America Can Protect Its Satellites Without Kinetic Space Weapons
Aaron Bateman
July 30, 2020
In 1978, Adm. Stansfield Turner, then the head of the Central Intelligence Agency, said that the “Russians can kill us in space.†Turner was referring to the Soviet Union’s kinetic anti-satellite weapons program. In other words, the Soviet military could shoot down U.S. satellites in orbit with missiles. Today, there are even more sophisticated threats to U.S. and allied space systems, and Washington should decide how to respond.
The United States began viewing space as a contested domain in the early 1960s. Due to the Soviet threat, the Pentagon developed kinetic space weapons programs like the F-15-launched Miniature Homing Vehicle. The space operating environment has changed since the end of the Cold War. There are considerably more spacefaring nations and some of these actors (e.g., China and Russia) have increasingly capable anti-satellite weapons. Additionally, the global economy now depends on the safe use of space.
https://warontherocks.com/2020/07/america-can-protect-its-satellites-without-kinetic-space-weapons/
