Donald Trump named James “Mad Dog” Mattis Secretary of Defense to rebuild America’s military.
Barack Obama left it in shambles after eight years of neglect.
And thanks to Obama, Mattis just got some very bad news.
Douglas Loverro, the former U.S. deputy assistant secretary of defense for space policy, testified before Congress that the United States is falling behind Russia and China in terms of our satellites’ ability to detect a nuclear weapons launch or deploy our own missiles.
These systems are vulnerable to cyberattacks by our enemies.
Breitbart reports:
“U.S. military satellites used to warn of a missile strike or to deploy nuclear weapons are vulnerable to attacks by the Chinese and Russian armed forces, which have eclipsed their American counterparts in developing some significant space warfighting capabilities, experts cautioned lawmakers.
Specifically, the United States is “over a decade” behind in developing a system to counteract the advancements made by China and Russia in the anti-satellite (ASAT) weapons domain, Douglas Loverro, the former U.S. deputy assistant secretary of defense for space policy, warned a House panel.
Echoing the U.S. intelligence community in written testimony prepared for a House Armed Services Committee hearing on Wednesday, the former Pentagon official noted:
While China and Russia are driving through generations of ASAT systems every three to five years, it is taking us over a decade to even begin to field a system responsive to their first-generation threat.
Stated more clearly, when it comes to strategic missile warning and nuclear command and control, the evolved US response to the ASAT threat we see being deployed today will be ready near the end of the next decade; meanwhile, the threat will have [leaped] forward two more generations, and likely made our response moot.
The U.S. armed forces consider “maintaining space superiority” one of its primary goals, top American military officials have recently stressed, noting that “space is now a warfighting domain.”
Two other experts warned the United States had fallen behind Russia and China’s capabilities to conduct warfare in space.
Breitbart also reports:
“Two of the three witnesses flat out told House lawmakers on Wednesday that the American military is not ready to take on adversaries like Russia and China in space.
Retired Gen. Robert Kehler, who served as the head of U.S. Strategic Command (STRATCOM)—charged with overseeing America’s space warfighting capabilities—testified:
The United States is perilously close to losing the significant advantages that come from being the world’s leading spacefaring nation, and time is not on our side.
From simple (and widely available and affordable) GPS jammers in the hands of extremists to highly sophisticated anti-satellite (ASAT) weapons in the hands of near‐peer competitors like Russia and China, today’s military commanders are facing serious threats in a domain that is increasingly congested, contested, and competitive. Our space advantages have eroded and will continue to do so if action is deferred or delayed.
Consistent with the general’s warnings, Loverro, the former Pentagon official, explicitly said America’s space warfighting forces are not yet ready for conflict.”
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