Experts warn US space weapon admission could trigger orbital war
Last week, the Secretary of the US Air Force issued a public statement to announce that the nation has deployed what he described as ‘on-orbit space control weapons’. Now, alarm bells are being raised on how this could trigger an orbital war.
It seems the new space race might be heating up after both the US and China have been competing to get permanent bases established on the Moon.
But it seems that the lunar rock isn’t the only point of focus for the countries as weaponizing space has also become a priority - albeit, a worrying one - for the two nations as well as Russia.
US deploys space control weapons into orbit
This is because according to Air Force Secretary Troy Meink, the US now has on-orbit space control weapons that are designed to defend assets of the US military against any potential hostile actions.
During a keynote address at the 2026 Air and Space Cyber Conference last Monday (September 14), Mink stated that these weapons would ‘defend the homeland, deter all adversaries, and if necessary, win in combat’.
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He continued: “Today, we face a mix of rapidly changing technologies, adversaries moving aggressively to employ them, and a budget process for a different pace of warfare.
“In the European Theater, one-way attack drones have replaced artillery as the primary killer, while armor often sits idle.
“AI competes with some of the world's top programmers, cyber operators and hackers. And these technologies are revolutionizing the battlefield. They allow countries that would not have had the resources in the past to quickly adapt and scale their combat capabilities.”
Meink added: “We must increase our combat power and innovate faster than anyone else, affordably. We need cost-effective combat power.”
However, this is concerning news for some experts, as space security expert Cassandra Steer stated this ‘plays into the hands of its enemies’.
Experts fear US space control weapons could escalate global tensions
Writing a piece for The Conversation, she said: “Many countries already have so-called counterspace capabilities: the ability to interfere with each other’s satellites, whether by jamming a communications or GPS signal (which is happening regularly in and around Ukraine), “spoofing” a false GPS signal to confuse militaries about the whereabouts of their adversaries, cyber attacks, or electronic warfare.
“None of this is Star Wars, but all of it can be worrying if it escalates.”
Steer went on to highlight that, even if this is just posturing by the US, it could ‘give China and Russia plenty of justification to point to the US as an aggressor, and ramp up their own space weapons capabilities’.