Space as a Warfighting Domain: Issues for Congress

The United States is in the midst of making significant changes to policy on protecting national security pertaining to outer space. Military strategists increasingly consider space to be a warfighting domain—a location where offensive and defensive military operations take place— similar to air, land, and sea.

During the Cold War, both the U.S. and the Soviet Union approached space as a sanctuary and a non-warfighting domain. However, many states and international entities, including the Department of Defense and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), now declare space a warfighting domain.