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WASHINGTON, the United States | Xinhua | The United States faces global doubts and criticism after announcing for the first time that it has deployed weapons in space, with countries warning against an “arms race” in space.
U.S. Air Force Secretary Troy Meink said Monday that the United States has fielded “on-orbit space control weapons capable of defending the Joint Force against hostile adversary action,” but declined to disclose the types of weapons deployed or whether they were designed to target objects in space or on Earth.
Back in March, Chief of Space Operations Gen. Chance Saltzman said that the U.S. Space Force was tasked “to contest and control the space domain” to ensure U.S. forces could operate freely while “denying the same to our adversaries.”
Established as a separate military branch by U.S. President Donald Trump in 2019, the Space Force was the first new branch of the U.S. military in more than seven decades. It carries out both offensive and defensive operations aimed at affecting adversary capabilities, from disruption to degradation to destruction, including “orbital warfare and electromagnetic warfare,” Saltzman said.
Trump is further stepping up the militarization of space in his second term.
Ordering the Pentagon to pursue space-based interceptors during the first week of his presidency, he announced in January 2025 the “Golden Dome” missile defense system with space-based capabilities as a crucial component.
The Congressional Budget Office estimated that space-based components of the Golden Dome system alone could cost as much as 542 billion U.S. dollars over the next 20 years.
Astronomer Jonathan McDowell, who has spent decades compiling a list of rocket launches, told The Guardian, a British daily, that it was reasonable to assume Washington had such weapons in space, likely jammers, as it had already deployed several satellites with secret payloads.
McDowell said the United States was moving away from the idea that space should be used solely for peaceful purposes. The United States “sees conflict in space as something that is conceptually normalised, whereas 20 years ago it was ‘no, we will never want to do that’,” he said.
“I think this is wrong,” he added. “I also think it is still not too late to change course on this.”
Similarly, Lemmy Nyongesa Mulaku, a scholar of international affairs at the University of Nairobi, said Washington’s secret deployment of space weapons has undermined the international legal framework established by the 1967 Outer Space Treaty, which bans weapons of mass destruction in orbit but does not prohibit conventional weapons in space or ground-based weapons against assets in space, leaving room for interpretation.
“The dangers associated with Washington’s actions include triggering an arms race in space, which would pose dangers to civilians in terms of increasing the probability of debris falling; interference with civilian communications networks; and increase an erosion of trust in international treaties,” Mulaku said. “An arms race in outer space will make it a contested sphere with consequences for the whole world.”
Russia’s Foreign Ministry said Tuesday that Washington’s deployment of orbital weapons ignored the possible consequences of a conflict and threatened long-term stability in space-based activity.
“In pursuit of its narrow self-interests, Washington is ready to completely ignore the catastrophic consequences for humanity of any armed conflict in orbit,” Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said in a commentary on the ministry website.
The country has long argued that the United States and its allies opposed a ban on all weapons in outer space because they planned to deploy weapons there.
Meanwhile, China urged the United States to stop expanding military build-up in outer space and uphold global strategic stability with concrete actions, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun said Tuesday.
Guo added that China stands for peaceful use of outer space and keeping it safe, and opposes any arms race in outer space or any attempt to weaponize it and turn it into a war zone. ■
