Defense News:

Maintaining space as a peaceful domain is a long-held objective going back to America’s earliest days on orbit. The administration’s goal to further define rules and norms in this regard is admirable. As Vice President Kamala Harris recently explained, it is important to drive toward an international consensus regarding “what is right, what is wrong, and what is acceptable” in space. Empowering this objective demands a full range of military tools. That includes holding adversary capabilities in space at risk to empower effective deterrence.

While the U.S. would like to prevent conflict from escalating to space, many of our adversaries do not share this goal. Instead, they see developing and fielding capabilities to hold our systems on orbit at risk as an opportunity to gain decisive advantages.

It may even be impossible for us to project effective combat power if we lose our space-based capabilities, and our adversaries retain theirs. Our adversaries know this, and it is exactly why they have pressed so hard to hold our satellites at risk by demonstrating and fielding known terrestrial and, likely, space-based anti-satellite weapons.

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