June 19, 2020
Why Securing Space Is So Crucial to America's High-Tech Military
Here's how the Pentagon is preparing for a space war.
by Kris Osborn
U.S. Army 155m artillery rounds can be put through a building window at 30km. Missile Defense Agency interceptors can take out enemy intercontinental ballistic missiles and Pentagon ground commanders can immediately learn of an enemy launch. Moreover, advancing soldiers can share targeting and navigational data across vast distances in real-time and America’s latest unmanned systems can autonomously perform missions. As if that weren’t enough, U.S. Air Force B-2 bombers can also pinpoint enemy air defenses with precision weapons from 50,000-feet and U.S. Navy ships miles apart can coordinate attacks across vast swaths of the open ocean. How are all these modern military capabilities possible?
The answer is simple—space.
To say the Pentagon is massively emphasizing space war would be an understatement. This focus has clearly emerged from its newly released 2020 Defense Space Strategy Summary. It is a text which, simply and directly put, emphasizes several straightforward concepts. America will prepare for space war, counter Russian and Chinese space weapons, leverage rapidly emerging commercial technology, and coordinate space war operations with allies. Finally, and perhaps of greatest significance, the Pentagon quickly engineer and deploy the most promising near-term space war innovations able to help the U.S. achieve and sustain space war superiority.
https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/why-securing-space-so-crucial-americas-high-tech-military-163047
