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China's military weapons
OpinionComment

Why the next great war is likely to be fought in space

Daniel Wagner says tech advances are helping countries like China to develop space capabilities that can be turned into a military advantage, hastening a likely race to ‘weaponise’ space

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The Long March-5 Y2 carrier rocket, seen at the Wenchang Space Launch Centre in Hainan province in June, was set to carry a communication satellite into space. China sees space warfare as its best chance to directly compete with the US militarily. Photo: Xinhua
Daniel Wagner

Any satellite that can change orbit can be considered a space weapon, but since many of the possible cyber scenarios in space have yet to occur, cybersecurity experts, military commanders and policymakers do not fully understand the range of potential consequences that could result.

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During the cold war, the Soviets were interested in paralysing America’s strategic forces, strategic command and control, and communications. They would do so by first using an electromagnetic pulse to sever communication and operational capabilities, and then launching a mass attack across the North Pole to blow up US intercontinental ballistic missiles.

In 1967, the US, UK and Soviet Union signed the Outer Space Treaty, which has been signed by 105 countries (including China). It set in place laws regarding the use of outer space and banned any nation from stationing nuclear warheads, chemical or biological weapons in space. However, the treaty does not prohibit the placement of conventional weapons in orbit, so weapons such as kinetic bombardment (i.e. attacking Earth with a projectile) are not strictly prohibited.

North Korea’s Kim Jong-un has taken a page from the old Soviet playbook by launching two satellites (in 2012 and 2016) that can threaten the US by – in theory, at least – attacking the US with an electromagnetic pulse as part of a surprise assault aimed at crippling the US military. The satellites would allow North Korea to play a cyber-age version of battleship diplomacy – with one of the two satellites always close to being in orbit directly over the US at any point in time. Even though North Korea does not have enough missiles with sufficient sophistication to blow up US missiles or bomber bases, just the launch of the electromagnetic pulse could severely disrupt the US electricity grid, telecoms, transport network and other forms of critical infrastructure.

Watch: North Korea claims successful launch of ICBM on July 4

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