Oct. 28—U.S. Air Force Secretary Troy Meink set off a firestorm when he revealed in a speech to the annual Air, Space & Cyber Conference at National Harbor, Maryland, on Sept. 14, that the United States officially now has weapons in Earth orbit. “Today, we continue to ensure we remain ready to meet the challenges of evolving threats wherever they exist,” Meink said. “This is why the United States now has on-orbit space-control weapons, capable of defending the joint force against hostile adversary action.”

The next day, Chief of Space Operations Gen. Douglas Schiess, sworn in to the job only two weeks earlier, confirmed Meink’s revelation that the U.S. Department of Defense’s Space Force, established in 2019, has weapons in space. They were made necessary, he claimed, by Russia and China. Deterrence remains the U.S. Space Force’s goal, but the service will pursue it from a “position of strength,” he said.