In recent days, during the Air & Space Forces Association (AFA) conference, the United States declared that it has “on-orbit space control weapons”, weapons for controlling space in orbit around the Earth. The expression “militarization of space” means a dangerous trend, which began in the period of the so-called “Cold War”, which led great powers such as the United States, Russia and now also China to position strategic weapons in space in such a way as to transform it into a further extension of the battlefield, especially in the context of the use and interception of carriers equipped with nuclear weapons. Although attempts have been made several times in the past to regulate the dispute by signing treaties for the non-proliferation of these weapons, the very recent announcement that the United States has already deployed space weapons ready to be used against their adversaries risks being a harbinger of a new arms race.
The US announcement on weapons in orbit
The words of the Secretary of the United States Air Force, Troy Edward Meink, pronounced on 14 September 2026 during the “Air & Space Forces Association (AFA) conference” have caused a stir all over the world, according to which “the United States has deployed a space weapon orbiting the Earth to defend the American Armed Forces from attacks by hostile forces”. Although the event was not actually completely unexpected, the particular historical situation during which the declaration took place has in any case caused a notable impression both among professionals and among the general public.
It must be said that it is absolutely not clear what type of weapon the United States has put into orbit. There are essentially two theories around which expert consensus is gathering. The first is that it is an anti-satellite weapon, that is, optimized for the destruction of satellites. The second instead concerns the possibility that it constitutes a system for orbital bombardment that uses conventional or nuclear warhead munitions dropped from a satellite perpetually orbiting the Earth against particularly profitable targets located on the Earth’s surface.
The arms race in space and the Star Wars
This is not the first time that space has become a place of conflict due to the opposing ambitions of the great powers. In fact, let’s not forget the “Space Race” which was closely followed by the “Race to the Moon”, both inaugurated on 4 October 1957 with the launch of the first artificial satellite (Sputnik 1) by the then Soviet Union and concluded with the Apollo 11 mission, the first moon landing by a crew made up of human beings (astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin), between 16 and 24 July 1969, by the United States of America.
We must not forget the so-called “Strategic Defense Initiative-SDI” (also known as “Star Wars”) inaugurated in 1983 by the then President of the United States, Ronald Wilson Reagan, and having as its general objective that of creating a shield partly based on the ground and partly based on satellite weapons which was supposed to neutralize the threat posed by Soviet nuclear-tipped intercontinental missiles, thus making obsolete the “Doctrine of Mutual Assured Destruction” which had guaranteed the so-called “Balance of Terror” and therefore indirectly peace between the great powers equipped with nuclear weapons.
Despite the fact that the SDI was abandoned at the end of the 80s of the twentieth century, in line with the treaties for the limitation of the number and classes of strategic weapons, and the subsequent collapse of the USSR blocked for a long time any program in this sense given the virtual absence of an enemy powerful enough to compete for dominance over the world, things began to change again with the rise to power in Washington of the current of the so-called “neoconservatives” in the wake of the electoral victory of George Walker Bush, better known as “Bush junior” who in fact announced the decision by the USA to abandon the previously concluded agreements. In 2001 the Bush administration announced the withdrawal of the United States from the 1972 ABM Treaty, which became effective in June 2002, paving the way for the development of new missile defense systems.
However, it was only in December 2019 that the USA announced the establishment of the United States Space Force (USSF) which from that moment became an autonomous branch within the Armed Forces. Recently President Trump has also highlighted the ambitious plan called “Golden Dome” which aims to revive the glories of the SDI of Reagan’s memory and has also been a source of friction between the USA and the Kingdom of Denmark given the US claim to get its hands on Greenland; the crisis was then resolved thanks to the signing of the so-called “Greenland Defense Agreement”.
Washington’s adversary countries
However, one should not believe that the United States is the only country that has an active space weapons development program given that it is well known that the Russian Federation (and before it the USSR), the People’s Republic of China, India and probably also Israel are in possession of space weapons. At different times, Russia, China and India have demonstrated the ability to destroy objects orbiting in space using ground-based weapons while Russia has exhibited space-to-space warfare capabilities by launching satellites capable of carrying out the mission of suppressing adversary satellites into orbit. As far as Israel is concerned, however, even if there is no certain confirmation, it seems that the Arrow-3 anti-ballistic missile system could also be equipped with secondary anti-satellite capabilities.
However, neither the United States nor the other countries mentioned above have yet demonstrated that they have developed weapons systems capable of carrying out “space kinetic bombing” missions, i.e. vehicles orbiting around the earth which would have the task of bombing particularly important targets through the use of special missiles which would, in fact, be released directly from space.
