US speeds up to seek "space dominance"

Source
China Military Online
Editor
Xu Yi
Time
2019-09-18 16:54:20

By Fang Xiaozhi

The space has become the new battleground of international competition for its tremendous economic, military, technological and social values. General Joseph Dunford, Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, said on September 5 at the Council of Foreign Relations that Russia poses a real threat to American space power and must be given high priority. Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova responded on September 12 that Washington was accusing Moscow of damaging space security in order to shirk its own responsibility for damaging it and to justify its deployment of space weapons.

With the continuous progress of new military revolution, space technologies have been extensively used in the military field. In the past few decades, the US has been paying close attention to space exploration and exploitation, especially in space militarization, and has made major headway in kinetic energy anti-satellite weapons, high-energy laser blinding equipment, micro-satellite attack and satellite capture technology, among others.

After Trump came into power, he has taken the space as an important area for the US to maintain its strategic superiority and has actively promoted space power building, demanding it to undertake the three major tasks of strategic attack, defense and support, so as to ensure America’s national interests in the space. On June 30, 2017, Trump signed an executive order reviving the National Space Council; on August 29, 2019, he announced to launch the Space Command, responsible for formulating America’s space military agenda and guidelines for the next few years to “ensure that America’s dominance in space is never questioned and never threatened”. The first computerized space combat drill was carried out in the Schriever Wargame 2019 on September 4. At the same time, the Trump administration also announced an effort to form the Space Force by 2020. In the mindset of “space dominance”, the US military has also accelerated the upgrading of space combat and support systems, focusing on unmanned space shuttles, anti-satellite weapons and space-based assault weapon systems, in a bid to firmly grasp space supremacy.

Washington’s eager steps to launch a military race in the space and seek space dominance is an important approach of seeking absolute military superiority under the influence of Trump’s “America first” concept. It is aimed to intensify the advanced space combat forces it already possesses, maintain and even enlarge the technological edge over other countries, and thus continue to maintain its space supremacy. It is reported that after the Space Force is formed, the US may also deploy nuclear weapons in the space and turn its space forces into a new deterrent that, along with nuclear and cyber deterrents, will be a critical tool for rivaling with other major countries. Such a move is sure to aggravate space militarization, expand military competition within the aerosphere to the outer space and cause other countries to follow suit, eventually triggering a new round of space arms race.

In the post-Cold War era, peace and development has long become the theme of the world, and activities undertaken by countries in the space no longer carry the heavy political and ideological connotations of the Cold War period, while cooperation and sharing are increasingly taking the place of confrontation and competition as the mainstream of space activities. In such a context, America’s insistence on Cold War mindset and aggressive stance on space militarization are without any doubt against the trend of the times. If Washington doesn’t discard the “space dominance” mindset and insists on accelerating space militarization and pursuing “space dominance” through the “space control” strategy, it will definitely increase the risk of other countries’ misunderstanding and misjudging its intentions in the space. Meanwhile, it will also break the current strategic balance in space, seriously threatening the stable strategic structure among major countries, which must arouse the high vigilance of the international community.

(The author is deputy director of the Center for Foreign Military Research with the College of International Studies under the PLA’s National University of Defense Technology)

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