Whatever Trump claims, weaponisation of space makes losers of us all
Por Zhou Bo — South China Morning Post – News feed
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Opinion Zhou Bo Whatever Trump claims, weaponisation of space makes losers of us all
It takes little imagination to realise a space war would inevitably escalate into all-out conflict, almost surely involving nuclear weapons
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Zhou Bo Senior Colonel Zhou Bo (ret) is a senior fellow at the Centre for International Security and Strategy at Tsinghua University and a China Forum expert. Published: 8:30pm, 1 Oct 2026 When the US Space Force announced on September 14 that “the US has on-orbit space control weapons capable of defending the Joint Force against hostile adversary action”, I thought of Isaac Newton’s well-known declaration that he could not calculate the madness of people. This is the first time a country has admitted to deploying weapons in space. Today, the orbits are congested and contested with many nations conducting military activities, such as surveillance and reconnaissance, early missile warning, satellite communications and navigation. While the United States stands alone with an independent Space Force as a full separate service, many other states such as China, Russia, Britain, France and Japan have built dedicated space combat organisations. However, none of them has publicly acknowledged deploying on-orbit space weapons, unwilling to face the global backlash against turning outer space into a battlefield. The 1967 Outer Space Treaty already bans nuclear weapons in space. Deploying any other weapon will also draw widespread international criticism. Select Voice Select Speed 0.8x 0.9x 1.0x 1.1x 1.2x 1.5x 1.75x 00:00 00:00 1x AI-generated voice
