WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW
- Gen. Dan Caine says American forces must prepare to fight across contested environments extending from the seabed to cislunar space.
- Air Force Secretary Troy Meink confirmed the United States has stationed space control weapons in Earth’s orbit.
- The Space Force identifies China and Russia as developing capabilities intended to disrupt or degrade American space operations.
- The 1967 Outer Space Treaty prohibits weapons of mass destruction in orbit and weapons testing on the moon.
America’s armed forces must prepare to fight and win across every domain, including the immense region between Earth and the moon, according to the nation’s top military officer.
Air Force Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, delivered that warning Wednesday during the Air, Space and Cyber Conference in Maryland.
His audience included service members and defense industry leaders.
The task facing American forces is “to adapt right now, so the joint force is prepared to fight, endure, and win in global contested environments, from the seabed to cislunar space,” Caine said.
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Cislunar space is the vast region extending from Earth’s surface to and including the moon.
aine’s remarks placed that enormous area within the range of environments where American troops must be ready to operate.
“Future conflicts will demand that we operate without the assumptions of uncontested access, secure rear areas, or uninterrupted or uncontested sustainment,” Caine said.
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His comments came just days after Air Force Secretary Troy Meink publicly acknowledged for the first time that the United States has stationed weapons in Earth’s orbit.
“We are increasing readiness against existing threats, and the United States has on-orbit space control weapons capable of defending the joint force against hostile adversary action,” Meink said Monday, the opening day of the conference.
Meink did not identify the weapons or disclose when they were deployed. His statement nevertheless confirmed that the United States possesses space control weapons in orbit for defending the joint force against hostile action.
The Air and Space Forces Association hosted the conference. The organization is a nonprofit whose membership includes personnel from both the Air Force and Space Force.
The Space Force was created in 2019 during President Donald Trump’s first administration.
It was established to protect American military and commercial assets orbiting Earth as space joined land, sea, air and cyber as a contested warfighting domain.
The Space Force’s online “Space Threat” fact sheet identifies Beijing and Moscow as threats to American interests in space.
It describes both countries as pursuing systems and capabilities intended to challenge United States access and operations.
“China and Russia are developing new space systems to enhance military effectiveness and end any reliance on U.S. space services,” the fact sheet states.
According to the same document, those countries are “testing and fielding sophisticated counterspace capabilities with the intent to disrupt and degrade U.S. space-enabled capabilities.”
The fact sheet says the Chinese army “expects space to play an important role in future conflicts by enabling long-range precision strikes and denying other militaries the use of space-based information.”
Russia, meanwhile, regards space as “a warfighting domain and believes space supremacy will be a decisive factor in future conflicts,” according to the Space Force document.
The United States and China are among the 95 signatories of the 1967 Outer Space Treaty. The agreement sought to apply international law to space exploration, weapons testing and territorial claims.
The Soviet Union also signed the treaty before the federation dissolved in 1991. Russia had been part of the Soviet Union.
Two major treaty requirements address weapons and military activity beyond Earth.
Countries cannot place nuclear weapons or other weapons of mass destruction in Earth’s orbit, on the moon or on any other celestial body.
The treaty also prohibits using the moon to test weapons of any kind.
Caine’s message focused on preparing the joint force to operate, endure and prevail across contested environments reaching from the seabed to cislunar space.
His warning and Meink’s disclosure came during the same conference, putting both military readiness and existing American space control capabilities in the spotlight.
At the same time, the Space Force fact sheet identifies China and Russia as developing systems that could disrupt or degrade American space capabilities.
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