The opening moves of the next major war could unfold hundreds of miles above Earth.
U.S. adversaries are looking at ways to blind American forces in future conflict by jamming communications, disabling GPS, using lasers to attack satellites or destroying them completely.
A sweeping new Defense Intelligence Agency assessment details how China and Russia are developing sophisticated ways to disrupt or destroy U.S. satellites. This includes a Russian satellite designed to carry a nuclear weapon into Earth's orbit.
American forces rely on satellites to communicate across battlefields, navigate ships and aircraft, track enemy forces, detect missile launches and guide precision weapons to their targets. Knocking those systems offline could leave forces below struggling to see, communicate and strike.
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"We can't do military operations the way that we do them today without satellites, without systems in space," Clayton Swope, deputy director of the Aerospace Security Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, previously told Fox News Digital.
"Whoever has space and can deny that to their adversary has a huge asymmetric advantage in a conflict," Swope said.
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Beyond the battlefield, satellites underpin everything from GPS navigation and communications to banking, transportation and the electric grid, meaning a large-scale attack in space could disrupt services millions of people rely on every day.
Chinese military thinkers have identified reconnaissance, communications, navigation and early-warning satellites as potential targets for attacks designed to "blind and deafen the enemy," according to the report. DIA assesses Beijing could begin threatening or gradually degrading an adversary’s space architecture during a crisis as a "prelude to war."
Russia, meanwhile, views U.S. reliance on satellites for precision strikes and projecting military power as a "critical vulnerability" to exploit during a conflict. Its doctrine envisions attacks ranging from temporary jamming and blinding satellite sensors to the outright destruction of spacecraft and the infrastructure supporting them.
DIA describes the threat as a continuum, beginning with attacks that can temporarily disrupt a satellite without destroying it and escalating through cyber and orbital attacks to kinetic weapons and, ultimately, a nuclear detonation in space.
Some of those tactics have already made their way into active conflict. During Operation Epic Fury, the U.S. and Iran "took offensive actions against each other's space capabilities to degrade and disrupt military actions on both sides," according to DIA. The report does not detail those operations, but says jamming near the Strait of Hormuz in June disrupted U.S. aircraft and shipping vessels.
The Chinese military already practices jamming satellite communications and GPS during military exercises. Beijing also has ground-based lasers capable of disrupting or damaging satellites in low-Earth orbit, and DIA assesses it could field space-based directed-energy systems by the late 2020s.
Other Chinese systems can get much closer. The Shijian-17 satellite has a robotic arm capable of grappling another satellite, while Shijian-21 used similar technology in 2022 to move a defunct Chinese navigation satellite into a higher orbit. DIA noted that the same technology used to service or remove satellites can also have military applications.
Russia has repeatedly put its own spacecraft near U.S. satellites. Cosmos 2543 began following a U.S. national security satellite after it was released into orbit in 2019, approaching it several times before later firing a projectile in what DIA described as an anti-satellite weapons test.
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Russia sent Cosmos 2558 near another U.S. government satellite in 2022, and two years later launched Cosmos 2576 into the same orbit as a U.S. national security satellite before it began moving toward the American spacecraft. By 2025, Cosmos 2588 was maneuvering within roughly 93 kilometers of another U.S. government satellite.
Russia is also developing Burevestnik, an air-launched weapon intended to "kill" satellites in low-Earth orbit, according to DIA. The weapon would be launched from a modified MiG-31 aircraft and could be placed into orbit with little or no warning.
The threat escalates dramatically with Russia’s nuclear ambitions.
"Russia is developing a satellite designed to carry a nuclear weapon," the assessment states. Such a weapon could cause the "rapid and sudden loss or degradation of thousands of satellites" operated by governments and companies around the world, disrupting communications, navigation, weather forecasting and national security systems.
The damage could continue long after the initial blast. DIA warns that a nuclear detonation in space would leave behind radiation belts that "could persist for years" and damage satellites that initially survived or were only temporarily disrupted.
The threat has been on Washington’s radar for years. Then-House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Turner set off alarm bells in February 2024 when he called on the Biden administration to declassify intelligence about a "serious national security threat," later revealed to involve a Russian nuclear anti-satellite capability.
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U.S. officials have generally been more guarded about the underlying intelligence. As recently as April, U.S. Space Command chief Gen. Stephen Whiting said officials were "very concerned" by reports that Russia was potentially considering placing a nuclear anti-satellite weapon in orbit, but declined to confirm whether Moscow was actually developing one.
There is something peculiarly unsettling about a world in which the leaders of three nuclear powers might gather to discuss the future of smaller nations without troubling to invite the nations concerned. It is a diplomatic arrangement with considerable historical precedent, although not necessarily the sort that ought to inspire confidence.
For Askold S. Lozynskyj, a New York lawyer, former president of the Ukrainian World Congress and regular contributor to EU Today, the prospect of Donald Trump sitting down with Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping raises precisely this concern.
