By The Epoch Times | Created at 2026-09-17 12:51:54 | Updated at 2026-09-17 13:33:40
57 minutes ago
The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Dan Caine, has said that U.S. troops will have to be prepared to fight on or around the moon in the near future.
Caine told the Air & Space Forces Association’s annual conference in National Harbor, Maryland, on Wednesday, that the U.S. military needs to adapt rapidly so it “is prepared to fight, endure, and win ... from the seabed to cislunar space.”
Caine’s announcement came after the secretary of the Air Force, Troy Meink, revealed at the same conference on Monday that the United States has deployed “on-orbit space control weapons” for the first time.
The U.S. Space Force was created by President Donald Trump during his first administration, in 2019, and the head of its Combat Forces Command, Lt. Gen. Gregory Gagnon, told reporters, “Humanity is advancing deeper into space; the Space Force’s job is to help be prepared to defend U.S. interests.”
“The intelligence community has been clear that potential adversaries have been seeking to extend warfare into space,” he said.
“Our potential adversaries such as the PRC [People’s Republic of China] are actively pursuing activities in the system, in parts of space.”
The Chinese regime established its own military space corps in 2024, and in April that year, the commander of U.S. Space Command, Gen. Stephen Whiting, said Beijing was developing its capabilities at a “breathtakingly fast” pace.
Gagnon said the Pentagon aimed to increase the size of the Space Force over the next five years to about 25,000 personnel, double its current number.
In August 2024, Trump promised to create a Space National Guard if elected president, but the Space National Guard Establishment Act of 2025, sponsored by Sen. Mike Crapo (R-Idaho), failed to pass Congress.
‘Create Deterrence’ in Space
“We have capabilities in the military because we are preparing to defend the nation,“ Gagnon said. ”The reason we have the capabilities is to help create deterrence.”
During the Cold War, the space race between the United States and the Soviet Union was conducted on a non-military basis, and a U.N.-brokered Outer Space Treaty in 1967 stated that celestial objects, such as the moon, are to be used “exclusively for peaceful purposes.”
It also stated that nuclear weapons could not be deployed in space.
U.S. Space Force workers assigned to Space Delta 5 monitor computer workstations at Vandenberg Space Force Base, Calif., on Dec. 18, 2025. U.S. Space Force/David Dozoretz/Handout via Reuters
In recent years, the United States and several other countries have demonstrated their capabilities when it comes to shooting down satellites orbiting the Earth; as yet, no state has shot one down in practice.
“The United States now has on-orbit space control weapons capable of defending the joint force against hostile adversary actions,” Meink told the conference on Monday.
He declined to go into more detail, but said the weapon was necessary to maintain U.S. space capabilities and deter any threats to them from adversaries.
‘Arms Race in Outer Space’
When asked about Meink’s announcement, Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun urged the United States to “stop expanding its military preparations in outer space.”
“China always upholds the peaceful use of outer space, maintains outer space security and opposes the weaponization, militarization and an arms race in outer space,” Guo said.
In April 2024, Russia vetoed a joint U.S.–Japanese resolution at the United Nations that would have called on all countries not to develop or deploy nuclear arms, or other weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) in space.
At the time, Russia’s U.N. ambassador, Vassily Nebenzya, dismissed the resolution, saying it didn’t go far enough in banning all types of weapons in space.
The then-U.S. ambassador to the U.N., Linda Thomas-Greenfield, called the Russian veto “baffling” and “a shame.”
“Today’s veto begs the question, ‘Why? Why, if you are following the rules, would you not support a resolution that reaffirms them? What could you possibly be hiding?’” Thomas-Greenfield said.
The U.N. Security Council then narrowly rejected an amendment tabled by Russia and China.
That amendment called on “all States, and above all those with major space capabilities, to take urgent measures to prevent for all time the placement of weapons in outer space and the threat or use of force in outer space, from space against Earth and from Earth against objects in outer space, and to seek through negotiations the early elaboration of appropriate reliably verifiable legally binding multilateral agreements.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
