The United States must dominate space and technologies related to it if it wants to have an advantage in future wars, Marine Corps Lt. Gen. Matthew Glavy said on Monday.
Speaking at the Association of Old Crows conference, Glavy said that space is a domain the US military needs to win if it wants to compete in future wars.
“Space is the most resilient capability we have,” Glavy said. “I’m telling you right now: We don’t win the space domain? Don’t even bother.”
Glavy is the deputy commandant for information for the US Marine Corps and previously led the Marine Corps Forces Space Command.
Spaced-based military technologies currently include spy satellites, communication relays and navigation aids used by the military in every other domain. The US Space Force was created by the Trump administration in 2019, a sign that the US military is taking the space domain more seriously.
The United States’ dominance over space has been challenged in recent years, with several countries, including China, Russia, India and others, all launching scientifically significant missions in 2023, including in August, when India became the first country to land a spacecraft near the Moon’s south pole.
In 2007, China destroyed its own weather satellite in a direct-ascent anti-satellite test, only the third country to do so. Both the United States and the Soviet Union performed similar tests in the 1980s.
The 1967 UN Outer Space Treaty declares that “the exploration and use of outer space shall be carried out for the benefit and in the interests of all countries and shall be the province of all mankind,” and states that nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction cannot be stationed in outer space.