Speaking at the AFA Los Angeles Space Symposium Friday, Maj. Gen. Roger Burg covered, briefly, the sensitive topic of providing offensive capabilities to defend national security assets in space. Burg, who is director of strategic security for USAF air and space operations at the Pentagon, says there are three components that are key to defending space: “maintaining strong situational awareness, providing defensive counter space abilities, and having offensive counterspace abilities.” Offensive abilities could mean many things, however, such as being able to deny the enemy the “ability to use space” and challenge certain assets, he added. Burg recalled an instance when his deputy squadron commander at Schriever AFB, Colo., called him up to tell him about a near-collision of two billion dollar satellites—which at the time were within eight miles of each other.
U.S. Southern Command recently announced its first lethal strike on a suspected narco-trafficking vessel in two months, and the first under a newly formed permanent counter-cartel task force. The U.S. is also reportedly planning to transfer MQ-9 drones to Colombia to bolster its counter-cartel efforts.