Boeings X-37B 1 sits on the runway after landing at the Shuttle Landing Facility at KSC.. U.S. Space Force/Staff Sgt. Adam Shanks

President Donald Trump’s plans to build a space-based Golden Dome missile defense shield have drawn immediate criticism from China, which has framed it as a renewed American push to “weaponize space.” This program, announced in an executive order signed in January 2025, echoes former President Ronald Reagan’s 1980s Strategic Defense Initiative, or “Star Wars,” which was never completed but is believed to have pressured the Soviet Union into a costly arms race. Whether the Golden Dome will meet the same fate or move beyond rhetoric remains to be seen.

Regardless of its future feasibility, the president’s announcement marks another departure from the vision of space as a peaceful domain. Aside from the U.S. Air Force’s anti-satellite (ASAT) missile test in 1985 and the abandoned Star Wars program, treaties like the Limited Test Ban Treaty(1963), the Outer Space Treaty (1967), and the Moon Agreement (1979)helped restrain space militarization during the Cold War. In the 1990s, multinational projects like the International Space Station further reinforced a vision of international cooperation under U.S. leadership.

As a result, public discussion of space weapons remained largely restricted, even as governments quietly advanced their capabilities. That began to change in 2007, when China shocked observers by using a missile to destroy its own satellites, followed by a similar U.S. Navy test a year later. These events signaled a clear break from past restraint and kick-started a new space race. In place of the Cold War’s bipolar competition, the 2020s have seen a more multipolar and militarized space race taking shape.

U.S.

The 2019 reorganization of U.S. space branches marked a turning point in Washington’s military approach to space. It created the U.S. Space Force for training and equipping personnel, and reestablished the U.S. Space Command, responsible for operational missions. NASA, though a civilian agency, continues to support military objectives through dual-use technologies and interagency coordination, while the White House’s National Space Council also helps shape policy.

Trump’s second term has seen the Space Force intensify its rhetoric on space conflict, casting doubt on the Artemis Accords’ stated peaceful intentions declared in 2020. In April 2025, General Stephen Newman Whiting, head of Space Command, publicly called for deploying weapons in space, according to Defense One. Meanwhile, General B. Chance Saltzman, the Space Force’s chief of space operations,........

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