Saudi Press

Saudi Arabia and the world
Wednesday, Oct 08, 2025

China "Most Challenging Threat" In Space Arms Race: US General

China "Most Challenging Threat" In Space Arms Race: US General

US Chief of Space operations listed technologies including anti-satellite missiles, ground-based directed energy, and orbit interception capacities.
Space has "fundamentally changed" in just a few years due to a growing arms race, a US general said, singling out China as the "most challenging threat", followed by Russia.

"We are seeing a whole mix of weapons being produced by our strategic competitors," General Bradley Chance Saltzman, the US Chief of Space Operations, told a select group of media, including AFP.

"The most challenging threat is China but also Russia," he said, speaking late Saturday on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference, listing technologies including anti-satellite missiles, ground-based directed energy and orbit interception capacities.

"We have to account for the fact that space as a contested domain has fundamentally changed. The character of how we operate in space has to shift, and that's mostly because of the weapons (China) and Russia have tested and in some cases operationalised," he said.

His words carry even more weight given surging US-China tensions -- highlighted by tense exchanges in Munich Saturday between Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Beijing's top diplomat Wang Yi over a suspected Chinese spy balloon.

Blinken warned Wang that China must not repeat such an "irresponsible act" of sending a balloon over US airspace, while Wang said Washington's reaction -- it shot the craft down -- had damaged their countries' relations.

Space arms race

The space arms race is nothing new. As early as 1985, the Pentagon used a missile to destroy a satellite in a test.

Since then, the United States's rivals have been seeking to show they can compete -- China did the same in 2007, and India in 2019.

In February 2020, an American general noted that there were two Russian satellites placed into orbit that were tracking a US spy satellite.

And in late 2021, Russia destroyed one of its own satellites with a missile fired from Earth, in a show of force condemned as an irresponsible act by NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg.

"Adversaries are leveraging space... targeting and extending the range of their weapons," said General Saltzman.

"That's really the change that happens inside the domain."

Countries are increasingly secretive when it comes to their military activities in space but the race is such that in 2019, the year that the Pentagon launched its Space Force, it predicted that Russia and China could potentially overtake the United States.

Saltzman rejects the idea that Washington is behind.

But the fight has evolved, shifting from the idea of destroying satellites with missiles or "kamikaze" satellites, to that of finding ways of damaging them with laser weapons or powerful microwaves.

"I am always going to make sure that I preserve capabilities to do the most critical functions, like national command and control, or nuclear command and control," said the general.

'Responsible behaviour'

The Ukraine war has served as a reminder of the fundamental importance of space in conflicts today and in the future.

"Space is important to the modern fight," said General Saltzman.

"You can attack space without going (into) space, through cyber networks or other vectors. We have to make sure we are defending all these capabilities."

The growing military activity, combined with increasing commercial production, does however raise the potential problems of collateral damage, destructive debris and, more broadly, an international code of conduct.

Saltzman has never held talks with his Chinese and Russian counterparts, his aides told AFP. In Munich, he met Norway's defence minister and participated in a panel.

"We talked about responsible behaviour," he said. "There is proper way to behave in space, that is not debris-generating, that does not interfere, that has safe distances and safe trajectories, and we communicate when we have problems."

Space will become "more and more congested", he added.

"If we can operate with a clear understanding of what the standards are, we are going to be a lot safer."
Newsletter

