What is it with the left and sneering whenever someone tries to draw attention to a critical gap in their nation’s defences. Before WWII, the left openly campaigned to avoid war with Nazi Germany. In 2012, Barack Obama haw-hawed at suggestions that America needed to rebuild its navy. The lickspittle media guffawed along – while China seized the South China Sea and steadily turned the Pacific into a Chinese lake.
Were they chastened? Be buggered: the left erupted in another witless chorus when Donald Trump first launched the US Space Force.
Unlike painfully unfunny late night ‘comedians’ like Stephen Colbert, China and Russia aren’t laughing. The smug chatterers of the US might not be interested in space, but America’s enemies very much are.
US military officials believe Russia and China are aggressively testing new offensive space capabilities, pointing to a series of satellite training missions conducted by both countries in recent months as growing evidence of an effort to weaponize outer space.
As recently as last week, Russian satellites were practicing “attack and defend tactics,” maneuvers intended to increase the proficiency of their space force, according to a US defense official.
In plain sight, multiple Russian satellites surrounded and isolated another satellite stationed in low-Earth orbit. The manoeuvre, in a real battle, would involve cheap, disposable satellites armed to explode and bombard the target satellite with fragments, wrecking it. If the target is a key communications or spy satellite, the outcome on a battlefield would be critical.
But Russia’s space ambitions may be even more threatening.
Russia’s goal remains to put a nuclear weapon in space, the defense official said. Recent Russian satellite movements also suggest they are actively preparing for a potential armed conflict in space, the official added.
The destructive power of nuclear weapons on Earth mostly comes from the massive pressure wave unleashed by the explosion. In space, with no atmosphere to carry such a wave, the kinetic destructive potential of nuclear weapons is greatly limited. But they would unleash something every bit as deadly to an enemy with highly developed electronic systems.
Last year, CNN reported on Russia’s effort to develop a space-based nuclear weapon that would use a massive energy wave, known as an electromagnetic pulse, to potentially knock out a large swath of commercial and government satellites.
In 2021, Russia also tested an anti-satellite missile that destroyed a Russian satellite, creating a massive debris field in space that forced astronauts on the International Space Station to scramble for safety.
China is working to the same ends.
China has carried out similar training exercises in space over the last year. In December, Beijing demonstrated advanced capabilities by maneuvering multiple satellites in close formation – raising concerns about potential military applications.
“They practiced attack approaches … those are advanced patrols and advanced tactics,” the official said.
These co-orbital satellites can directly hit another satellite or disable it, just one of a suite of such technologies that Beijing is developing. China is also developing anti-satellite missiles and directed-energy attacks that use lasers or similar systems to attack other satellites.
“This is a PLA space force that’s being built, trained and ready to seize the ultimate high ground” from the US, the defense official said.
Just as in the 1950s, America risks being left behind in space by its enemies.
And, once again, Donald Trump is showing that he’s far more smarter and strategically minded that the chattering ninnies of the left realise.
Trump touted the creation of the US Space Force during his first term in office but defense officials stress that increasing competition from Russia and China still poses a national security threat.
“US needs to be ready to do more than protect and defend in outer space. Stories about playing defense are stories about losing,” the defense official said […]
In December 2024, China launched a remote sensing satellite that Space Force military officials say could allow it to persistently monitor US and allied forces in the Pacific region.
You know: all those ships and submarines Obama sneered that America didn’t need any more.
Who’s looking like ‘the smartest guy in the room’, now?
