During a Senate Appropriations Committee hearing on Thursday, Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) asked Space Force General B. Chance Saltzman about China's space warfare capabilities.
00:00I'm going to address my last question to the pride of Bowling Green, Kentucky, General Salzman.
00:08Obviously, here on Earth, we've seen our adversaries working more and more together.
00:15Are you seeing that in space?
00:18And if so, I'd be interested in your thoughts about that.
00:23And we all know the Chinese are very aggressively trying to go in that direction as well.
00:32What are the gaps in our own capabilities that worry you the most?
00:38Well, first, let me tell you, the partnership that I see amongst the Allies is tremendous.
00:44I've had the great opportunity over the last couple of years to host what we call the International Space Chiefs Conference.
00:50And it has grown from about 20 nations three years ago to there's so many that want to come now,
00:56we have to actually find a different facility to host all that are coming.
00:59We were at about 44 invites last year.
01:02And so the interest in space, the interest in contributing to the security and stability of the space domain is growing internationally.
01:10Our most trusted Allies are the ones that you could list off on your right hand.
01:14They have tremendous capabilities that we are working hard to make sure are integrated into our operational plans,
01:20into our force designs, so that we can get the most out of them.
01:24We have a thing called the Coalition Space Operations Initiative.
01:28Ten nations that get together twice a year to discuss infrastructures, policies, standards for interoperability.
01:35And it's had tremendous value across the coalition of like-minded nations for a secure and stable space environment.
01:42So very proud of what our Allies have been able to do with U.S. leadership in the space domain.
01:48And the PRC is worrisome, sir.
01:51The ISR capabilities, the space-enabled targeting that they've been able to achieve from space has increased the range and accuracy of their weapon systems
02:01to the point where getting anywhere close enough in the Western Pacific to be able to achieve military objectives is in jeopardy
02:09if we can't deny, disrupt, degrade that ISR capability.
02:13That's the most pressing challenge, and that means the Space Force needs the space control counter space capabilities
