The new star wars
America builds its space force
What is the space force?
This month, Mike Pence, the US vicepresident, outlined plans to create a new branch of the US military: “an elite group of joint warfighters specialising in the domain of space”. As it happens, there already is a Space Command within the US air force, employing some 30,000 people. But if approved by Congress, the new space force would be a sixth branch of the US military, “separate but equal” to the army, the navy, the air force, the marines and the coast guard, with a budget of $8bn over five years.
Why is it thought to be necessary?
Because, as Pence declared, “the space environment has fundamentally changed in the last generation. What was once peaceful and uncontested is now crowded and adversarial.” This has been a recurring concern of US administrations. “Space is no longer a peaceful domain,” warned Deborah Lee James, air force secretary under President Obama. “There is a real possibility that a conflict on Earth could bleed into space.” What has changed is that China and Russia are competing for military advantage in orbit. Both have successfully tested space warfare technologies. In 2007, China used a missile to shoot down one of its own ageing weather satellites orbiting 537 miles above the planet. Russia conducted a successful test for an anti-satellite (ASAT) missile in 2015. The US has long possessed such capabilities. In 1985, a US fighter jet launched an ASAT at an obsolete satellite and scored a direct hit.
Why are they jostling for dominance in space?
Space is strategically vital. About 1,800 active satellites currently orbit Earth – nearly half of them sent up by America – and they have become critical to many daily activities. The US air force’s 31 Global Positioning System (GPS) satellites (and their Russian and Chinese equivalents) provide capabilities to military, civil and commercial users around the world: navigation, for shipping or Google Maps, is one such capability; the hyper-accurate clock synchronisation used by traders on financial markets is another. Mobile phones, weather forecasts, video conferencing, credit card authorisation, traffic lights and TV services all rely on satellites. The world’s more advanced armed forces rely on them for many activities, from surveillance to coordinating troops in the field and guiding bombs (see box). US satellites constantly scan Earth to detect possible nuclear strikes, looking for the distinctive plumes of a missile launch. “Space is foundational to our way of war,” says Space Command chief General John W. Raymond, “and it’s foundational to our way of life.”
What would space war look like?
In any major war, one side will seek to deprive the other of their ability to function by targeting their satellites. The first offensive would probably be cyberattacks, either against the satellites themselves or the ground stations that operate them. Lasers on Earth could also be used to “dazzle”, or blind, satellite sensors, rendering them useless. In its most brutal form, space war would mean destroying rival satellites with ballistic missiles or by using “kamikaze” satellites to smash into targets. Russia recently launched a satellite displaying what an alarmed US State Department called “very abnormal behaviour”. The fear is that it could be an attack satellite, armed, for instance, with lasers or microwave devices that could jam other satellites.
How would a war likely play out?
The US military is more dependent on its space assets than any other, which has led to some in America’s defence establishment warning against what it calls a “space Pearl Harbor” – a crippling attack on its space systems. In response, it has taken steps to “harden” its satellites from attack: launching redundant satellites to act as backups in case critical systems are destroyed; developing smaller ones that are harder to target; and looking at equipping them with defensive capabilities of their own. Many of the details are highly classified, but the position of the Trump administration is clear. “We must have American dominance in space,” said Pence in his recent speech announcing the space force. “And so we will.”
Are there any rules governing space warfare?
The rules of space warfare are mostly unwritten. In 1962, the US detonated a 1.4-megaton nuclear weapon 250 miles above the Pacific Ocean, destroying up to a third of the satellites in lowerEarth orbit and spreading radiation. The Outer Space Treaty of 1967 followed, banning countries from putting weapons of mass destruction in space; it also limited the use of the Moon and other celestial bodies to peaceful purposes. However, there’s no comprehensive agreement governing other kinds of space weapons or protecting civilian satellites. In 2008, the US rejected a treaty submitted by Russia and China that would have banned weapons in space. When the European Union floated a similar proposal in 2014, the US embraced it but Russia and China refused to sign up.
Should we be worried?
The consequences of an all-out space war could be dire. The debris cloud created by obliterated spacecraft could set off a chain reaction, wiping out all of the satellites in orbit, ringing Earth with space junk and rendering space unusable for generations. Arguably, though, that could only take place in the context of such a devastating conflict between nuclear powers that it would pale into insignificance. Perhaps more worrying is the threat from nations such as Iran or North Korea, which have only recently launched satellites into orbit, and are deemed more likely to operate dangerously and unpredictably. “The challenges of warfighting in this domain are not really understood,” says Todd Harrison of the Centre for Strategic and International Studies in Washington DC. “We don’t have any history to go on.”