{"id":167979,"date":"2020-09-07T12:00:48","date_gmt":"2020-09-07T11:00:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=167979"},"modified":"2020-09-03T05:51:16","modified_gmt":"2020-09-03T04:51:16","slug":"space-weapons-to-counter-china-russia-coming","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2020\/09\/space-weapons-to-counter-china-russia-coming\/","title":{"rendered":"Space Weapons to Counter China, Russia \u2018Coming\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"
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US Space Command major general says new capabilities are on the way to mitigate looming threats.<\/em><\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n
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28 Aug 2020 – <\/em>To say that officials at the newly established US Space Command face a clear and present danger, is an understatement.America\u2019s adversaries now have the ability to use jammers, ground-based lasers, ground- and space-based kinetic weapons, attack ground facilities that support space operations or even carry out a nuclear detonation in space.<\/p>\n

China has already tested anti-satellite missiles, while Russia has deployed on-orbit systems that could threaten US satellites.<\/p>\n

But according to Army National Guard Major General Tim Lawson, new capabilities are on the way to mitigate the threat \u2014 he just can\u2019t tell you about them, because they are classified under the umbrella of \u201cblack budget\u201d projects.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs a geographical combatant command focused on the space domain, those are the things that keep us up at night,\u201d said Lawson, who made the remarks at the National Defense Industrial Association\u2019s Space Warfighting Industry Forum, which was held virtually due to the Covid-19 pandemic.<\/p>\n

\u201cI would love to sit behind some closed doors and have this discussion on some of the things we really think we need,\u201d Lawson said when asked about the types of capabilities Spacecom is seeking.<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of times you listen to that threat picture and you kind of get a little dismayed at what you\u2019re seeing, but then you look at our side and \u2014 trust me \u2014 we\u2019ve got some things coming. So, it\u2019s good news.\u201d<\/p>\n

Significant portions of the US military\u2019s space programs are classified, making it difficult for outside observers to know what\u2019s coming down the pike.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Lawson highlighted the need to have resilient space architectures that utilize large networks of small communications and intelligence-gathering satellites that would be less vulnerable to enemy attacks.<\/p>\n

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Futurism<\/p><\/div>\n

\u201cIf you had hundreds of small satellites up there in a constellation \u2026 the enemy can take out quite a few of those and it will really never have an impact on us,\u201d he said. \u201cThat really is the resiliency piece that we\u2019re seeking out there and we need.\u201d<\/p>\n

The command is also interested in developments in space logistics such as on-orbit refueling or servicing of satellites.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf we could ever figure that out to where it is an economic way to do business, it would be a gamechanger, absolutely,\u201d he said. \u201cNo doubt about it. And we would fully support a capability that would allow us to do that. And I think we would be very open to having some very good candid conversation on where industry is at in that piece of it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lawson\u2019s remarks came near the one-year anniversary of the re-establishment of US Space Command. The organization is a full-fledged geographic combatant command responsible for military operations that occur 100 kilometers or higher above the Earth\u2019s surface.<\/p>\n

The Pentagon \u2014 with the backing of President Donald Trump \u2014 now considers space to be a warfighting domain on par with land, air and sea.<\/p>\n

But it\u2019s not the first time a US president has launched a major military defense project in space.<\/p>\n

According to History.com<\/a>, President Ronald Reagan\u00a0saw the proposed Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) as a safeguard against the most terrifying\u00a0Cold War\u00a0outcome \u2014 nuclear annihilation.<\/p>\n

It was a plan that read like science fiction: A system armed with an array of space-based X-ray lasers would detect and deflect any nukes headed toward the US.<\/p>\n

When Reagan\u00a0first announced<\/a>\u00a0SDI on March 23, 1983, he called upon the US scientists who \u201cgave us nuclear weapons to turn their great talents to the cause of mankind and world peace: to give us the means of rendering these nuclear weapons impotent and obsolete.\u201d<\/p>\n

From the start, politicians and scientists argued that SDI was overambitious.<\/p>\n

The technical hurdles required to achieve SDI (which included a number of proposed designs and weapons \u2014 not just space-based lasers) seemed so incredible at the time that Massachusetts Senator\u00a0Edward Kennedy<\/a>\u00a0referred to it as \u201dreckless \u2018Star Wars\u2019 schemes<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

The \u201cStar Wars\u201d moniker stuck. Over the course of 10 years, the government spent up to US$30 billion on developing the concept, but the futuristic program remained just that \u2014futuristic.<\/p>\n

It was formally scrapped by\u00a0President Bill Clinton<\/a>\u00a0in 1993.<\/p>\n

Go to Original – asiatimes.com<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

28 Aug 2020 – To say that officials at the newly established US Space Command face a clear and present danger, is an understatement. USSC major general says new capabilities are on the way to mitigate looming threats.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":150271,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57],"tags":[1161,1188,244,1126,1050,1105,1566,278,1081,1709,95],"class_list":["post-167979","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-militarism","tag-arms-industry","tag-arms-race","tag-china","tag-hegemony","tag-imperialism","tag-military-industrial-complex","tag-nuclear-arms-in-space","tag-russia","tag-satellites","tag-space-weapons","tag-us-military"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/167979","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=167979"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/167979\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/150271"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=167979"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=167979"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=167979"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}