China’s military forces are rapidly building up space warfare capabilities

NEWS AND ANALYSIS:

China’s military forces are rapidly building up space warfare capabilities for use in a future conflict, two top American generals said on Wednesday.

Air Force Lt. Gen. Jeff Kruse, director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, told a security forum in Aspen, Colorado, that China’s advancing military space program includes development and research, robust launch capabilities, lunar activities, and overall mounting space attack capabilities“in multiple orbits that they did not used to be in before.”

China plans to displace the United States as the global leader in space, and to leverage its space assets to threaten U.S. satellites based on Chinese military planners’ perceptions that American forces will be vulnerable if space capabilities are destroyed or disrupted, Gen. Kruse said.

There is “just a tremendous increase in directed energy weapons, in electronic warfare, in anti-satellite capabilities,” he said.

Chinese on-orbit technology demonstrators, such as small satellites with robotic arms that can crush orbiting satellites, also have military applications and are a concern, he said.

The dire assessment is based on DIA assessments of Chinese doctrine and strategy, along with People’s Liberation Army training and exercises that reveal “the use of space and counter-space capabilities in a way that we just don’t see elsewhere,” the three-star general said.

Space Force Gen. Stephen N. Whiting, commander of the U.S. Space Command, told the Aspen Security Forum that China showed the world in 2007 that it could blast a satellite in space with a ground-launched missile. Since then, Beijing’s space warfare efforts have grown exponentially.

“Since the Chinese aced that test, … we have only seen their development of counter-space weapons just rapidly — and breathtakingly — increase,” Gen. Whiting said, noting that the creation of the Space Command and Space Force in 2019 followed the test.

“China is building a kill web, if you will, in space, tailor-built to find, fix, track, target and help provide engagement vectors for over-the-horizon fires against U.S. and allied forces throughout the Indo-Pacific area of responsibility,” he said.

The Pentagon is seeking to better defend space systems by deploying large numbers of hardened satellites constellations designed to frustrate China’s counterspace weapons. Older satellites, however, lack defenses and are more difficult to protect.

Gen. Whiting said that to protect GPS satellites that provide vital navigation for both military and civilian systems, the Air Force is using “M-Code” anti-jamming capabilities on newer satellites.

The U.S. Space Command is also charged with helping to defend American forces in the Pacific region from space-enabled Chinese forces, who are now armed with more precise, more lethal and longer-range weapons, he said.

Both Gen. Kruse and Gen. Whiting also said Russia is improving its space warfare capabilities, including electronic jammers that have been used in the war in Ukraine, while exploring the potential deployment of nuclear weapons in space that could be used to knock out satellites. Gen. Kruse said the DIA has been tracking Russia’s efforts to put a nuclear weapon in space for nearly a decade. 

“They have progressed down to a point where we think they’re getting close,” he said.

A nuclear blast in space would not be limited to low Earth orbit satellites, but would disrupt electronics on the ground as well, he said.

Russia’s military is pursuing the nuclear space weapon to compensate for shortcomings in its conventional military, he added. Gen. Whiting said Moscow conducted a debris-causing anti-satellite missile test three months before the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

The four-star general noted that Russia was proceeding despite being an original signatory to the 1967 Outer Space Treaty banning nuclear weapons in space.

“Now they’re doing that, potentially,” he said. “It’s a completely indiscriminate weapon. It would affect the United States satellites, Chinese satellites, Russian satellites, European satellites, Japanese satellites and so on. It’s really holding at risk the entire modern way of life, and that’s just an incredibly reckless decision.”

China has tripled the number of intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance satellites in orbit in the last six years and now has “hundreds” of new satellites to support its military, Gen. Whiting said. The commander said China also acted irresponsibly recently in launching a satellite that resulted in the booster falling dangerously close to a village in an unsafe manner.

House GOP presses Army on labeling anti-abortion groups ‘terrorists’

The chairman of the House Armed Services Committee and 24 other House Republicans wrote to Army Secretary Christine E. Wormuth seeking an explanation for a briefing at Fort Liberty, North Carolina, that characterized anti-abortion groups as domestic terrorists.

