Warfighting and War Winning in Space

For decades, space served as the silent backbone of American military power—essential to U.S. operations on Earth, but largely out of public view. That is changing.

Rapid technological advances and recent military operations have pushed space to the forefront of strategic competition and modern warfare. U.S. rivals are developing capabilities designed to disrupt and degrade the space systems on which the joint force depends, while seeking military advantages of their own in orbit. As military leaders increasingly describe space as a warfighting domain, the debate is shifting beyond resilience and support toward harder questions of dominance, denial, and “war-winning” in orbit.

What would "war-winning" look like in space? How should the United States prepare for a future in which concepts such as space fires, orbital interceptors, and space weapons become central to military planning? And what are the implications for deterrence and strategic stability? To discuss these questions and more, please join the CSIS Defense and Security Department’s HTK Series for a conversation featuring Heather Williams, director of the CSIS Project on Nuclear Issues, Tom Karako, director of the CSIS Missile Defense Project, and Kari Bingen, director of the CSIS Aerospace Security Project.  

This event is made possible by general support to CSIS.