US Space Force Chief Warns US Needs to Be Ready to Fight Space War

Gen. John Raymond, the chief of the US Space Force, is calling for the US to make more preparations not just for deterrence, but to engage in a full-scale “space war” with another nation. He warned he isn’t confident the US “can achieve victory, or even compete,” in space.

Gen. Raymond’s comments clearly follow in the footsteps of other US commanders in getting more arms and funding by predicting a calamitous defeat. Space Force is particularly expensive, and that makes pushing for funding a bit more difficult.

At the same time, predictions of a space war “fought over great distances at tremendous speeds” doesn’t exactly seem a foregone conclusion. There aren’t enemy space forces in the first place. Russia and China have a handful of capabilities in orbit, while France just finished renaming their Air Force to the Air and Space Force, but doesn’t have much beyond the name.

Raymond predicted a war in which satellites are attacked by missile and space lasers. This would be a rapid series of tit-for-tat attacks, and probably would be done on the sidelines of another, bigger war.

But again, China has some limited anti-satellite capabilities, and Russia is alleged to be trying to develop them, and that’s about it. This is a costly war to get ready for, and the “adversary” is right now highly speculative.

Agitating for military funding is nothing new, but in this case they are angling to gear up for a space war that almost certainly wouldn’t happen. In arming for it, the US makes such war more likely.