Russia isn’t hiding its disapproval of President Trump’s decision to launch a Space Force, and says it considers the move to be an aggression that creates “a military confrontation in outer space.”
Russia: Trump courts "military confrontation in outer space" with Space Force order https://t.co/irj09I2ry1 pic.twitter.com/dV3dtT1Fpm
— Washington Examiner (@dcexaminer) June 20, 2018
Moscow believes that there could be disastrous implications if the U.S. establishes a Space Force and compared it to the nuclear race, which began after WWII.
“The purpose of the instruction was described in very clear terms — dominance in space. A military confrontation in outer space could have the same destructive effects as the nuclear race into which the United States plunged the world after WWII,” Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said.
Officials from the Pentagon insist that creating a Space Force will help deter potential attacks in the future.
“If the U.S. is to avoid a ‘Space Pearl Harbor,’ it needs to take seriously the possibility of an attack on the U.S. space system,” a Pentagon report said.
President Trump feels that launching a Space Force now will help the U.S. stay ahead of Russia and China.
“We don’t want China and Russia and other countries leading us. When it comes to defending America, it is not enough to merely have an American presence in space. We must have American dominance in space,” President Trump said.
Analysts are concerned that rivals may look to space as a potential weak link to attack the U.S. as it becomes increasingly dependent on satellites and other space-based infrastructure.
“They understand the dependencies that we have on space and so they’re developing capabilities for how to counter that, whether it’s a direct-energy weapon that is terrestrial, whether it is a co-orbital attack satellite, whether it’s jamming from the ground,” Lt. Gen. Robert Ashley, the Defense Intelligence Agency director, said in March.
Russia claims that it only wants space to be used for “peaceful purposes” but also plans to launch a similar space-based military force to counter Trump’s requested Space Force.
“As for those who wish to know more about Russia’s military space force, I’d like to stress that its nature is purely defensive. Our country is not interested in tackling any tasks in space with the use of attack weapons. A military buildup in space, in particular, after the deployment of weapons there, would have destabilizing effects on strategic stability and international security. Russia takes a fundamentally different position and attaches priority to using and exploring space exclusively for peaceful purposes,” Zakharova said.
China is also opposed to Trump’s decision to establish a Space Force and said, “we oppose turning outer space into a battlefield.”
