WASHINGTON — Lawmakers heard testimony Monday that China and Russia are enhancing their space capabilities.
The Acting Assistant Defense Secretary John Hill said those two countries' technological advances present a "real threat" to America and its allied partners because Russia and China view space as "critical to modern warfare."
Hill told the House Armed Services Subcommittee on Strategic Forces that Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III has also testified that the growth of Chinese and Russian counter space capabilities presents the most immediate and serious threats to U.S. allied and partner space activities.
Hill said: ''Russia and China view space as critical to modern warfare and consider the use of counter-space capabilities as both a means of reducing U.S. military effectiveness and winning future wars."
Hill continued: "As these developments portend, the United States must be prepared for conflict to extend to or even originate in space.”
But, he went on to clarify, saying, “such a conflict would not be a space war, but would represent an extension of traditional armed conflict into the space domain of human endeavor."