With bold weapons tests in space, China and Russia have just given President Joe Biden a wake-up call.
Biden must answer.
In late July, China successfully tested a hypersonic glide vehicle. Carried on a conventional ballistic missile thousands of miles across the planet, the vehicle was then launched at the edge of low Earth orbit. It successfully hit near its intended target.
China’s new weapon is designed to evade U.S. missile defenses and deliver nuclear warheads to the U.S. mainland on very short notice.
That’s just part one of Biden’s wake-up call.
Then, this month, Russia tested an anti-satellite weapon in low Earth orbit. Moscow launched a kinetic kill vehicle from the ground, which then smashed into a Soviet-era satellite. Kinetic kill vehicles use their mass and speed to destroy a target without any explosive warhead. Thanks to Russia’s orbital test, a new and dangerous orbital debris field has been created. It consists of at least 1,500 separate pieces. NASA says this debris adds another hazard for both manned and satellite operations.
Regardless, Russia’s intent is quite clear: Vladimir Putin wants the ability to destroy U.S. spy satellites and disrupt U.S. missile defense and warning systems. In the event of a major war with NATO, Russia would use these weapons in an attempt to blind U.S. forces and commanders.
Red alert should be sounding in the Oval Office. These impressive technological feats by the two preeminent U.S. adversaries evince a determined intent to threaten the United States’s and its allies’ national security. Russia’s creation of an orbital debris field was deliberate, not coincidental or a mistake: Moscow wants the U.S. to know that it can do to U.S. satellites what it just did to one of its own. Both China and Russia want the world to know they intend to challenge the U.S. for dominance of space.
Biden must thus wake up to reality — and quickly.
As a first step, he should step increase investment in the Space Force that his predecessor wisely created. Established to defend U.S. and allied space interests, Space Force is growing in capability. Still, it needs strengthening. Biden deserves credit for boosting Space Force’s budget, but his administration must also be more willing to reform how the new military branch operates.
Space Force’s supervising department, the Air Force, must do more to prioritize Space Force-related career paths at the Air Force Academy and other training areas. The Biden administration should also work with Congress to ensure that Space Force does not make the same procurement mistakes as the Navy has made with aircraft carriers, which is to say spending vast sums of money on equipment and capabilities that belong in a previous era — capabilities that, today, are increasingly vulnerable to devastation.
The Space Force also needs a more overt and comprehensive focus on offensive capabilities. While the Air Force has at least one classified satellite weapon in development, it cannot allow China and Russia to take advantage of U.S. reluctance to “militarize” space. As the adage goes, “The enemy gets a vote.” If Beijing and Moscow are dedicating themselves to holding America’s space assets at risk, that same dedication must be applied against them. They must understand it as such. To accept America’s weakening space defense at the altar of arms control orthodoxy would be the height of folly.
The wake-up calls have come in. Now, Biden must answer them.
