Space wars are no longer the stuff of movies or fiction. In a first such public acknowledgment by a Pentagon official on Monday, Air Force Secretary Troy E. Meink said the United States has stationed weapons in Earth’s orbit. The most revealing part of Meink’s disclosure is not that the US has counter-space weapons but that it has now acknowledged that some American weapons are already in orbit, while refusing to say what they are. The timing comes after several years in which satellite manoeuvres, electronic attacks and suspected anti-satellite systems have moved from the margins of military planning into routine public discussion.
The US, Russia and China are the prominent players in the developing space war architecture while India too has developed some offensive capabilities.
