In the book The Other Space Race: Eisenhower and the Quest for Aerospace Security by Nicholas Michael Sambaluk1 writes about a “space race” between 1954 and 1961 that took place not between the United States and the Soviet Union but within Washington, DC between advocates for “peaceful” and “armed” uses of space. The “peaceful” faction, led by then-President Dwight Eisenhower, sought to use space for peaceful purposes that supported deterrence such as satellite overflight and space-based surveillance. The “armed” faction, led by the United States Air Force (USAF), believed space was a new realm of combat and studied—and advocated for—the militarization of space with armed aerospace platforms and weapon systems to assure deterrence.
Peaceful or military
In the 1950’s the U.S. faced a question regarding the militarization of space. On one side, USAF advocated for armed flight technologies for aerospace operations—effectively the militarization of space. Other parts of the U.S. government, in particular then-President Dwight Eisenhower, sought to establish peaceful precedents for uses of space. By the early 1960’s, Eisenhower’s non-militarized space position was adopted by President Johnson and became the de facto U.S. policy. While events in the 1980’s such as President Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI or “Star Wars”) seemingly indicated that a shift towards militarization was coming, for the most part a “peaceful” uses of space policy remained intact.
Since the 1960’s the U.S. generally used the space domain to provide space support services like communications and space-surveillance. Eventually satellites for Position-Navigation-Timing (PNT, a mission performed for by the Global Positioning System—GPS) were also placed in space. For many years the space domain was a virtual sanctuary for U.S. space assets meaning the satellites were—with few exceptions—generally free from fear of attack. Adversaries, however, recognize the advantages that space-enabled systems deliver not only to the U.S. economy but also the military and are moving to nullify those advantages. As an unclassified Space Force Intelligence Headquarters published Space Threat Fact Sheet in February 2025 states, “China and Russia are also testing and fielding sophisticated counterspace capabilities with the intent to disrupt and degrade the U.S. space-enabled advantage.”
Today’s Problem
In April 2025, the United States Space Force (USSF) published Space Force Doctrine Document 1. Among the core statements is a call to use military force to ensure space superiority:
Space is a warfighting domain, not a collection of supporting activities. In conflict, space will be a contested environment. We are the military Service dedicated to fighting in it. We do not merely provide support functions—we also employ military force to achieve space superiority in order to ensure our freedom of maneuver.
SFDD-1, p. 3
The Space Force Intelligence Headquarters Space Threat Fact Sheet from February 2025 includes not only terrestrial threats but orbital ones as well. In particular:
- “China is developing satellite “inspection and repair” systems which could also function as weapons and has already launched multiple satellites to experiment with orbital maintenance and space debris clean-up. In January 2022, the Shijian-21 satellite moved a derelict BeiDou navigation satellite to a graveyard orbit above GEO [geo-stationary Earth orbit]. This technology could be used in future systems to capture other satellites.”
- “Russia has deployed several orbital ASAT [anti-satellite] prototypes in LEO [low Earth orbit]. In 2019, one followed a U.S. satellite. Another ejected an object near a Russian satellite while testing a space-based ASAT weapon. Most recently, Russia launched a likely counterspace satellite in May 2024, again in the same orbit as a U.S. satellite. Moscow may also be developing ASAT systems for use in other orbits under the guise of orbital servicing assets.”
- “Russia is also developing a very concerning ASAT capability using a new satellite designed to carry a nuclear weapon. Such a capability could pose a threat to all satellites operated by countries and companies around the globe, as well as to the vital space-enabled communications, scientific, meteorological, agricultural, commercial, manned spaceflight, and national security services which the world depends on.”
Space Force Doctrine Document 1 calls for the U.S. to achieve Space Superiority. SFDD-1 describes Space Superiority this way:
Space superiority is the degree of control that allows forces to operate at a time and place of their choosing without prohibitive interference from space or counterspace threats, while also denying the same to an adversary. In this context, space threats should be considered any adversary space capabilities that enable all-domain attacks on the joint force. Counterspace threats are adversary capabilities that hold friendly space capabilities at risk. The requisite degree of control to and from the domain may include control of key links, nodes, and forces across the air, land, maritime domains, cyberspace, and the electromagnetic environment.
SFDD-1, p. 11
The USSF missions is, “To secure our nations interest in, from, and to space” (SFDD-1, p. 9) To achieve the USSF mission , SFDD-1 states the Space Force must be ready for Space Warfare:
To achieve our mission, the Space Force must be prepared to conduct warfare to deter or compel adversary behavior, undermine adversary intent, and enable joint all-domain application of force, through force or the threat of force in, from, and to the space domain. These activities may include but are not limited to:
- Deterring or denying attacks on friendly space capabilities by holding adversary space forces at risk.
- Compelling an adversary to cease aggressive action in any domain by disrupting, denying, degrading, or destroying the space capabilities they rely on to achieve their military objectives.
- Undermining an adversary’s strategy and their intent to attrit friendly space capabilities through forcible action in, from, and to the space domain.
- Enabling the application of force in all domains by providing a space-enabled combat edge to terrestrial forces.
SFDD-1, pp. 10-11
Ikes thoughts
A decision by the U.S. to place weapons into space directly reverse decades of space policy. As today’s USSF, like the USAF of the 1950’s, seemingly moves towards placing weapons in space, revisiting previous security and deterrence discussions from the Eisenhower Administration seems in order. Those early discussions took place in the early days of the Cold War. As the U.S. and China are now engaged in what some call a “New Cold War” it behooves policymakers to look back at previous decisions and ensure they understand how and why those decisions were made. Sambulak in The Other Space Race, provides not only a useful space history, but also a valuable review of military space policy as it was first forming—lessons that may find use today.
- Sambulak, Nicholas Michael (2015) The Other Space Race: Eisenhower and the Quest for Aerospace Security. Annapolis: Naval Institute Press. ↩︎
Feature image courtesy RMN
The opinions and views expressed in this blog are those of the author alone and are presented in a personal capacity. They do not necessarily represent the views of U.S. Navy or any other U.S. government Department, Service, Agency, Office, or employer.
RockyMountainNavy.com © 2007-2025 by Ian B is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0
Rocky Mountain Navy Gamer 