Welcome to our first monthly
instalment of the FT's new
foreign policy and defence vlog.
And I'm just back from a
visit to US Space Command
in Colorado.
That's the new
combatant command that
was re-established late last
year after a 17-year hiatus,
and which now sees
space, according
to a strategy document
out last month,
as a distinct
war-fighting domain.
Yep, that means war in space.
The new line of effort
has even spawned
a new branch of the military
to match, US Space Force.
For now it only has 90
people working for it
but that's set to rise to 2,400
soon, and with more to come.
It's already been
ridiculed by some.
There's even a new
TV sitcom sending up
the whole enterprise.
And US military
officials laugh openly
about whether people
working for Space Force
might one day become known
as space warriors or even
space men and space women.
But the militarisation of
space is deadly serious.
I caught up with
Brigadier General Shawn
Bratton, who's deputy director
of operations at US Space
Command.
He's focused on everything,
including jammers and laser
capabilities, right the
way up to the potential
for space-on-space weapons.
Not only did he tell
me he binge-watched
all of Space Force in
one night, but that he's
come to the conclusion
that what China
is up to in space, what
he calls ambiguity,
can mean only one thing.
I think China is developing
weapons in space.
They're moving in
that direction.
They see it as an area where
they can compete with us.
And should we go to conflict
where they would aggressively
come after us, I think
for US Space Command,
our responsibility is
to be able to defend
against those threats.
US simulations of
large-scale conflict
already show battles quickly
ascending into space.
And US Space Command
is now working
on what a definition of
deterrence might look like.
The 1967 Outer Space Treaty
bans nuclear weapons in space,
but it doesn't mean that
all weapons will be absent.
I asked Professor Joan
Johnson-Freese, a space expert
at the Naval War College,
just how aggressive US moves
in space might look to China.
We worry about ambiguous
Chinese technology.
They worry about
ambiguous US technology.
And that gets both countries
into a classic security dilemma
of continually ratcheting up
their technology in potentially
counterproductive terms.
Dean Cheng, an expert in
China's space ambitions,
told me China's real target is
in the geosynchronous orbit,
way up high.
Geosynchronous is where is the
truly valuable real estate.
It's where you have
key weather satellites,
it's where you have key
communications satellites.
And perhaps most
worryingly, it's
where you have a lot of the
nuclear command and control
missile launch detection,
nuclear detonation detection
satellites.
Those are all out
of geosynchronous.
So the fact that the Chinese
tested a anti-satellite weapon
designed to go all
the way out there
is notable for a
number of reasons,
not just because of
the potential targets,
but because no other country,
not the United States,
not the Soviet
Union, not Russia,
has tested a weapon
designed for that part
of the orbital regime.
Despite America's
overwhelming dominance in
and reliance on space, he claims
the US is now playing catch-up
to China and Russia
when it comes
to readying for the prospect
of conflict in space.
Chinese created their
version of a Space Force,
called the PLA Strategic Support
Force, at the end of 2015.
The Russians created an
aerospace force, also in 2015.
So the Russians and
Chinese have actually
had a space service, if you
will, in place for five years.
US Space Force had no input into
the production of the Netflix
show, Space Force, but they
told me that any programme that
opened up conversation about
Space Force and its mission,
it saw as a
worthwhile endeavour.
It's only recently struck upon
its new motto, semper supra.
That means, always above.
And that certainly shows you
where US ambition in space
is headed.
