October 2026
By Xiaodon Liang
For the first time, the United States acknowledged the deployment of weapons in space, marking a decisive departure from a long-standing practice of maintaining ambiguity regarding U.S. offensive space capabilities.
U.S. Secretary of the Air Force Troy Meink made the announcement on September 14 at an event near Washington organized by the Air & Space Forces Association. Providing no additional detail, Meink stated that the U.S. “has on-orbit space control weapons capable of defending the joint force against hostile adversary action.”
According to U.S. Space Force doctrine, space control “comprises the activities required to contest and control the space domain,” and does not include support from space-based assets for other military operations.
Meink did not specify whether the weapons were kinetic. In addition to kinetic anti-satellite options, U.S. counterspace capabilities include electromagnetic and cyber warfare.
Speaking a day later at the same conference, the chief of space operations, Gen. Douglas Schiess, noted the U.S. Space Force operates “on-orbit weapons that can defend the joint force against space-enabled attacks.” Schiess’s remark suggests the Pentagon might use its now-declared weapons not just to defend U.S. satellites but also to disable adversaries’ satellites that support military operations.
CNN, citing U.S. officials and international intelligence sources, reported on September 16 that Russia provided satellite-enabled intelligence to Iran ahead of a March 27 missile attack on a U.S. base in Saudi Arabia. The attack wounded 12 U.S. service members and destroyed an Airborne Warning and Control System aircraft, marking an early Iranian success in the seven-month-long war initiated by the U.S. and Israel in February.
The Space Force intends to enhance its capacity to target enemy assets in space, but “still has a long way to go,” Gen. Stephen Whiting, the commander of U.S. Space Command, remarked on September 16 at a conference in Maui, Hawaii.
In the first week of September, Whiting’s command conducted its “inaugural live-fly exercise designed to demonstrate dynamic on-orbit operations, validate contested logistics, and advance collective space maneuver doctrine.” This exercise, Apollo Maneuvers 2026, involved coordinated maneuvers in low-earth, medium-earth, and geosynchronous orbits, with participation from representatives of Australia, Canada, France, Germany, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom.
The shift in the U.S. declaratory approach to offensive space capabilities comes more than two and a half years after U.S. officials accused Russia of developing a space-based nuclear weapon. (See ACT, March 2024.)
The deployment of nuclear weapons in outer space is categorically banned by the 1967 Outer Space Treaty, though the deployment of other types of weapons is not. The preamble of the treaty emphasizes the need for the peaceful use of space.
Following the U.S. allegations, Russia vetoed an April 2024 UN Security Council resolution reaffirming the Outer Space Treaty. China abstained from the resolution, which had been proposed by Japan and the U.S. (See ACT, May 2024.)
China, Russia, and the U.S. have each demonstrated the capability to conduct direct-ascent, kinetic anti-satellite operations and likely also possess spacecraft capable of rendezvous and proximity operations (RPOs), allowing for direct physical interaction or close-range interference with satellites.
The United States pledged not to conduct further direct-ascent, kinetic anti-satellite tests in April 2022. (See ACT, May 2022.)
China and Russia voted against a December 2022 UN General Assembly resolution urging all states not to conduct such tests.
U.S. Space Force officials noted in March 2025 that China ramped up RPO exercises in low-earth orbit, with Gen. Michael Guetlein, then vice chief of space operations, remarking that they were “practicing dogfighting” in space.
Seven other countries have more limited counterspace capabilities, according to the latest edition of the Secure World Foundation’s annual assessment of global counterspace capabilities.
