Air Force Secretary Troy Meink made the first public declaration Monday that the United States has placed “space control weapons” in orbit, an announcement that will surely reverberate in the power centers of Beijing and Moscow.
Meink did not reveal any details about the weapons, but the disclosure of their existence underlines a remarkable turnaround in the Pentagon’s thinking about orbital warfare, something no senior official wanted to discuss publicly until a few years ago.
I always thought one of the major rules of warfare was to control the high ground. What is higher than space?
Isn’t it a violation of a treaty signed decades ago regarding the militarization of space?
US treaties are signed in pencil.
The 1967 treaty bans nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction from Earth orbit, but it does not impose a ban on conventional weapons.
DB2
Unless the weapons are solely anti-satellite, they are WMD. Gravity makes them such. Just a heavy tungsten rod “dropped” from orbit could wipe out part of a city. No explosive tip needed. Just mass.
Satellites are very important and so are anti-satellites. Think of the military implications of not having satellite imagery, satellite communications or GPS.
DB2
In related news, the US Space Force debuted its new uniforms “inspired by discipline and functionality of the Starship Trooper uniform.”
Makes sense. Paul Verhoeven’s 1997 classic movie was about a fascist government that waged pointless wars of expansion, based on the false premise aliens represented an existential threat and must be destroyed. Rejecting the democratic notion of universal human rights, arguing instead that political power and rights must be earned through loyalty, sacrifice, and submission to the state.
We’re well along that path, so I can see why the current admin is attracted to these uniforms.
This may be a coincidence…
DB2
That would be foolish unless we planned to go all-out. It would create high velocity debris that could destroy other satellites. Think the opening of “Gravity”. Probably not enough to cause a full cascade, unless it managed to destroy the ISS. Then all bets are off on that cascade. Very unlikely, depending on the satellite’s orbit. But we should just start downing satellites on a whim.
Well at least it wasn’t inspired by Star Trek, would suck to be issued a red uniform. IYKYK.
It looks like it was inspired by the movie “Starship Troopers”. That’s not a society I would want to live in.
