US Space Force publishes ‘Space Warfighting’ blueprint for future of warfare beyond Earth

The United States Space Force published “Space Warfighting: A Framework for Planners” — a elaborate blueprint that lays retired basal principles, strategies and strategies for battling adversaries successful nan future’s astir captious warfare domain — space.

The USSF described its plans to take sides US abstraction capabilities and support nan Joint Force’s “long-range termination chains and world powerfulness projection” to execute short, mid, and semipermanent “space-superiority,” successful a manual published for experts successful nan subject organization Thursday.

“Space superiority” is defined by nan space-faring subject branch arsenic having a “degree of power that allows forces to run astatine a clip and spot of their choosing without prohibitive interference from abstraction aliases counterspace threats, while besides denying nan aforesaid to an adversary.”

“Space superiority whitethorn impact seeking retired and destroying an enemy’s spacecraft, systems, and networks done measures designed to minimize nan effectiveness of those systems, aliases countering force efforts successful nan different warfighting domains (land, maritime, air, and cyberspace),” nan conflict manual read.

“The expertise to found abstraction superiority astatine nan clip and spot of our choosing enables associated lethality successful each domains,” nan archive stated.

“This archive is really intended … to present benignant of a communal framework, communal lexicon that we tin usage successful our training and successful our acquisition programs,”  Lt. Gen. Shawn Bratton, Space Force lawman main of abstraction operations told reporters according to Defense One news. 

To execute this extremity of outright domain domination, nan subject branch laid retired their plans of violative and protect strategies and strategies successful 3 ngo areas — Orbital Warfare, Electromagnetic Warfare, and Cyberspace Warfare.

Offensive counterspace operations see orbital strikes, terrestrial strikes, and abstraction nexus interdictions — which see electromagnetic and cybernetwork attacks carried retired to “disrupt, deny, aliases degrade an enemy’s captious abstraction links.”

Defensive counterspace operations see passive strategies specified arsenic threat warning, subject deception, “hardening,” dispersal, disaggregation, mobility, and redundancy. Active defenses see counterattacks and suppression of adversary counterspace targeting. 

Space superiority complete “peer and near-peer adversaries” is characterized arsenic erstwhile some sides tin run their abstraction capabilities aliases erstwhile neither broadside tin run abstraction capabilities, according to nan document.

Peers and near-peers operating freely successful abstraction are categorized arsenic “Very High Risk” to Joint Force operations.

“General superiority of abstraction is achieved erstwhile nan force is nary longer capable to enactment successful a meaningful aliases vulnerable measurement against friends celestial lines of communication, and it besides intends that nan force is incapable to adequately take sides aliases power its ain assets aliases present abstraction effects successful support of its ain operations,” nan documented stated of achieving its self-described halfway function.

The model laid retired by nan Space Force accounts for a decreased reliance connected quality determination making, relying mostly connected “highly automated systems” owed to nan abstraction domain’s “high speeds, agelong distances, and congested orbital regimes.”

In nan aforesaid vein, nan archive harped connected nan “interdependence” of nan abstraction domain connected nan cyberspace domain successful nan captious realms of strategical connection — calling Space “almost wholly reliant connected nan web dimension.”

“Space superiority is not only a basal precondition for Joint Force occurrence but besides thing for which we must beryllium prepared to fight,” USSF Chief of Space Operations General B. Chance Saltzman wrote successful nan document.