The Militarization of Space: Report to U.S. Congress Outlines U.S. Determination to Establish “Space Command and Control”
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Back in mid-February, the mainstream propaganda machine bombarded us with a slew of reports about “big bad Russian space nukes“, claiming that Moscow is using its technological prowess to build strategic space-based weapons. And while it’s true the Eurasian giant is a cosmic superpower and that it certainly has the know-how to accomplish such a feat, the mainstream propaganda machine conveniently “forgot” to explain why the Kremlin would make the decision to expand its space capabilities. Namely, Russia is indeed planning to deploy a nuclear-powered anti-satellite weapon (ASAT), but there’s a massive difference between having thermonuclear warheads pointed at Earth from space and having a nuclear-powered spacecraft. The Russian military is already in possession of the former, as it was the world’s first operator of the FOBS back in the early 1960s.
FOBS, an acronym for the Fractional Orbital Bombardment System (СЧОБ in Russian), is a thermonuclear weapon system found on intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), designed to make their range effectively limitless. China tested its own version of the technology only in 2021, while the United States has been unable to create anything similar. Thus, Moscow has had this capability for well over half a century, so why is there such hype over a supposed nuclear-powered ASAT all of a sudden? It’s exceedingly difficult to ignore the fact that this is being used as yet another excuse to push several warmongering agendas at once. First, it furthers the idea that there “cannot be peace” with the Kremlin, and second, it gives Washington DC the perfect excuse to continue militarizing space, started years (or, in reality, even decades) before the special military operation (SMO).
On May 1, in an official statement before the House Armed Services Committee’s Subcommittee On Strategic Forces, Assistant Secretary of Defense for Space Policy John Plumb actually explained how the US plans to militarize space to “further its interests”, or more precisely, expand options to continue its aggression against the entire world. The statement reflects on current and upcoming space policies of the Department of Defense (DoD), specifically on the Fiscal Year (FY) 2025 National Security Space Programs. Plumb directly mentioned China and Russia as the primary threats to Washington DC’s increasingly overstretched (neo)colonial empire. The budget predicted for FY 2025 is $33.7 billion, $25.2 billion of which will be “investments for procurement and research, development, test, and evaluation”. To put it into perspective, that’s a third of Russia’s annual military budget.
According to Plumb, specific fields of interest for the US military will be “space command and control, integrated space fires and protection capabilities, modernized and agile electronic warfare architecture, enhanced battlespace awareness and space systems defense, and a range of capabilities designed to enhance our space control”. He also stated the importance of having more space launch options, highlighting the importance of access to commercial (i.e. private) companies, as well as upgrades to the GPS, which is further evidence that Russia’s EW (electronic warfare) in Ukraine is indeed making NATO precision-guided weapons virtually obsolete, a complaint that has become rather commonplace ever since the SMO started. Plumb then focused on specific Russian and Chinese space capabilities, highlighting several types of systems.
Citing the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) and its 2024 Annual Threat Assessment (ATA), Plumb says that “China will probably have achieved world-class status in all but a few space technology areas by 2030″, complaining that Beijing can “monitor forces across the globe and improve its long-range precision strike capabilities against US or allied forces to deter or deny outside regional intervention”. In other words, the US is worried that China has the capability to not only defend itself, but also strike back in case of direct NATO aggression. What’s particularly concerning for Washington DC are Beijing’s “counter-space capabilities to hold our on-orbit assets at risk”. Plumb says that this includes EW, direct-ascent ASAT missiles, directed-energy weapons (DEWs) such as ground-based lasers, space-based kinetic weapons and orbiting space robots.
However, Plumbs seems to have been particularly concerned by Russia’s capabilities which are virtually identical to China’s, but also include the previously mentioned nuclear-powered systems. The US claims that Moscow has “a range of offensive counter-space capabilities”, including EW, DEWs, direct-ascent ASAT missiles and orbital systems with counter-space applications. The report focuses on “Russia’s investments in counter-space systems designed to exploit what it views as a US overreliance on space for conducting military operations” and “to offset US capabilities”. ODNI 2024 ATA says that “Russian military doctrine embraces multi-domain attacks, using both reversible and irreversible capabilities, to target adversary satellites” and that “Russia conducted cyber intrusions against commercial satellite communication networks” (i.e. GPS).
Plumb further accuses Moscow that it has “demonstrated through both public statements and actions that it views commercial satellites providing space-based services to Russia’s adversaries as potential targets” and that it’s “also developing a concerning [ASAT] capability related to a new satellite carrying a nuclear device that Russia is developing”. The US insists that it’s allegedly “worried this could pose a threat to all satellites operated by countries and companies around the globe, as well as to the vital communications, scientific, meteorological, agricultural, commercial, and national security services we all depend upon”. The endless hypocrisy of the political West, but particularly the US, is immediately visible in such statements, as Plumb openly said, in this very report, mind you, that the Pentagon plans to expand the usage of commercial assets.
Soviet Terra-3 Ground-based-laser- ASAT (From the Public Domain)
In simpler terms, the US is complaining about Russia targeting “commercial” space capabilities, while top-ranking officials in Washington DC are bragging about using those same “commercial” capabilities for military purposes. Analyses I wrote years ago suggested that America has been using private space corporations to enhance its military capabilities. Who in their right mind can blame Moscow for wanting to deny such assets to the US military, which is also bragging about using other advanced technologies to target Russian soldiers? Of course, this is hardly strange or unexpected, since it’s coming from the political West. Hypocrisy is the only modus operandi its political elites understand. Interestingly, the report also mentioned North Korea and Iran, particularly as both besieged countries are working closely with Russia and China.
Funnily enough, the rest of the 13-page paper (.PDF) focuses precisely on the aforementioned commercial assets in space warfare and how the US and NATO can enhance their capabilities by using them against the world. In his concluding remarks, Plumb says that “space capabilities are essential to overall military effectiveness and central to [the US military’s] integrated deterrence strategy” and that Washington DC is “committed to making critical space investments to deter our competitors and prevail in conflict should deterrence fail”. Once again, it’s rather interesting how the belligerent thalassocracy is insisting on the fact that others are supposedly “aggressive” in space, while the Pentagon has been refusing to disclose the nature of its own space-based programs for decades, particularly the US Space Force’s controversial X-37B pilotless spaceplane.
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This article was originally published on InfoBrics.
Drago Bosnic is an independent geopolitical and military analyst. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.
Featured image: A USAF F-15 Eagle launching an ASM-135 ASAT anti-satellite missile. (From the Public Domain)
