China warns against an arms race in space
US Secretary of the Air Force Troy Meink said Monday that the United States has deployed a weapon in Earth’s orbit, the first time the US has acknowledged such offensive space capabilities.
Speaking at the Air, Space and Cyber Conference, Meink said the “on orbit” weapon was necessary to safeguard US forces against hostile enemy action. He also said the US was ready for “evolving threats,” but did not elaborate on the weapon’s capabilities or when it was put into orbit.
China responded Tuesday by warning against an “arms race” in space. AFP quoted a foreign ministry spokesman as saying, “We urge the US side to stop expanding its military capabilities and preparing for war in outer space.”
Senior military leaders have previously said they planned to boost military capabilities in space, citing Russian and Chinese programs developing ways to attack and disrupt US satellites in a future conflict.
US officials have not disclosed how the weapon operates. An expert on military uses of outer space told the BBC that “precious little” was publicly known about the technology and that there could be a “whole range of different weapons systems.”
Dr. Bleddyn Bowen of the Royal United Services Institute said on Radio 4’s Today programme that he was “totally guessing,” but that the US could have been referring to “some kind electronic warfare or radio jamming platform.” Bowen said that would be the sort of weapon that already exists on Earth and could disrupt radio communications.
An alternative, Bowen said, would be “a kinetic kill vehicle of some sort - so a vehicle that would release a projectile of some sort that would ram into a satellite and destroy it.” He said that possibility was less likely because such a physically destructive tool could create a lot of debris.
A US Space Force spokesperson said, “Space control encapsulates the mission areas required to contest and control the space domain – employing kinetic and non-kinetic means to affect adversary capabilities through disruption, degradation and even destruction, if necessary.”
The spokesperson added, “These capabilities can be employed for offensive and defensive purposes at the direction of combatant commands.”
The US Space Force says China “develops and operates space and counterspace capabilities as part of a military modernisation strategy,” while Russia “views space as a warfighting domain and believes space supremacy will be a decisive factor in future conflicts.”
In early February, it was revealed that two Russian satellites had likely intercepted the communications of at least a dozen European satellites since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Those interceptions may have allowed Russian intelligence services to read the sensitive data transmitted by the satellites or, hypothetically, take control of them.
In 2024, the US said Russia had launched a satellite that it believed might be capable of attacking other probes. Russia did not publicly comment on the issue.
A 1967 treaty banned weapons of mass destruction in orbit. Since then, the US, Russia and China have explored other capabilities outside the treaty, including targeting rival satellites used for military communications, surveillance and navigation.
The US Space Force was launched in 2019 as the first new branch of the US military in more than 70 years. It was established to protect American assets in space, including hundreds of satellites used for communication and surveillance.
Last year, President Donald Trump issued an executive order underlining the US Space Force’s role in defending assets and as an attacking force. The Trump administration has also said that space-based capabilities and interceptor missiles are a crucial part of its planned “Golden Dome” defence system to protect the US from missiles and other airborne threats. The plans were published on May 21, 2025.