The White House confirmed yesterday, prodded by alarming comments from Representative Mike Turner, the chairman of the House permanent select committee on intelligence, that Moscow is working to put a dangerous new nuclear device in space.

By all accounts, this weapon, which is not yet operational, could be used to knock out U.S. satellites that perform critical communications and control functions. It’s not clear whether the weapon itself is a nuclear bomb — the detonation of which would constitute a Samson Option taking out everyone’s satellites — or is a nuclear-powered weapon that could be used to target U.S. satellites more particularly.

At the very least, any such capability would be another tool the Kremlin could use to deter the West, as it has done quite effectively at times during the Ukraine war.

The news should be another wake-up call about how seriously we need to take space as a domain of warfare, which it has already become, no matter how much romantic nonsense there is about how it should be kept free of weapons. Already, satellites are absolutely essential to our military, and China and Russia have demonstrated the ability to shoot them down (the Russians, true to form, created a disruptive debris field with their exercise in 2021).

We should be wary of the false promise of arms control. If Moscow had abided by its promises under the Cold War–era Conventional Armed Forces in Europe Treaty, there would have been no invasion of Ukraine. If it wanted to keep its promises under the 1967 Outer Space Treaty, it would not be moving aggressively to put weapons with a nuclear component in space.

We need to keep enhancing our own capabilities. Compared with the satellites available during the era in which the Strategic Defense Initiative failed to get off the starting line, today’s satellites are lighter, cheaper, and more technically advanced, and thus easier to deploy. By coincidence, the Pentagon launched new U.S. military satellites on Wednesday, adding to a network of small, versatile satellites that can keep military communications online during an attack in space.

The new satellites, which are meant to track enemy missiles, are part of a move toward what’s called the Proliferated Warfighter Space Architecture, a plan to put hundreds of satellites in low orbit and build important redundancy in our system. Until now, we’ve been dependent on small numbers of large satellites that are especially vulnerable. We need to continue and accelerate this effort, as well as keep improving our rapid relaunch capabilities.

We should also be using space — and taking advantage of the technological revolution of the last 30 years — to make our missile defenses much more robust. The idea of defensive weapons in space, both kinetic and directed energy, is no longer the stuff of science fiction. We should deploy them to provide the best possible protection against a possible future ICBM attack. If we are going to track enemy missiles from space, there’s no reason not to try to destroy them from space as well.

We shouldn’t kid ourselves. In a conflict, our adversaries aren’t going to forswear using all possible means to disrupt our military operations — indeed, the workings of our society itself — because of a principled opposition to waging war above Earth’s atmosphere.

The Russians, clearly, are taking what will inevitably be the next domain of warfare seriously. So should we.