The United Kingdom must overhaul its military space posture to align with the United States’ shift towards an offensive space strategy, according to a new report by the Council on Geostrategy.
Authored by Gabriel Elefteriu FRAeS, Deputy Director at the Council on Geostrategy, the report highlights the implications of the US Space Force’s new doctrine and the Trump administration’s $175 billion ‘Golden Dome’ initiative, which aims to develop space-based missile defence systems.
“There is now a major shift in US military space policy towards a much more offensive posture. Britain must respond, given the cardinal importance of UK alignment with (and dependence on) the US in the space domain,” Elefteriu states in the report.
He argues that the UK’s current space strategy is outdated and lacks the necessary focus on space warfare capabilities.
“Strategic space warfare systems are the area in which the UK should take a stronger interest going forwards, and the Americans are the only game in town on that at the moment. Britain should seek to position itself as a participant and, more importantly, a contributor to elements of the US Golden Dome initiative,” Elefteriu adds.
The report also notes that while the UK’s spacepower capabilities are improving, this progress needs to accelerate to meet current demands. A renewed focus on space-based ISR through the Istari programme, advancing national space launch capability, and enhancing space domain awareness systems are deemed essential to UK national security.
Elefteriu, who previously served as Director of Research and Strategy at Policy Exchange and founded the UK’s first dedicated Space Policy Research Unit, is also an Associate of King’s College London, an elected Fellow of the Royal Aeronautical Society, and a founding partner at AstroAnalytica, a space consultancy.
The full report, titled “Rethinking Britain’s Defence Space Posture,” is available on the Council on Geostrategy’s website.
I dont see where the money exists for this before 3%
Let’s get ISTARI sorted before joining Star Wars.
UK needs to sort out its GBAD and offensive firepower matters first.
Don’t think we can or should be committing any funding towards space based weaponry until those issues are resolved.
There are huge capability gaps within our conventional armed forces that need sorting out.
GBAD and anti satellite capability are much the same thing. SM3 has already intercepted a satellite and Arrow 3 is capable of doing it as well.
The UK’s short and medium range needs are already met by CAMM and Aster 30 (more launchers required)
It’s exoatmospheric capability that we are completely missing.
It’s probably worth trying to revive Aster 45 with the French long term and procure Arrow 3 with the Germans as an interim capability if our problems with Bibi can be fixed.
Hear hear. Let the Americans deal with star wars.
The Army needs at least another 10,000 soldiers and more 155mm artillery. We only have 14 second-hand 6×6 Swedish Archer 155mm artillery systems. We need more ships, another squadron of Typhoon and more trained RAF pilots. And the F35b is currently under armed and cannot mount the British missiles that we want it to. I would scrap the UK space command and use the savings to buy hardware off-the-shelf for our military. Does the MoD need an army of 60,000 pen-pushers?
And how will you be guarding Divisional HQ from ballistic missiles guided by enemy satellites? Space is no longer a luxury to leave to the Americans it’s as vital as control of the air now.
Even rebels like the Houthis now have access to satellite guidance and long range precision ballistic weapons.
Working for the UK Space Agency must surely be one of the most depressing, demoralising jobs ever. Imagine knowing that the major world powers will dominate space while you sit there just watching and praying that one day you’ll get thrown a few quid. By the time the UK starts taking this seriously it’ll be too late.