![]() ![]() ![]() The PLA’s on-orbit intelligence infrastructure is a real and present danger. Today, these space activities are predominantly national security focused, supporting China’s goal of owning the “commanding heights.” On-orbit Chinese satellites are on average only 3 years old it is the newest of technology, designed and built in our digital age. Moving into 2023, China had more than 700 operational satellites in space, indicating a 385 percent growth rate since the establishment of the PLASSF in December 2015. Slightly more than 50 percent of these satellites conduct remote sensing, which can be used to gain intelligence on adversary military forces far from China’s shores. Last year, China placed 200 satellites into orbit. The integration of these functions enables the PLA to both modernize and advance intelligence-led, joint-power-projecting warfare. The PLASSF comprises space, cyberspace, and electronic warfare forces. The PLA established the PLASSF 7 years ago to seek advantage from the changing character and complexity of warfare. Like cyberspace, space can be the great enabler of long-range fighting capabilities, or it can be the Achilles’ heel. It is a change requiring the United States and our allies to plan for and build forces to challenge and defeat PLA desires in space and cyberspace. It has carried out confrontational training in new domains and trained for emergencies and combat.” This new PLA threat affects all facets of U.S. ![]() In fact, according to China’s 2019 defense white paper titled China’s National Defense in the New Era, the PLA Strategic Support Force (PLASSF) has “made active efforts to integrate into the joint operations systems. The PLA intends to extend warfare into those domains. Space and cyberspace are known as the “commanding heights” in China’s warfighting doctrine. The Chinese Communist Party’s military, the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), is planning both to leverage space capabilities to hold our allied forces at risk and to attack our ability to use space for military purposes. The need to steadfastly integrate space capabilities and operations on tactical timelines into operational fires and to maneuver in what we expect to be a highly contested environment requires dedicated in-theater support. In the conflicts with them, integrating space from afar proved effective, but the challenge ahead is not the challenge of the past. The Taliban, IS, and Republican Guard couldn’t contest our use of space to disrupt joint operations. Space advantage is felt locally within ground, air, and naval force formations. But if the next war is against a near-peer competitor, that will not be the case. In fact, in our past wars our adversaries didn’t need to leverage space to fight and certainly had more important military objectives than attacking U.S. The Taliban didn’t use space, the Iraqi Republican Guard didn’t use space, and the so-called Islamic State (IS) didn’t have any real way of challenging our space capabilities. An unintended byproduct of that circumstance is we have unintentionally conditioned strategists and national security professionals to assume the space advantage is our birthright. Over the past two-plus decades of military operations, our nation’s ability to use outer space has not been consequentially challenged or contested. At the same time, militaries that prepare to fight the last war often fail in the next. Preparing for war can help prevent war from breaking out. Militaries fight wars and, in times of peace, prepare for the next war. JOINT DOCTRINE Mission Assurance: Decisionmaking at the Speed of Relevance MENUįalcon 9 rocket carrying 56 broadband satellites launches from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida, (U.S. RECALL The Civil War and Revolutions in Naval Affairs: Lessons for TodayīOOK REVIEWS China’s Civilian Army Four Battlegrounds and I, Warbot America’s Great-Power Opportunity Alpha Military HIV Research ProgramįEATURES Special Operations Forces Institution-Building: From Strategic Approach to Security Force Assistance Analyzing a Country’s Strategic Posture: Suggestions for Practitioners Integrating Women, Peace, and Security Into Security Cooperation The Exceptional Family Member Program: Noble Cause, Flawed System SecurityĬOMMENTARY Why Military Space Matters Improving Analytic Tradecraft: The Benefit of a Multilateral Foundational Training Model for Military Intelligence The Purpose and Impact of the U.S. JPME TODAY AI-Ready Military Workforce Enhancing National Security: Increasing Female Faculty in Professional Military Education Would Strengthen U.S. FORUM Executive Summary Strategic Inflection Point A Framework for Lethal Autonomous Weapons Systems Deterrence Cutting the Chaff: Overlooked Lessons of Military UAP Sightings for Joint Force and Interagency Coordination Quantum Computing: A New Competitive Factor with China
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