{"id":34245,"date":"2019-12-03T13:33:35","date_gmt":"2019-12-03T21:33:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/?p=34245"},"modified":"2019-12-03T13:33:35","modified_gmt":"2019-12-03T21:33:35","slug":"the-new-arms-race","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/2019\/12\/03\/the-new-arms-race\/","title":{"rendered":"The New Arms Race"},"content":{"rendered":"

We who grew up in the time of the Apollo missions are more than aware of the arms-race angle to the Soviet and American forays into Earth orbit and beyond. <\/p>\n

Now, we must recognize that the space race is no longer mere ornamentation over earthly military competition.<\/p>\n

“The United States and China are rapidly building space warfare capabilities,” writes Bill Gertz<\/a> in the Washington Examiner<\/i>, “as part of a race to dominate the zone outside Earth’s atmosphere.”<\/p>\n

Of course, much of this remains ground support. WHNT News 19 in Alabama quotes the Commander of the U.S. Space and Missile Defense Command at Redstone Arsenal – a Lieutenant General who “will soon become Deputy Commander of the US Space Command in Colorado” – explaining that current space resources must be ever-ready in support of “the war fighter, the soldier on the ground.”<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

But the “satellites in space” he refers to, the ones with “very unique capabilities,” are not just about ground support. For when Donald Trump proposed a new Space Force military division last year, he wasn’t blowing smoke.<\/p>\n

Billions of future dollars, maybe, but not smoke. <\/p>\n

In the works?<\/p>\n