Related Articles

Saudi Press
0:00
0:00
Close
Wave of Complaints Against Apple Over iPhone 17 Pro’s Scratch Sensitivity
Syria Holds First Elections Since Fall of Assad
Altman Says GPT-5 Already Outpaces Him, Warns AI Could Automate 40% of Work
Trump Organization Teams with Saudi Developer on $1 Billion Trump Plaza in Jeddah
Electronic Arts to Be Taken Private in Historic $55 Billion Buyout
Colombian President Petro Vows to Mobilize Volunteers for Gaza and Joins List of Fighters
Nvidia and Abu Dhabi’s TII Launch First AI-&-Robotics Lab in the Middle East
UK, Canada, and Australia Officially Recognise Palestine in Historic Shift
New Eye Drops Show Promise in Replacing Reading Glasses for Presbyopia
Dubai Property Boom Shows Strain as Flippers Get Buyer’s Remorse
Top AI Researchers Are Heading Back to China as U.S. Struggles to Keep Pace
JWST Data Brings TRAPPIST-1e Closer to Earth-Like Habitability
UAE-US Stargate Project Poised to Make Abu Dhabi a Global AI Powerhouse
Trump and Starmer Clash Over UK Recognition of Palestinian State Amid State Visit
Saudi Arabia cracks down on music ‘lounges’ after conservative backlash
Saudi Arabia Signs ‘Strategic Mutual Defence’ Pact with Pakistan, Marking First Arab State to Gain Indirect Access to Nuclear Strike Capabilities in the Region
Sam Altman sells the 'Wedding Estate' in Hawaii for 49 million dollars
Turkish car manufacturer Togg Enters German Market with 5-Star Electric Sedan and SUV to Challenge European EV Brands
World’s Longest Direct Flight China Eastern to Launch 29-Hour Shanghai–Buenos Aires Direct Flight via Auckland in December
New OpenAI Study Finds Majority of ChatGPT Use Is Personal, Not Professional
Kuwait opens bidding for construction of three cities to ease housing crunch.
This Week in AI: Meta’s Superintelligence Push, xAI’s Ten Billion-Dollar Raise, Genesis AI’s Robotics Ambitions, Microsoft Restructuring, Amazon’s Million-Robot Milestone, and Google’s AlphaGenome Update
Indian Student Engineers Propose “Project REBIRTH” to Protect Aircraft from Crashes Using AI, Airbags and Smart Materials
Could AI Nursing Robots Help Healthcare Staffing Shortages?
Turkish authorities seize leading broadcaster amid fraud and tax investigation
Qatari prime minister says Netanyahu ‘killed any hope’ for Israeli hostages
Apple Introduces Ultra-Thin iPhone Air, Enhanced 17 Series and New Health-Focused Wearables
Big Oil Slashes Jobs and Investments Amid Prolonged Low Crude Prices
Social Media Access Curtailed in Turkey After CHP Calls for Rallies Following Police Blockade of Istanbul Headquarters
Did the Houthis disrupt the internet in the Middle East? Submarine cables cut in the Red Sea
Gold Could Reach Nearly $5,000 if Fed Independence Is Undermined, Goldman Sachs Warns
Uruguay, Colombia and Paraguay Secure Places at 2026 World Cup
Trump Administration Advances Plans to Rebrand Pentagon as Department of War Instead of the Fake Term Department of Defense
Tether Expands into Gold Sector with Profit-Driven Diversification
Trump’s New War – and the ‘Drug Tyrant’ Fearing Invasion: ‘1,200 Missiles Aimed at Us’
At the Parade in China: Laser Weapons, 'Eagle Strike,' and a Missile Capable of 'Striking Anywhere in the World'
Information Warfare in the Age of AI: How Language Models Become Targets and Tools
Israeli Airstrike in Yemen Kills Houthi Prime Minister
After the Shock of Defeat, Iranians Yearn for Change
YouTube Altered Content by Artificial Intelligence – Without Permission
Iran Faces Escalating Water Crisis as Protests Spread
More Than Half a Million Evacuated as Typhoon Kajiki Heads for Vietnam
HSBC Switzerland Ends Relationships with Over 1,000 Clients from Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Qatar, and Egypt
Sharia Law Made Legally Binding in Austria Despite Warnings Over 'Incompatible' Values
Dogfights in the Skies: Airbus on Track to Overtake Boeing and Claim Aviation Supremacy
Tim Cook Promises an AI Revolution at Apple: "One of the Most Significant Technologies of Our Generation"
Are AI Data Centres the Infrastructure of the Future or the Next Crisis?
Miles Worth Billions: How Airlines Generate Huge Profits
Zelenskyy Returns to White House Flanked by European Allies as Trump Pressures Land-Swap Deal with Putin
Beijing is moving into gold and other assets, diversifying away from the dollar
×