The U.S. Space Force is on the offensive and its priority target is China. This is not new as such, but it is getting attention in the wake of the spread of Chinese satellite imagery depicting the U.S. military buildup in Southwest Asia.
Lt. Gen. Gregory Gagnon, head of what is now called U.S. Space Force Combat Forces Command (CFC), talked about what will be required to provide “space superiority” in the future, at a roundtable on the sidelines of the Air & Space Forces Association’s (AFA) annual Warfare Symposium on Feb. 26. The Space Force redesignated its Space Operations Command (SpOC) as CFC last November, specifically to put more emphasis on its warfighting functions, reported The War Zone. U.S. military officials have been stressing that space is now a warfighting domain, where active conflict could occur for years now. This, in turn, has also led to increasingly open discussions about new anti-satellite capabilities.
Maneuvering satellites away from threats is known to be a central aspect of the Space Force’s current “protect and defend” concepts of operations, TWZ notes. “But protecting and defending satellites can’t simply be done by protect and defend. You can’t run away from a bully forever. Sometimes you got to turn around and punch,” Gagnon continued. “So protect and defend, although necessary, is insufficient to deliver space control. We also need, as part of our joint force, the ability to attack.”
