Defense News
PARIS — Space has become a war-fighting domain, an assessment that calls for doctrinal changes and the ability to intervene there more quickly, space-force leaders from several NATO countries said at the Space Defense and Security Summit here on Tuesday.
“The rule-based international order in space is nearly over,” said Brig. Gen. Jürgen Schrödl, a division head with responsibility for space at the German Ministry of Defence’s strategy and operations department. “We have to accept that space is a tested domain, is a war-fighting domain, is becoming a war-fighting domain.”
The language is a step up from more diplomatic assessments at the summit last year, when military space leaders discussed growing threats to in-orbit assets, without going as far as describing space as a potential war zone or battlefield.
Global governments in the past two years spent more of their space budgets on defense than on civil space, according to data from summit organizer Novaspace.
