Gearing Up For Space Wars

Space is becoming the new destination for weaponisation and world dominance with the United States leading the charge

- Shreeshan Venkatesh

THIS JUNE 18, US President Donald Trump announced the creation of a new arm of the US Military—the Space Force. Trump entangled the media in the absurdity of the name, while divulging little on what the setting up this separate entity would entail.

Ominously enough, Trump’s announcement came during a meeting on space traffic management policy. The intention was first broached in March during a presidential address to the US Marines at a California base. “Space is a war-fighting domain, just like the land, air and sea… We may even have a Space Force… We have the Air Force, we’ll have the Space Force,” he remarked during the speech. “Our destiny beyond the Earth is not only a matter of national identity, but a matter of national security. 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,” exclaimed Trump in June. This is a dangerous divergence from historical and legal conventions that consider space as a global common for peaceful purposes.

Cold War legacy