The Space Force has been upping its rhetoric around the need for weapons in space — and on Thursday it issued a framework meant to provide a “warfighting” lens for planners, operators and weapons buyers on how the service views the use of military power in a domain long viewed as benign.
The release of the Space Warfighting Framework comes as Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth stresses the need for the U.S. military to adopt a stronger “warfighting mentality” and as the service prepares to argue its case for a larger share of funding in the fiscal 2026 budget cycle.
Space Force officials say that while the document aligns with Pentagon messaging and supports its case for more resources, releasing the framework is part of the natural growth trajectory for the service, which was established five years ago.
Lt. Gen. Shawn Bratton, deputy chief of space operations for strategy, plans, programs and requirements, told reporters Wednesday the service spent its first few years building its organizational structure and has shifted in recent years to ensuring it has the strategy, doctrine and codified processes in place to guide current and future operations.
“This space warfighting document is sort of in the vein of the natural maturing of the Space Force,” Bratton said in a briefing at the Pentagon. “This document is very specific to our core function of space control and how we think about warfighting in space.”
The language the Defense Department uses to describe conflict in space has changed over time. For years, officials would use terms like “congested” and “contested” to discuss growing threats in the domain and “protect and defend” as a vague indicator of how the U.S. would respond to those concerns.
The Space Force’s ability to talk more freely and clearly about its approach to warfighting evolved in the last few years and in recent months, as officials have touted the need for space weapons to keep up with Russia and China. Bratton said the release of the warfighting framework reflects that change.
“I think now we’ve sort of matured and arrived at a place where we’re comfortable saying that, hey, this is a warfighting domain,” he said.
The framework’s primary function is to define key terms and concepts so that its internal stakeholders have a common lexicon and external partners understand how the Space Force thinks about maintaining dominance in the domain.
For example, the document provides a detailed list of defensive and offensive space actions. In the defensive category, it includes things like counter attack, escort, mobility, disaggregation and redundancy — passive and active responses the service can take to protect against or respond to enemy aggression.
Its list of offensive responses includes electromagnetic and cyber attack and strikes targeting space-enabling assets in other domains. That could includes launch vehicles or other ground networks and facilities.
The document notes that coordination across the joint force is crucial, as operators in all domains are increasingly reliant on space capabilities to perform their missions.
“Not only are space operations global, they are also multi-domain,” the document states. “A successful attack against the terrestrial, link or orbital segment can neutralize a space capability; therefore, space domain access, maneuver and utilization require deliberate and synchronized offensive and defensive operations across all segments.”
The framework also defines targets, to include ground networks, communication and data links that help transport information and on-orbit capabilities like satellites. It lays out variables that operators should consider as they plan a response, and it discusses the process for prioritizing and engaging targets.
Bratton noted that the document itself doesn’t represent a change in policy or rules of engagement around how weapons may be employed in space, rather it spells out the existing process as it applies to space.
It’s also intentionally broad and describes capabilities the department may not have now but could have in the future.
“It’s not intended to imply that we have all developed all these capabilities or weapons or any of those things, but it certainly is intended to start that discussion about what we do need to compete and win in space during conflict specifically,” he said.
Courtney Albon is C4ISRNET’s space and emerging technology reporter. She has covered the U.S. military since 2012, with a focus on the Air Force and Space Force. She has reported on some of the Defense Department’s most significant acquisition, budget and policy challenges.
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