With Donald Trump’s announcement of ‘Space Force’, is there any chance of space warfare between the USA, China,and Russia?

Preeti Taneja

Entrepreneur | Posted on 2-Jul-2018

“When it comes to space, too often, for too many years, dreams of exploration and discovery were really squandered by politics and bureaucracy, and we knocked that out,”President Donald Trump said. And with that statement, just like that, he ordered Department of Defence (DOD) to establish a ‘Space Force’as the 6th branch of the armed forces.

Trump also added, “We don’t want China and Russia and other countries leading us. We’ve always led. We’ve gone way far afield for decades now.” This statement made the motives behind this Space Force evidently clear. And for the commentators, experts,anddiplomats, it was enough to go in paranoia mode for what could possibly be a space warfare between USA, Russia,and China in the future.

Talking hypothetically, yes, there could be a space warfare between these 3 superpowers if the USA goes even one step ahead towards space armament. However, it’s naïve to believe that China and Russia (and few other countries too) don’t already have plans or infrastructure to militarize outer space. In fact, in the past, we have seen each of these countries use some kind of military weapons in the outer space in one form or another. For example, they have used missiles to ***** off their old satellites.

So, what President Donald Trump did with this announcement is made the idea ofmilitarization of space formal and brought it in the mainstream.

However, that being said, the fact of the matter is that this is a farfetched idea. We have nuclear weapons—all major countries have that. However, we still (and thankfully) never had any nuclear war. Yes, there has been plenty of threats and lots of speculations that it could happen. However, we never really reached to that situation. Similarly, although countries might introduce programs and arm themselves in the outer space, we might not necessarily see any extra-terrestrialwar.

Yes, the direction where we’re heading, the threat of such wars to global peace would be much higher. And diplomacy between countries would become even more difficult. However, we’ll always have leaders in one country or more – as well as third-partyorganizations–who will act sensibly and play a vital role in preventingany situation ofsuch space warfare.

If things look upsetting and daunting right now, chill. Things will change for good once President Donald Trump leaves the office. And let’s just hope it happens sooner.