this space superiority, as it is another blank check for generations of runaway military spending.

Author: Jason Ditz

Jason Ditz is Senior Editor for Antiwar.com. He has 20 years of experience in foreign policy research and his work has appeared in The American Conservative, Responsible Statecraft, Forbes, Toronto Star, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Providence Journal, Washington Times, and the Detroit Free Press.