Space lasers, hypersonic missiles, and moon bases are hurdling out of the realms of science fiction and entrenching themselves as live prospects in a global battle for supremacy.
While the 21st century hasn’t had a Cold War-style space race develop, there is a growing sense of urgency that, in a world connected by technology racing around the stratosphere, having a firmer grip on what is happening in the cosmos is important for national security.
This week, the Washington Examiner is taking a look at how the United States is waging another cold war with China and Russia, once again staying out of direct conflict but engaging in a race for control of the farthest reaches of the Earth, from space to rare minerals deep underground. In our first installment, Defense Reporter Mike Brest took a deep dive into the reality that the future has arrived and the country that can have the most dominant presence in space will have a huge advantage closer to home.
For most of history, the U.S. has been the dominant player in outer space. It wasn’t the first to put a satellite into orbit, but it has led the way since putting a man on the moon in 1976. However, a historical edge is less important than continual progress — something the U.S.’s adversaries are focused on.
“The adversary is quickly shrinking that gap, and we have got to change the way we approach space pretty rapidly,” Gen. Michael Guetlein, vice chief of space operations for the U.S. Space Force, told the Reagan National Defense Forum earlier this month. “Today that capability gap is in our favor, but if it goes negative on us, it’s going to be a really bad day.”
China and Russia are stepping up their anti-satellite capabilities, a benign-sounding strategy that could have massive security implications.
Tinkering with satellites means countries can jam or spoof GPS signals, Mike wrote, allowing them to block signals or trick systems into thinking they are somewhere else.
That is a bad situation if an Uber driver gets turned around dropping someone off at work. It could be deadly if it was used to tamper with a missile.
“Imagine a GPS-guided bomb or missile, if all of a sudden, midway through its flight, it enters an area where GPS signal is being jammed. Now it’s lost its guidance navigation capability,” Todd Harrison, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, told Mike. “Or even worse, if it enters an area where the GPS signals are being spoofed, it will think it knows where it is and how to guide itself to its target, but it actually will not be going to the right location.”
One task for the U.S. is to bolster its own satellite defenses. Short of sabotaging China’s and Russia’s programs, the U.S. and other countries are trying to build in redundancies so that if one satellite is compromised, there are backup plans to keep programs operational.
“One way to deal with threats to space capabilities is to just make it more resilient,” the Hudson Institute’s Bryan Clark told Mike. “So add new systems, create redundancy, and have systems in different orbital regimes, so low Earth orbit, medium Earth orbit, geo-orbit that can support or duplicate each other.”
When then-President Donald Trump oversaw the creation of the Space Force in 2019, he was mocked. It was the butt of jokes from late-night television to an entire television series.
Five years later, Trump is returning to office, with a shaky world order that is wrestling with major conflicts in Europe and the Middle East.
With the final frontier filling up with everyone’s technology, the 21st century’s space race has arrived.
Click here to read more about what China and Russia are doing to close the gap with the U.S. in space.
Another Cabinet fight
Trump has named Cabinet nominees at a record pace. He dawdled in 2016 in picking and choosing who he wanted around him to help run the country. He is sprinting to name his lieutenants this time around, with mixed results.
Most of his picks have, as expected, frustrated and angered Democrats. Some of them have even frustrated Republicans — that’s why former Rep. Matt Gaetz withdrew himself from contention to be the next attorney general just eight days after Trump tapped him for the role.
Pete Hegseth, the nominee for defense secretary, has had a tumultuous fight that he looks to be on the verge of winning, though there is still more than a month before Trump is sworn in and the Senate starts voting on nominees. Anything can happen between now and Jan. 20, 2025.
This week, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is on the Hill, making his case to skeptical senators that he should follow Hegseth’s path to winning support rather than Gaetz’s trail to the chopping block, Congress Reporter Samantha-Jo Roth wrote for us this morning.
“Kennedy is set to meet with lawmakers across four consecutive days, including with Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-LA), who will chair the Senate HELP Committee next year, in addition to a meeting with the panel’s Republican staff on Thursday, according to a person familiar,” she wrote. “The longtime environmental lawyer and vaccine skeptic will be under scrutiny for his endorsement of debunked theories that vaccines cause autism and other chronic diseases. He has also said he wants to eliminate fluoride from the nation’s water supply.”
Kennedy has a complicated history weighing him down. He was a Democrat who ran in that party’s primary against President Joe Biden, something that could box him out of winning over Democratic senators. And his history of questionable ideas about healthcare, vaccines, and the environment are also red flags for Republicans, who want to give Trump the nominees he asks for but also don’t want to hand over their advice and consent powers completely.
Though there has been vocal skepticism about his ability to operate the sprawling Department of Health and Human Services, lawmakers have said they do think they can find “common ground” with Kennedy.
“I’m very concerned, being the incoming chairman of agriculture, I will want to know kind of the food aspect of those production agriculture, those kind of things,” said Sen. John Boozman (R-AR), the incoming chairman of the Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry Committee. “What I want to do is visit with him and see where we can find common ground.”
Republicans have said they’re open to hearing what Kennedy has to say about nutrition, and Democrats are excited about his support for forcing a change to drug price negotiations.
With a mixed record, Kennedy is going to get a mixed reception on Capitol Hill this week. His performance could seal his place in the next administration or be another example of Trump overestimating his sway with the Senate.
Click here to read more about Kennedy’s campaign to win over senators.
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Biden will join acting Department of Labor Secretary Julie Su for an event at 12:15 before returning to the White House and hosting a Hanukkah event at 7:45 p.m.
Vice President Kamala Harris does not have any public events.