FPI / July 27, 2022
In December of 2019 President Donald Trump described space as “the world’s newest war-fighting domain.”
“Amid grave threats to our national security, American superiority in space is absolutely vital,” Trump said in announcing a new branch of the U.S. Military, Space Force.
“The Space Force will help us deter aggression and control the ultimate high ground,” he added.
Today, critics say, the Biden administration is all too willing to cede that “high ground” to China and Russia.
Air Force Gen. John Raymond, current chief of the Space Force, has confirmed he supports Team Biden’s efforts to reach a UN-sponsored agreement on military activity in space. The Trump administration had rejected the agreement, saying it amounted to an arms control ploy by China and Russia to limit American power in space.
“I think it’s clear that if deterrence were to fail and we were to get into a conflict, maybe the first place where that conflict might start is in space,” Gen. Raymond said in remarks at last week’s Aspen Security Conference in Colorado.
The four-star general did not mention the fact that the U.S. Space Force currently has a single declared space weapon: an electronic jammer.
“China and Russia, by contrast, have deployed several types of missiles capable of destroying satellites in multiple orbits, ground-based lasers and electronic jammers that can disrupt or destroy satellites and orbiting robot satellites that can grab and crush enemy satellites,” security correspondent Bill Gertz noted in a July 20 report for The Washington Times.
Instead of space weapons, the Space Force is working to protect and defend satellites from attack, Gen. Raymond said.
Russia destroyed a satellite with a missile in November, creating an estimated 1,500 pieces of space debris traveling at 17,000 miles per hour that can damage other orbiting systems, Raymond said.
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