1980’s Russian fears and insecurity have serendipitously resurfaced earlier this week on the United States future initiatives in space, to include the “Space Force” and global missile defense, that could economically bankrupt Russia should they compete to overcome the obsolescence of their existing systems. President Putin is now offering, for the second time over the past decade, a “reset” of relations with the United States for the cheaper and easier way out for Russian self-interest, by continual aggressive expansion of its influence while renegotiating extensions to existing arms control agreements that Russia is in violation of and taking advantage of.
“We believe it necessary to work together further to interact on the disarmament agenda, military, and technical cooperation. This includes the extension of the Strategic Offensive Arms Limitation Treaty. It’s a dangerous situation with the global American anti-missile defense system; it’s the implementation issues with the INF treaty; and, of course, the agenda of non-placement of weapons in space,” – Russian President Vladimir Putin during a press conference with President Donald Trump after the Helsinki Summit on July 16, 2018.
Russia’s behavior in continually adding battalions of offensive Iskander, both ballistic and cruise, into Kaliningrad, which is centered in the Baltics of Eastern Europe, with ranges to reach most of Poland and the Baltic states, is aggressive in intent and capability to NATO. In addition to the deployment of Iskanders, Russia has also deployed long-range cruise missiles that violate the Intermediate Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty. The German Chancellor stated last week “The challenges for NATO have changed drastically in recent years…” and it is important “to focus more on defending the alliance. To do that, we [must] make necessary arrangements, for example through a presence in Central and Eastern European countries.”
The space domain is the ultimate domain for 24/7cyber and electronic operations, and trumps over the cyber and electronic warfare domains – of which the latter, Russia has found superiority as well as demonstrated through the deployment of those capabilities in Ukraine, Eastern Europe, and the United States.
Russia is already developing and deploying robust counter space, cyber/EW, hypersonic, and missile strike capabilities to place U.S. and allies at risk. Weaponization in space is in existence and deployed today by the near peers of Russia and China, with specific capabilities to defeat U.S. GPS and critical communication satellites. China demonstrated on January 11, 2007 an antisatellite surface to space interceptor, that successfully destroyed one of their own satellites. The Russian and Chinese are developing new non-ballistic hypersonic glide vehicles that can be launched from various platforms, flying through space and in the upper atmosphere, and can be best tracked and defeated from space. All ballistic missiles, from the nation’s that have them, spend approximately 80% of their flight time in space. Many nations around the world today are economically, socially, and militarily dependent on the space domain.
Space is where the United States must go to negate and deter the current and future threats demonstrated by Russia and China as well as any nation that would threaten the United States and its allies. Space is more cost efficient, more effective, and provides a global persistence that systems on land, sea and air simply cannot do. A strong United States presence in space will make the world more stable and secure.
