Ars Technica reports:

Earlier this year, officials at US Space Command released a list of priorities and needs, and among the routine recitation of things like cyber defense, communications, and surveillance was a relatively new term: “integrated space fires.”

This is a new phrase in the esoteric terminology the military uses to describe its activities. Essentially, “fires” are offensive or defensive actions against an adversary. The Army defines fires as “the use of weapon systems to create specific lethal and nonlethal effects on a target.”

The inclusion of this term in a Space Command planning document was another signal that Pentagon leaders, long hesitant to even mention the possibility of putting offensive weapons in space for fear of stirring up a cosmic arms race, see the taboo of talking about space warfare as a thing of the past.

“While we’ve held it close to the vest before, some of that was just kind of hand-wringing,” said Gen. Chance Saltzman, the top general in the Space Force, who also serves on the joint chiefs of staff. “It wasn’t really something we needed to protect.”

One reason for the change in how the military talks about warfare in space is that the nation’s top two strategic adversaries—China and Russia—are already testing capabilities that could destroy or disable a US military satellite.

The Space Force was established nearly five years ago, in December 2019, to protect US interests in space. Satellites provide the military with intelligence data, navigation, communications, and support missile defense, and in the next few years, they will become even more crucial for weapons targeting and battle management. [Continue reading…]