“The training labeled several prominent and well-respected pro-life groups as violent extremists,” the letter stated. “The training also indicated the members of these organizations are threats to the safety of military installations and designated symbols of pro-life groups, including state-issued pro-life license plates, as indicators of terrorism. This is truly shocking for an organization that insists on treating everyone with ‘dignity and respect.’”

The letter urged the Army to immediately issue a correction to all service personnel who received the briefing and implement rules to prevent any repeat of the incident and pressed Ms. Wormuth to punish the Army officials “responsible for spreading such false and divisive claims.”

The lawmakers also want the Army to revise Army Directive 2024-07 to make sure that soldiers who hold conservative and religious beliefs opposed by “progressive left ideology popular in military leadership” are not categorized as extremists.

Republican critics said the training at Fort Liberty confirmed their fears that the directive on how to respond to extremist and criminal gang activities in the ranks is being applied in an overly broad manner in targeting conservatives, squelching dissent and requiring “service members who believe in conservative ideals to hide their identities for fear of retaliation from their commands.”

“The Army’s repeated statements before Congress and the public that all viewpoints, including conservative viewpoints, are welcome, are belied not only by this policy, but also, by this is training,” the July 12 letter stated. “It is crucial that our military maintains political neutrality and respect for diverse viewpoints within the bounds of the law.”

Fort Liberty officials late last week acknowledged that the training material in question had not been “vetted by the appropriate authorities” and did not reflect the views of the Army or Defense Department. Local military officials said that the slides had been developed by a “local garrison employee” and promised that the offending training material “will no longer be used.”

Ms. Hormuth was asked in the letter to explain the role of Army leaders in the Fort Liberty briefing and who approved it, and the process for reviewing and approving the content of such briefings. Other questions included how long the briefing was in use and whether other Army components are using it.

The letter was organized by Rep. Mike Rogers, Alabama Republican, and Rep. Jim Banks of Indiana, chairman of the House Armed Services subcommittee on military personnel.

Navy deploys game-changing new missile

In a development military analysts say gives the Navy a major new missile capability for its F-18 jets, the sea service confirmed for the first time this month the deployment of an SM-6 high-speed anti-ship missile modified for long-range air-to-air strikes. The new missile is called the AIM-174 and was revealed by the Navy in a photo released as part of the Rim of the Pacific international military exercises underway near Hawaii.

“The SM-6 air launched configuration (ALC) was developed as part of the SM-6 family of missiles and is operationally deployed in the Navy today,” a Navy spokesman said earlier this month. Until the disclosure, the SM-6 was only known to have been used on warships for anti-ship, anti-missile and anti-aircraft strikes.

James Syring, former director of the Pentagon’s Missile Defense Agency, said the SM-6 is expected to be “the workhorse for Navy cruise missile defense and ballistic missile defense for a very, very long time.”

The air-launched SM-6 variant is part of a program that began years ago to expand the capabilities of weapons systems through modifications and advanced technology.

The website Naval News, which first reported the new missile variant, said the weapon is probably being used by the Navy air wing deployed on the aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson.

The missile gives the Navy a capability already deployed by both allies and adversaries for an extra long-range, beyond-visual-range air-to-air missile. Other variants could be used to strike aircraft and ballistic missiles and potential ground targets in what military analysts say is a game-changing weapon.

The missile has a range of up to 300 hundred miles at a speed of Mach 3.5 — nearly 2,700 miles per hour. That range is far beyond existing air-to-air missiles that can hit targets tens of miles away.

It will also allow strikes on targets at altitudes of up to 110,000 feet.

The Navy plans to use the new missile variant to deter and counter Chinese military forces in the Indo-Pacific, specifically Beijing’s “anti-access/area denial” weapons that would target U.S. aircraft carriers in a potential future conflict. China’s weapons include a large and diverse arsenal of cruise, ballistic and now hypersonic missiles.

• Contact Bill Gertz on X @BillGertz.