China and Russia know that space weapons are needed; The United States should also | Comment

“The stars will never be won by small minds,” observed the great science fiction writer Robert Heinlein. But if we are not careful, they may well be won over by the scheming minds of governments hostile to the United States.

A notable article in the New York Times reported the other day that “the Pentagon is racing to expand its capacity to wage war in space, convinced that China and Russia's rapid advances in space operations constitute a growing threat to U.S. troops and other military assets.” on the ground and American satellites in orbit.”

There are two things to say about this: first, it's time, and second, we need to do a lot more.

Space is indeed the last frontier… for romantic absurdities that ignore human realities and the imperatives of war.

For all the talk about the purity of space, it is an incredibly unforgiving environment. Yes, it's beautiful, but so are the air and the sea. And sure, the space provided the opportunity to create fascinating art, but so what? We are not letting Herman Melville or JMW Turner convince us that we should ban all battleships or submarines.

Playing defense in space – or simply trying to protect our assets – makes no more sense than doing it on land, in the air or at sea. Would we ever just give our troops lots of vests? in Kevlar and station them in elaborate concrete bunkers, while denying them the use of rifles or artillery? Would we ever want our warplanes to simply be able to evade enemy attacks and survive without their own missiles and bombs?

Even if we wanted to keep space free of weapons, space is already a central domain of modern military operations. Try operating a U.S. carrier strike group or even an infantry brigade without the communications, positioning information, or reconnaissance provided by space. As the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Space said, space is “absolutely essential to the way we wage war.”

Russia and China are aware of this. Since they are not nice, well-meaning people who are content to see the United States remain the world's leading military power, they have sought ways to eliminate our advantages.