Britain's next war could begin in space, warns top military commander

Telegraph

12 hours ago

Britain's next war is 'highly likely' to begin in space, a top military commander has said.
Major General Paul Tedman, head of UK Space Command (UKSC), said that the 'space domain' will become increasingly important in the coming years, and called for more investment to protect the country from extraterrestrial threats.
Space is one of the fastest-growing areas of military development, and was dominated by Russia in the lead-up to its invasion of Ukraine, when the Kremlin hacked Ukrainian satellites.
Foreign powers now look to control the space above the air domain before launching fighter jets, and both the UK and US are developing weapons that could be used in space.
Maj Gen Tedman said Britain must be more wary of threats to its satellites, and invest more in a domestic space capability.
Asked by the political magazine The House whether the next war would begin in space, he said: 'It's highly likely. You need to be able to control the space domain in order to secure the air domain, and that will provide you freedom of manoeuvre in the land and the maritime domain.
'Then if you agree with that assertion, then the logic would point to that you need to secure the space domain before you can do anything.'
He said that Sir Keir Starmer's Government 'does get it' and the space sector received significant investment in the recent Strategic Defence Review (SDR). But he warned the UKSC has 'a long way to go until we are at the mass and the spend that the other domains get in these big reviews that happen'.
The UKSC was founded in 2021, and is staffed by members of all three traditional services from an RAF base in High Wycombe, Bucks.
Air Marshal Allan Paul Marshall, the Ministry of Defence's air and space commander, said in March that the UK would look to create a blend of space technology that combines UK-only resources, equipment procured with allies, and privately developed software and hardware from the civil defence sector.
'We can't afford to have sovereign everywhere,' he said. 'We need to work out where we have interoperability with allies and where we need to access other capabilities. I'm very happy to buy in services.'
Maj Gen Tedman said that the UK would look to plug any gaps in its defences first when allocating money from the SDR, including the ability to strike against hostile forces in space.
He added that there was a 'space blindness' among the public that made it more difficult to make the case for his sector when speaking to voters.
'It's challenging to bring enthusiasm to the British public about space and its importance,' he said.
'If you want to talk about investment into the Army, you can go and visit a tank. If you want investment into the air force, you can go and see a jet. It's really difficult for me to demonstrate how we would invest money and show the investment in space.'
The UK launched its first spy satellite, Tyche, last July from a SpaceX rocket in California.
The MoD is hoping to develop a series of satellites that will operate as a network, and give British forces intelligence and high-resolution imagery from around the world.
The UK also runs a military space sensor at RAF Fylingdales in North Yorkshire, which provides 24/7 missile warning and space surveillance to the British military. The radar could detect an object the size of a bottle of water up to 3,000 miles into space.
However, the UK's enemies are also developing their capabilities, and Russia reportedly placed a nuclear anti-satellite weapon in orbit last year.
The UN passed a resolution in 1963 banning the use of weapons of mass destruction in space, and 116 countries including Russia have signed the Outer Space Treaty, which bans nuclear missiles outside of the Earth's orbit.