American troops need to prepare for combat not only in Earth’s orbit but around the moon, President Trump’s top military adviser said on Wednesday, looking ahead to a new frontier in warfare after the US revealed that, for the first time, it has deployed weapons in space. Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told service members and industry figures at the Air, Space & Cyber Conference outside Washington that the US military should adapt now so it “is prepared to fight, endure, and win … from the seabed to cislunar space,” per the AP.
Space Force, the newest military service, created by Trump in 2019, is preparing to fight in space and around the moon because “humanity is advancing deeper into space—the Space Force’s job is to help be prepared to defend US interests,” Lt. Gen. Gregory Gagnon, head of the force’s Combat Forces Command, told reporters separately. The announcement that the US military is ready to fight in the area between high Earth orbit and the moon itself comes days after Air Force Secretary Troy Meink revealed at the same conference that the US has fielded “on-orbit space control weapons.”
The spate of announcements about space weaponry from military officials over recent days flies in the face of long-standing conventions and international understandings that have held outer space as only to be used for peaceful purposes and remain nonmilitarized. While multiple nations, including the US, have demonstrated the ability to shoot down satellites in Earth’s orbit, those demonstrations have taken place from the ground against their own satellites. However, according to Gagnon, “the intelligence community has been clear that potential adversaries have been seeking to extend warfare into space,” and that the US military needs to react.
“Our potential adversaries, such as [China], are actively pursuing activities in the system, in parts of space,” Gagnon said. China established its own military space troops in 2024, charging them with boosting capability to manage space crises. Gagnon also says the US aims to double the size of the Space Force over the next five years, to roughly 25,000 service members, and that about two-thirds of that growth would be focused on Combat Forces Command. “We have capabilities in the military because we are preparing to defend the nation,” Gagnon said. “The reason we have the capabilities is to help create deterrence.” More here.