The United States Space Force (USSF) has published a new operational manual, “Space Warfighting: A Framework for Planners”, charting a path for U.S. dominance in the future’s most critical warfighting domain—space.
The document, released Thursday, provides a detailed blueprint for achieving space superiority through offensive and defensive operations designed to counter adversaries in orbit.
According to the manual, the USSF aims to defend American space assets and maintain the Joint Force’s “long-range kill chains and global power projection,” essential for operations across land, air, sea, cyber, and now space. The Space Force defines “space superiority” as the “degree of control that allows forces to operate at a time and place of their choosing without prohibitive interference from space or counterspace threats, while also denying the same to an adversary.”
“Space superiority may involve seeking out and destroying an enemy’s spacecraft, systems, and networks,” the manual states. It also emphasizes the necessity of countering adversary activities in other war domains that intersect with space operations.
Lt. Gen. Shawn Bratton, deputy chief of space operations, told reporters, as cited by Defense One, that the document introduces “a common framework, common lexicon that we can use in our training and in our education programs.”
The framework identifies three mission areas critical to the Space Force’s operational strategy: Orbital Warfare, Electromagnetic Warfare, and Cyberspace Warfare. Offensive counterspace tactics include orbital strikes, terrestrial strikes, and space link interdictions—electromagnetic or cyberattacks aimed at disrupting or degrading an adversary’s space communications and control networks. Defensive measures incorporate both passive tactics, such as threat warnings, deception, hardening, dispersal, and mobility, and active responses like counterattacks and suppression of enemy space targeting.
The manual highlights that space superiority becomes especially complex when confronting peer and near-peer adversaries, with the ability to operate in space—or to deny that ability—classified as a “Very High Risk” factor for Joint Force operations.
“General superiority of space is achieved when the enemy is no longer able to act in a meaningful or dangerous way against friendly celestial lines of communication,” the manual states, adding that adversaries must also be unable to protect or utilize their own space assets effectively.
Reflecting the technological nature of modern space operations, the document stresses the decreased reliance on human decision-making, favoring highly automated systems capable of operating in the fast-paced, congested orbital environment. It underscores space’s dependence on cyberspace for command, control, and communications, calling the space domain “almost entirely reliant on the network dimension.”
“Space superiority is not only a necessary precondition for Joint Force success but also something for which we must be prepared to fight,” USSF Chief of Space Operations Gen. B. Chance Saltzman wrote in the foreword.
As global competition for dominance in orbit intensifies, the U.S. Space Force’s new doctrine lays the groundwork for ensuring American military advantages extend beyond Earth.