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GWYNNE DYER: Is space the next frontier for warfare?

The chief of the US Space Force announced the US “now has on-orbit space-control weapons," sparking questions about space warfare

When Troy Meink, the chief of the US Space Force, announces for no obvious reason that the United States “now has on-orbit space-control weapons,” people naturally assume that something is up.

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Why is Meink admitting the truth now? He’s even boasting about it!

It can’t be to frighten the Chinese or the Russians, because they have long been watching US military activities in space. They regularly monitor the flights of the semi-secret X-37B ‘Orbital Test Vehicle’, the reusable uncrewed spaceplane that the US Space Force launches from Florida but sometimes lands at Vandenberg in California (eight missions so far).

The Chinese can’t complain, because they have their own ‘secret’ spaceplane, and sometimes they even play ‘silly buggers’ in orbit with their American and British counterparts. (‘Silly buggers’ is the old naval game of high-speed manoeuvres of warships in formation, a frequent cause of collisions.)

Reuters reported a year ago on a joint US-British operation in which the US........

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