"threaten the peaceful use of space" and what exact is the US space force for? Cleaning up after Elon's space junk? I don't think so. Kind of hypocritic to accuse others of militarizing space.
US military presence in space consists of spy satellites and military communications satellites. As far as we know the US hasn't put any space-based weapons up there. There's a difference.
Russia doesn't care about the technical difference and why would they? The USA uses satellite infrastructure to exert influence, including in regions that Russia is active in and considers critical. From a Russian perspective, it is important that they have some way to counteract these capabilities.
The USA and its allies finds it very useful to paint Russia as a hostile and even unethical actor here, but there is no fundamental difference between what Russia does and what the West does.
In terms of gaining influence, sure, maybe they're ethically on par. But saying it's reasonable they're weaponizing space because "they need to counteract US capabilities" is a flawed argument. They could counteract US capabilities by investing in the education and economic well-being of their populace, which, if enacted in 2000 when Putin came into power, would have given enormous dividends to technological and military capability by now. Instead they spend their human capital luring college graduates into troll farms in Siberia with the promise of bare minimum shelter and food.
Internally, Russia is a deeply shitty regime, run by mobsters and thugs and preying on its populace. The US has a lot of problems too (and even more so since 2017) but its fundamental framework still prioritizes individual rights and freedom of expression without fear of punishment (although, unlike its allies, it doesn't do much to provide healthcare or education). I would much rather have a world that's dominated by the US than one dominated by Russia or China.
That is not pertinent to the point being made above. Regardless of the bureaucratic nomenclature the US is actively in pursuit of weaponizing earth orbit space tech.
The point I'm making: None of that has anything to do with the Space Force formation. It was already happening when those assets were under the Air Force, for decades. The radars, GPS satellites, etc. formerly run by the Air Force Space Command are now run by the Space Force. Same thing for the staff; they're the same people.
Repeatedly saying it with no evidence doesn't make it true. Stop doing this. The US has not to anyone's knowledge put weapons in space. Russia has now. That's a clear escalation.
That isn't really the point. The point is that the US armed forces already use space for military purposes so extensively that they even have a whole branch dedicated to space militarization.
> That isn't really the point. The point is that the US armed forces already use space for military purposes so extensively that they even have a whole branch dedicated to space militarization.
Military use of space != "militarization [of space]." My understanding is that the US Space Force pretty much just controls space assets used by the military that are comparable to civilian ones (i.e. sensor, communication, and navigation satellites). I don't think they've stationed any actual weapons in space.
if the military uses email to communicate, does that constitute the "militarization of email"? I have to imagine that for most people, "militarization of space" means actually putting weapons platforms in space.
> if the military uses email to communicate, does that constitute the "militarization of email"?
Are you naive to the point where you believe that the US armed forces have spent billions establishing a global comm network just to send emails?
I mean, did you failed to notice that the US's current strategic bet lies on it's ability to operate and manage autonomous vehicles through its global communication network?
> Are you naive to the point where you believe that the US armed forces have spent billions establishing a global comm network just to send emails?
I actually think it's very reasonable for the military to have spent billions just improving their human-to-human communication infrastructure. Efficient and highly available communication is vitally important for a functional military without needing to into autonomous vehicles.
I think it's reasonable to differentiate between the military operations satellites in space and the military blowing up satellites in space. IMO the former is a good thing and the latter is a bad thing.
IMO yes, although I can totally understand why some might disagree with that opinion.
If GPS went away, the US military wouldn't stop blowing stuff up. They'd just be less accurate with more collateral damage (especially when you take into account the lives that GPS saves by preventing KAL-007 type incidents, more efficient farming, better knowledge of seismology, etc etc)
> I don't think they've stationed any actual weapons in space.
The US Military has spent nearly half a century trying every single trick in the book to get around the 'laws' and put weapons in space. I would be personally extremely shocked to find that the US does not have militarization of space already stocked with weapons and things.
Given all the launches accredited to SDI (and whatever it is named now) over the last 3+ decades it would be quite amazing if not one of them was a weapon test.
Just what have they done with all that star wars budget if they were lofting flowers in muzzles?
> Just what have they done with all that star wars budget if they were lofting flowers in muzzles?
Failing to produce much of use, mostly. It's hardly the first unproductive R&D program in our history.
That said, there were absolutely weapons tests as part of SDI; they were just ground-to-space (and eventually turned into the current ABM programs). There were also space-based sensor systems - radars etc. There's no evidence I'm aware of of any US space-to-space weaponry having made it into actual testing.
