In recent months, leaders in the Defense Department have highlighted the increasing importance of space as a domain of modern warfare. In April, Deputy Secretary of Defense Bob Work took the unusual step of delivering a classified speech at the annual Space Symposium to reaffirm that the U.S. military “will maintain space capabilities, through all phases of conflict, regardless of actions to deny us the ultimate high ground.” Air Force General Ellen Pawlikowski also announced that the military has moved an additional $5 billion over the next five years to “space control” programs, noting that “we can no longer assume that we won’t be engaged in protecting our capabilities in space against attempts to deny us those capabilities.” And not to be outdone, CBS’s 60 Minutes aired a recent program on the threats to military space systems titled, “The Battle Above.”
This all raises an important question: How would a war in space be fought? The answer is probably not what most people would expect because the space domain is fundamentally different than other domains of warfare.