His latest opinion piece, The Thug Summit, published on 23 October, presents an uncompromising interpretation of the proposed trilateral meeting in China. In a wide-ranging conversation with EU Today publisher Gary Cartwright, Lozynskyj expands upon that argument, moving from the peculiarities of Trump’s political personality to the constitutional foundations of American democracy, the future of Europe and the increasingly precarious standing of international law.
The resulting discussion is occasionally caustic, frequently humorous and consistently concerned with a question that extends well beyond the current occupant of the White House: how resilient are democratic institutions when confronted by leaders who regard constitutional constraints as inconveniences?
Watch the full interview with Askold S. Lozynskyj and Gary Cartwright below.
The conversation begins with Trump’s political ascent, which Lozynskyj regards as one of the more extraordinary developments in modern American history.
Buddy Ebsen as Jed Clampett in the American television comedy The Beverly Hillbillies. Credit: CBS Television / Wikimedia Commons (1969 publicity photograph; US public domain).
He recalls the incredulity surrounding Trump’s original presidential ambitions and questions how a politician whose personal conduct had attracted considerable controversy managed to secure such enthusiastic support among conservative Christian voters.
Cartwright introduces a lighter comparison, recalling a photograph of Trump surrounded by his senior advisers in the Oval Office.
The only person missing, he suggests, was Jed Clampett, the fictional patriarch of the American television comedy The Beverly Hillbillies.
Lozynskyj is not inclined to defend the administration’s sophistication. Yet behind the humour lies a more serious argument about the disappearance of independent-minded advisers and the consequences of political loyalty becoming the principal qualification for high office.
“Donald Trump is not a conservative. Donald Trump is a thug,” he declares.
It is an unequivocal assessment, characteristic of Lozynskyj’s commentary, although his criticism extends beyond Trump himself to the Republican Party’s willingness to accommodate his leadership.
Much of the interview centres on the American midterm elections scheduled for 3 November.
Lozynskyj predicts that Democrats will regain control of the House of Representatives and potentially transform the remainder of Trump’s presidency through congressional investigations, subpoenas and impeachment proceedings.
His prediction is emphatic, although the eventual balance of power remains uncertain.
Control of the House would give Democrats substantial investigative authority, although the president would retain his executive powers. Removing him from office following impeachment would still require a two-thirds majority in the Senate.
Nevertheless, Lozynskyj believes the elections could fundamentally alter Washington’s political atmosphere.
“They will tie up Trump like never before,” he argues.
Cartwright raises a more disturbing possibility: could Trump manufacture an emergency to postpone an election or otherwise attempt to prolong his presidency?
“I think he could try, but I don’t believe that he will prevail,” Lozynskyj responds, expressing confidence that America’s constitutional institutions would ultimately resist such an attempt.
The exchange moves naturally towards the events of 6 January 2021, presidential immunity and the effectiveness of the checks and balances upon which the American constitutional system depends.
For Lozynskyj, whose public career has been closely associated with Ukrainian interests, the implications of Trump’s foreign policy are particularly troubling.
His central concern is that negotiations among Washington, Moscow and Beijing could revive the notion that major powers possess an informal entitlement to determine the political and territorial futures of their neighbours.
In his opinion piece, he raises the possibility that Ukraine and Taiwan could become bargaining instruments in a wider geopolitical settlement. These are his warnings about potential outcomes, not established agreements between the three governments.
Yet his criticism of Washington is accompanied by considerable appreciation for Europe’s role in sustaining Ukraine’s resistance to Russia’s invasion.
“Without Europe, Ukraine could never have survived as long as it has survived,” he tells Cartwright.
He also ventures into the British debate over European integration, arguing that the United Kingdom should return to the European Union.
It is an intervention likely to provoke disagreement, but it reflects his broader conviction that collective institutions provide an essential counterweight to unilateral political power.
The discussion also examines political unrest in Europe, changing national identities and the relationship between elected governments and the populations they represent.
Cartwright points to social tensions in European cities and the growing importance of regional identity, including the independence debate in Flanders.
Lozynskyj approaches these developments through the history of democratic protest, citing Ukraine’s Orange Revolution, the Revolution of Dignity and more recent demonstrations over the independence of anti-corruption institutions.
For him, public opposition to governments is not necessarily evidence of democracy’s failure. It can also demonstrate that political authority remains subject to popular consent.
The conversation concludes with international law, the International Criminal Court and the difficulty of enforcing common rules when powerful states refuse to accept external constraints.
Lozynskyj’s observations are deliberately provocative, and his forecasts will be tested by events. But the interview offers something more substantial than another exchange of opinions about Donald Trump.
It is a discussion about the relationship between power and restraint, the responsibilities of democratic institutions and the uncomfortable possibility that the international order may be entering another period in which military and economic strength increasingly determine political outcomes.
As the United States approaches its midterm elections and speculation continues over a possible meeting between Trump, Putin and Xi, those questions are unlikely to disappear.
The full conversation with Askold S. Lozynskyj is available in the video above.
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