Issue 77

July 2023: Maj Gen Greg Gagnon, USSF Deputy Chief of Space Operations for Intelligence (S2), published an article in Joint Forces Quarterly. The article describes how the Chinese Communist Party’s military, the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), is planning both to leverage space capabilities to hold our allied forces at risk and to attack our ability to use space for military purposes. Excerpts below (you really should read the whole thing!)

– Space and cyberspace are known as the “commanding heights” in China’s warfighting doctrine. The PLA intends to extend warfare into those domains. In fact, according to China’s 2019 defense white paper titled China’s National Defense in the New Era, the PLA Strategic Support Force (PLASSF) has “made active efforts to integrate into the joint operations systems. It has carried out confrontational training in new domains and trained for emergencies and combat.”

-This new PLA threat affects all facets of U.S. military planning. It is a change requiring the United States and our allies to plan for and build forces to challenge and defeat PLA desires in space and cyberspace. Like cyberspace, space can be the great enabler of long-range fighting capabilities, or it can be the Achilles’ heel.

-The PLA established the PLASSF 7 years ago to seek advantage from the changing character and complexity of warfare. The PLASSF comprises space, cyberspace, and electronic warfare forces. Integration of these functions enables the PLA to both modernize and advance intelligence-led, joint-power-projecting warfare.

-In 2022, China placed 200 satellites into orbit. Slightly more than 50 percent of these satellites conduct remote sensing, which can be used to gain intelligence on adversary military forces far from China’s shores. Moving into 2023, China had more than 700 operational satellites in space, indicating a 385 percent growth rate since the establishment of the PLASSF in December 2015. Today, these space activities are predominantly national security focused, supporting China’s goal of owning the “commanding heights.” On-orbit Chinese satellites are on average only 3 years old; it is the newest of technology, designed and built in our digital age.

– We [the US and allies] must protect our space-enabled capabilities from defeat. We must be able to disable the adversary’s ability to use space-enabled capability to its advantage in times of war to maximize protection of our fielded force.

-Both USSPACECOM and USSF work collaboratively to achieve these goals with other organizations across the U.S. Government and with allies. Combatant commanders plan, direct, and assess joint operations for the Department of Defense. USSPACECOM works to ensure that we never have a day without military space advantage. USSF builds space forces that prepare for war and maintain readiness, and presents those forces to combatant commands to achieve space advantage…the USSF also builds and presents the command and control capabilities necessary to synchronize joint operations in support of gaining and maintaining space advantage.

– Combatant commanders across the globe will soon have a dedicated USSF component. The priority will initially be on the pacing challenge [China]. We must prepare for an adversary with more surface combatants, more surface-to-air missiles, more military intelligence satellites, and more troops. We must prepare for a war very different from the battles of the last two decades…The USSF space components to the combatant commanders will deliver and integrate cutting-edge space capabilities into land, sea, air, and cyberspace operations.

As we prepare for the next battle, we must accept that space advantage must now be gained. We must organize, prepare, and field combat-ready forces in all domains of warfare. These forces must also habitually train to fight together. These are unified actions, joint operations, and multi-domain operations. This is how we win a future war that will look very different from the wars of our recent past. And, if we organize and prepare for it, perhaps we’ll never have to fight it.