\u201cSpace had always been framed as a collaborative space, [but] even though it was used for military operations, they were usually for communications or reconnaissance to extend military capabilities.\u201d<\/p>\n
Now that\u2019s changing. From the United States and China to the UK, France, India and Japan, governments are pouring money into military space systems. But what exactly do they plan on putting up there? And where does this militarisation lead?\u00a0<\/p>\n
Space was never really peaceful<\/p>\n
The idea that space was once a serene, apolitical domain is mostly a myth that governments found useful to promote.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThe US applied a lot of interpretive flexibility to what peaceful activities entailed,\u201d says Aaron Bateman<\/a>, an assistant professor of history and international affairs at George Washington University and author of Weapons in Space.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThe simplistic narrative of space systems \u2013 \u2018the silent sentinels that are keeping the peace between the superpowers\u2019 \u2013 obfuscated quite a lot.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n In practice, the US and former Soviet Union have been testing weapons in orbit since the dawn of the space age. America, for example, fielded Program 437, a nuclear-tipped ground-to-space anti-satellite (ASAT) system that ran until 1975. Russia, meanwhile, equipped its Salyut 3 space station, launched in 1974, with a machine gun, which is said to have been test-fired in space.<\/p>\n Perhaps the most infamous demonstration of space war-fighting capabilities came on 9 July 1962, when the US detonated a nuclear warhead 400km (250 miles) above the Pacific in a test called Starfish Prime. The electromagnetic pulse from the explosion crippled several satellites and helped prompt the Outer Space Treaty of 1967, which prohibits placing weapons of mass destruction in orbit.<\/p>\n What’s changed, Bateman argues, isn’t intent so much as scale, sophistication and candour. “There\u2019s much more overt signalling from the US government now,” he says.\u00a0<\/p>\n The X-37B is a case in point: a military space plane that conducts classified multi-year missions in orbit, yet whose launches the US Air Force now marks with press releases. Once, governments went to great lengths to obscure exactly this kind of activity. Now they publicise it \u2013 and America is far from alone.<\/p>\n Read more:<\/p>\n The era of blowing things up may be ending<\/p>\n According to the Secure World Foundation’s<\/a> (SWF\u2019s) 2025 Global Counterspace Capabilities report, four nations have now demonstrated the ability to physically destroy a satellite: China, the US, India and Russia.<\/p>\n But the era of explosive demonstrations may be drawing to a close because blowing up satellites is increasingly self-defeating.<\/p>\n “If people start using kinetic ASATs against stuff, particularly in low Earth orbit (LEO), it’s going to create a hell of a mess,” says Stuart Eves<\/a>, a space consultant with nearly 40 years’ experience, including time at the UK\u2019s Ministry of Defence.<\/p>\n Space debris is already a problem for countries operating in space. NASA<\/a> estimates some 500,000 debris objects between 1 and 10cm (0.3\u20134in) are currently in orbit; the European Space Agency<\/a> puts the figure at over a million.<\/p>\n At LEO velocities, Eves points out, a 1cm object has \u201cthe same sort of energy as a hand grenade\u201d, hence why countries are reluctant to make more mess up there.\u00a0<\/p>\n The rise of vast satellite constellations makes kinetic attacks even more irrational. There are roughly 16,000 trackable active objects in orbit, with Elon Musk\u2019s Starlink alone accounting for approximately 10,000 of them.<\/p>\n “You really can’t use traditional anti-satellite weapons where you’re going to fire a missile and blow up the satellite,” says Bateman. “There are so many of them, and you can replenish them rapidly. Just from a cost perspective, there’s a strong disincentive.”<\/p>\n The subtle arts of space warfare<\/p>\n So if you can’t just blow things up, what do you do? The answer increasingly involves subtler methods. Jamming \u2013 flooding a satellite’s signal with noise \u2013 is one approach that\u2019s been used for decades. But more sophisticated options are available too.<\/p>\n Russia’s cyber attack on the Viasat network on the first day of its invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 was the most significant publicly known example: by sending false commands to modems across Europe, Russian hackers disrupted Ukrainian government communications.<\/p>\n Then there are lasers. Not the Hollywood variety \u2013 these are usually directed at the optical sensors of surveillance satellites to dazzle or blind them. “If you’re using an observation satellite photographing Earth from space, shining a laser into those optics effectively blinds it,” explains Mulvihill.\u00a0<\/p>\n Russia’s mobile ground-based laser system Peresvet is already deployed to protect its road mobile nuclear ballistic missile forces, according to the SWF report. Meanwhile, China is thought to have at least five so-called \u2018directed energy\u2019 test sites.<\/p>\n Ground infrastructure, too, is a target. For example, Bateman points to a 2022 incident in which severed fibre-optic cables linking mainland Norway to the Svalbard satellite ground station. <\/p>\n \u201cYou don’t even have to blow the satellites up or physically destroy the ground stations. If you cut off the links that bring the data from point A to point B, that could also potentially be very attractive to an adversary in a conflict scenario.\u201d<\/p>\n If the Cold War was a two-horse space race, today’s environment is considerably more crowded. Still, there are two clear front-runners: the US and, more recently, China.\u00a0<\/p>\n![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/250307-X-F3227-1002.jpg\")
The U.S. Space Force\u2019s X-37B Orbital Test Vehicle is shrouded in mystery, yet the public receives regular updates on when it will take flight – Photo credit: VELOZ ALEXANDER\/US Space Force<\/p>\n![\"Artwork](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/asat-attack.jpg\")
Only four nations have demonstrated the ability to physically destroy a satellite – Photo credit: Getty
\nChina’s ascent \u2013 and what it means for the middle powers<\/p>\n