PARIS \u2014 Space has become a war-fighting domain, an assessment that calls for doctrinal changes and the ability to intervene there more quickly, space-force leaders from several NATO countries said at the Space Defense and Security Summit here on Tuesday.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe rule-based international order in space is nearly over,\u201d said Brig. Gen. J\u00fcrgen Schr\u00f6dl, a division head with responsibility for space at the German Ministry of Defence\u2019s strategy and operations department. \u201cWe have to accept that space is a tested domain, is a war-fighting domain, is becoming a war-fighting domain.\u201d<\/p>\n
The language is a step up from more diplomatic assessments at the summit last year, when military space leaders discussed growing threats to in-orbit assets, without going as far as describing space as a potential war zone or battlefield.<\/p>\n
Global governments in the past two years spent more of their space budgets on defense than on civil space, according to data from summit organizer Novaspace.<\/p>\n
Of the $73.1 billion in global government spending on space defense and security in 2024, more than a third was classified, the consultancy says.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat you see is that it is now the military domain that is leading,\u201d Hermann Ludwig Moeller, director of the European Space Policy Institute, told Defense News at the conference. \u201cThis is really clear compared to last year, the language and what is behind the language has shifted.\u201d<\/p>\n
More than 200 anti-satellite weapons now circle Earth in different orbits, said Brig. Gen. Christopher Horner, commander of 3 Canadian Space Division. While he didn\u2019t provide details on their nature, he said that is a \u201cshocking number of capabilities\u201d to threaten allied space capabilities including satellite comms to Earth observation.<\/p>\n
While hostile action in space is not new, \u201cthings are accelerating very fast,\u201d said Maj. Gen. Vincent Chusseau, commander of French Space Command since August. \u201cSpace is a really full operational domain, we talk about war fighting in space.\u201d<\/p>\n
Chusseau said Russia has a full range of capabilities from satellites for rendezvous and proximity operations and orbiters that pack smaller satellites like a Russian doll, to anti-satellite missiles, electronic warfare, laser dazzling and cyber attacks.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, China is accelerating its space activities to achieve superiority there, according to Maj. Gen. Isaac Manuel Crespo Zaragoza, space commander for the Spanish Air and Space Force.<\/p>\n
China was the second-biggest spender on space defense and security in 2024 with $9.3 billion, according to Novaspace data, compared with $53.1 billion spent by the United States. Russia spent $2.3 billion and France $2.1 billion, with Germany trailing in eight position with space defense and security spend of $655 million.<\/p>\n
The big change is Germany \u201cfinally realized\u201d that space is a war-fighting domain, said Maj. Gen. Michael Traut, commander of the German Space Command.<\/p>\n
\u201cSpace becomes more and more tactical because technology is there, kill chains need to be faster,\u201d the German commander said. \u201cAnd if we talk about kill chains, we talk about seconds and minutes, not about creating an informational background for strategic decisions any more.\u201d<\/p>\n
Traut provided the example of integrated missile defense, which wouldn\u2019t be as effective without pre-warning and cueing of systems from space.<\/p>\n
The German military will design a military space-defense architecture by the end of this year that will be an enabler for multi-domain operations, said the German space commander. The first step will be a \u201cmultifunctional, multi-orbit constellation\u201d to be completed in 2029, as well as the associated ground-based infrastructure.<\/p>\n
There will be a need for a common space doctrine, for example how to protect allied assets or counter adversarial offensive action, according to Traut. That\u2019s an operational implication that\u2019s arisen in the past one to two years, he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is still an open issue for us, to develop a common space doctrine,\u201d Traut said. \u201cHow do we operate? Who\u2019s going to decide, in what case. and how do we manage our space battles.\u201d<\/p>\n
Horner said that while the narrative is changing in Canada, \u201cwe are not quite at a place where I can say publicly that space is a war-fighting domain,\u201d joking that his policy officer in the audience was cringing \u201cas I dance around that language.\u201d<\/p>\n
Nevertheless, changing language allows to open up the discussion of future defense strategies, including the need to take offensive and defensive action in space to protect critical infrastructure, Horner said. \u201cNone of those were conversations that were truly happening a year ago.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cBeyond the big strategic programs and projects that are underway, how do we maintain a war-fighting edge or decisional advantage when the fight begins?\u201d Horner asked. \u201cAnd how do we replace capabilities quickly?\u201d<\/p>\n
Rather than \u201cgiant school bus-sized things\u201d in geostationary orbit, the answers might be \u201ctactically responsive capabilities that allow us to maintain a war fighting advantage,\u201d Horner said. \u201cHow do we respond with some immediacy so that we can launch a tactical capability in 96 hours?\u201d<\/p>\n
Germany\u2019s Schr\u00f6dl said responsive launch and being able to \u201cvery quickly\u201d bring new satellites into space when they are degraded also has a deterrence role.<\/p>\n
He said that at a tactical level, Germany is seeing \u201ca lot of incidents\u201d happening with its satellites, and is observing intentional disturbance by Russia both from the ground and from space, including a lot of temporarily dazzling of observation and reconnaissance satellites.<\/p>\n
NATO forces face an asymmetry in the cost of their space assets, with some offensive capabilities being \u201cmuch cheaper,\u201d said Lt. Gen. Bertrand Le Meur, head of the directorate for defense strategy, counter proliferation and strategic foresight at the French Armed Forces Ministry.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy guess is that in the coming years we will see many nations being able to develop those capabilities because space is becoming available,\u201d Le Meur said.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur space assets are kind of a honeypot, something very expensive, very exquisite,\u201d Le Meur said. \u201cSo the figures globally are against us.\u201d<\/p>\n
In addition to functional space capabilities that have been used by armed forces for decades, such as Earth observation and communications, there is now a need for operational capabilities \u201cin and for space,\u201d to protect those functional capabilities, according to Germany\u2019s Traut.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd those operational capabilities consist of defensive and offensive means,\u201d Traut said. \u201cI can repeat that officially. Defensive and offensive means, shield and sword.\u201d<\/p>\n
Rudy Ruitenberg is a Europe correspondent for Defense News. He started his career at Bloomberg News and has experience reporting on technology, commodity markets and politics.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PARIS \u2014 Space has become a war-fighting domain, an assessment that calls for doctrinal changes and the ability…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":27988,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[17492,17494,17491,1221,1223,111,139,69,147,392,27763],"class_list":{"0":"post-27987","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-space","8":"tag-circulated-defense-news","9":"tag-defense-news","10":"tag-dn-dnr","11":"tag-france","12":"tag-germany","13":"tag-new-zealand","14":"tag-newzealand","15":"tag-nz","16":"tag-science","17":"tag-space","18":"tag-space-operations"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27987","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27987"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27987\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27988"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27987"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27987"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27987"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}