The United States has acknowledged for the first time that it has deployed weapons in space, drawing separate warnings from China and Russia.
Air Force Secretary Troy Meink told the Air and Space Cyber Conference in Maryland on Monday that the U.S. had fielded “on-orbit space control weapons capable of defending the Joint Force against hostile adversary action.”
Meink did not explain what the weapons are or how they operate. In 2024, the United States said Russia was developing a new anti-satellite weapon that could be launched from space, although the White House said at the time that the threat was not imminent.
Reports about the suspected anti-satellite system nevertheless underscored longstanding concerns over threats from Russia and China. Much of the United States’ critical infrastructure relies on satellite communications, leaving it vulnerable to disruption in a potential conflict.
Meink also said the Air Force was expanding its use of autonomous systems and predicted that the service would look “radically different” by 2032. He said, for instance, that one-way attack drones could replace artillery as the “primary killer.”
“We are increasing readiness against existing threats,” he said.
Meink said AI “competes with some of the world’s top programmers, cyber operators and hackers.” He added that the technology was transforming the battlefield by enabling countries that previously lacked the necessary resources to rapidly adapt and expand their combat capabilities.
The U.S. military must therefore “increase our combat power and innovate faster than anyone else, affordably,” Meink said.
President Trump created the Space Force in 2019.
China and Russia issue warnings
China on Tuesday warned against turning outer space into a “battlefield,” while Russia said space must remain “free from any weapon” after Washington confirmed that it had deployed arms in orbit around Earth.
Analysts said the U.S. announcement confirmed what had effectively been an open secret. However, they warned that its timing could further strain relations with Beijing and heighten the risk of an arms race in space.
China’s foreign ministry condemned the move, warning against the “weaponization of outer space, turning it into a battlefield, as well as an arms race there.”
“We urge the U.S. side to stop expanding its military capabilities and preparing for war in outer space,” ministry spokesman Guo Jiakun told reporters at a briefing.
Russia also called Tuesday for space to remain “free of any weapons.”
“We are counting on broad international consolidation to continue working toward the complete demilitarization of space,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.
What are the U.S. capabilities?
The U.S. statement did not provide concrete details about what weapons are deployed in space and how many.
“Space control encapsulates the mission areas required to contest and control the space domain — employing kinetic and non-kinetic means to affect adversary capabilities,” the statement said.
“These capabilities can be employed for offensive and defensive purposes,” it added.
Non-kinetic means could include lasers to blind satellites, or even electromagnetic or cyber jamming of their data links.
Why does the U.S. want weapons in space?
For Washington, both Russia and China — its two main geopolitical rivals — pose potential threats to U.S. interests in space.
China “develops and operates space and counterspace capabilities as part of a military modernization strategy,” according to the U.S. Space Force.
Russia, meanwhile, “views space as a warfighting domain and believes space supremacy will be a decisive factor in future conflicts,” it said.
The militarization of space is as old as the space race itself — as soon as the USSR’s Sputnik was launched into orbit as the first probe in space in 1957, Washington and Moscow began exploring ways to both arm and destroy satellites.
India in March 2019 said it had destroyed a low-orbiting satellite, following in the footsteps of Russia, China and the U.S., in a missile test that proved the nation was among the world’s most advanced space powers.
“China will not stand by and do nothing”
Song Zhongping, an independent military commentator based in Hong Kong and former Chinese army instructor, told AFP the announcement was “no surprise at all” as the fact that the U.S possesses such weapons “has long been an open secret.”
“The only difference is that the U.S. used to keep it ambiguous, whereas now it has gone public, which shows that Washington is no longer trying to hide it,” he added.
“China will not stand by and do nothing,” he warned, noting Beijing already has its own space station in orbit.
“Whether China deploys weapons in space will depend entirely on whether the United States moves in that direction,” he said.
The Wall Street Journal reported Beijing supplied Iran with satellite imagery that enabled Tehran to precisely target military facilities and kill U.S. servicemembers in Jordan in July — a claim China has denied.
Can weapons in outer space be regulated?
The biggest worry was once about nuclear weapons in space, but the superpowers and other countries signed the Outer Space Treaty in 1967, banning weapons of mass destruction in orbit.
Since then, Russia, the United States, China and India have explored ways to fight in space outside of that treaty, including by targeting rivals’ satellites, which are key for military communications, surveillance and navigation.
“There is a regulatory vacuum because Article 4 of the 1967 treaty only forbids weapons of mass destruction and nuclear weapons in orbit,” said space law expert Laetitia Cesari.
She said the topic would likely be on the agenda at the next U.N. disarmament meeting in November.
“Moscow and Beijing have been wanting to work for about 20 years on a treaty to prevent the placement of weapons in space,” while “Western states are trying instead to work on the notion of responsible behavior,” Cesari said.
The U.S. announcement “will likely give impetus to the restrictive approach that Moscow and Beijing are pushing for,” she added.
