The Department of Defense recently released to Congress a combined response to the Fiscal Year 2022 NDAA requirement for a Space Policy Review and the Fiscal Year 2023 NDAA requirement to make publicly available an unclassified strategy for the protection and defense of on-orbit assets.
Space plays a critical role in American security, prosperity, and way of life and is critical to overall military effectiveness across the entire Joint Force. The Department of Defense is investing in space at the highest level ever to deter aggression and, if deterrence fails, to be prepared to prevail in conflict.
Informed by the 2022 National Defense Strategy and other Department- and national-level guidance, the response to Congress communicates the strategy of the Department of Defense to defend its national security interests in space from the growing scope and scale of counterspace threats by:
- Assuring critical space-based missions by accelerating the transition to more resilient architectures and by protecting and defending critical systems against counterspace threats;
- Strengthening the ability to detect and attribute hostile acts in, from, and to space; and
- Protecting the Joint Force from adversary hostile uses of space.
To do so, DoD will leverage a breadth of options across all operational domains to deter aggression and, if deterrence fails, to prevail in conflict.
As the Department defends U.S. national security interests in space, it will continue to demonstrate leadership in both the responsible use of space and stewardship of the space environment.
The unclassified report can be found here.