{"id":14431,"date":"2020-06-17T20:14:25","date_gmt":"2020-06-17T20:14:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/defensenews\/uncategorized\/2020\/06\/17\/pentagon-releases-defense-space-strategy-to-counter-russia-and-china\/"},"modified":"2026-08-08T17:30:51","modified_gmt":"2026-08-08T17:30:51","slug":"pentagon-releases-defense-space-strategy-to-counter-russia-and-china","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/defensenews\/space\/2020\/06\/17\/pentagon-releases-defense-space-strategy-to-counter-russia-and-china\/","title":{"rendered":"Pentagon releases its Defense Space Strategy to counter Russia and China"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The Pentagon has put forward a new Defense Space Strategy designed to maintain U.S. military superiority in space amid growing counter-space efforts in Russia and China.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cChina and Russia have weaponized space and turned it into a war-fighting domain,\u201d Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Space Policy Stephen Kitay said during a June 17 press call. \u201cTheir actions pose the greatest strategic threat with ongoing development, testing and deployment of counter-space systems and the associated military doctrine designed to hold allied and U.S. space systems at risk.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The strategy reflects the Defense Department\u2019s shift to approaching space as a war-fighting domain, which includes the establishment of both U.S. Space Command and U.S. Space Force in 2019 as well as the ongoing efforts to bolster those two organizations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Space Command in particular has been vocal in calling out the counter-space capabilities being built and fielded by Russia, such as direct ascent weapons<\/a> and potential on-orbit kinetic weapons. But the threat extends beyond kinetic threats<\/a> to include electronic warfare, ground-based lasers that can blind space-based sensors, and cyberattacks.<\/p>\n\n\n\t