As Russia stalks US satellites, a space arms race may be heating up

Lasrick writes: 12 years (and billions of rubles) after skirmishes between pro-Russian separatists and government forces in Georgia and the subsequent invasion of the former Soviet republic by Russian forces, Russia has heeded the lessons learned from that conflict: The Russian military had gone to war in using World War II-era compasses for navigation and outmoded equipment for weapons targeting, a far cry from the capabilities of the US military. But Russia is now challenging the United States’ long-standing supremacy in space, working to exploit the US military’s dependence on space systems for communications, navigation, intelligence, and targeting.

Aaron Bateman of Johns Hopkins, a former US Air Force intelligence officer who has published on technology and military strategy, Cold War history, and European security affairs, writes about a coming space arms race, with Moscow’s aggressive behavior in space potentially inducing the United States to pursue more assertive policies, like the reinvigoration of Cold War-era anti-satellite weapons programs.