US reveals it has deployed space weapons

Alex Ritson (0:00)

This is the Global News Podcast from the BBC World Service. I'm Alex Ritson and in the early hours of Tuesday 15th September, these are our main stories. The United States military has confirmed that it has weapons in space. The co-founder of Anthropic tells the BBC artificial intelligence might need a mandatory kill switch. But President Trump says the idea of AI destroying humanity is a hoax. Police in Turkey fire tear gas at protesters following a crackdown on gay bars and LGBTQ activists.

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The Trump administration has revealed that the United States military does have weapons in space. The admission came from the Air Force Secretary, Troy Meink, who didn't say what these were, but that they would be used to protect US assets in orbit. He also didn't say why the disclosure was being made now, but his comments will be seen as a warning to Russia and China. A treaty from 1967 banned weapons of mass destruction in space, but the US has, like its rivals, been developing technology that can target and defend satellites. I heard more from our Washington correspondent, Bernd de Boesman.

Bernd de Boesman (1:34)

Well, in his comments, the Secretary of the Air Force, Troy Meink, provided absolutely no details on the weapons, how they could be employed or its capabilities, or even when it was put into orbit. But he did say that unnamed adversaries had already sought to dismantle US systems relating to sensing and command and control functions, and that this system was essentially that. It's something that could be used to safeguard US forces against hostile enemy action. In the past, senior people at the Pentagon have previously said that they plan to really boost military capabilities in space, specifically citing Russian and Chinese programs, developing ways to attack and disrupt US satellites in a future conflict. So this very well could be something related to that, stopping those efforts from potential adversaries to knock out US communications and satellites in space.

Alex Ritson (2:24)

So there's no hint that we're talking about weapons that could be fired towards the Earth here?

Bernd de Boesman (2:29)

There's no suggestion of that at the moment at least. He very much framed this as something that would safeguard US personnel and assets. So he kind of framed it as a weapon that essentially defensive in nature. There was a roundtable with journalists at this event in Maryland shortly after his remarks. And he didn't even say that it was kinetic, essentially, that it would cause, for example, an explosion of any kind. We do know, though, that the Trump administration has been very forward about saying that there are plans to put missiles into space. But those are part of what is termed the Golden Dome Missile Defense System. So those are essentially interceptor missiles that would be used to protect the US from missiles coming from overseas or potentially even other airborne threats.

Alex Ritson (3:16)

It does sound, though, almost sci-fi. We have reached the age of Star Wars.

Bernd de Boesman (3:21)

It does. And this is something that, of course, it's not a novel idea. The US government has, for many, many decades now, been eyeing space as very much a potential military frontier as far back as the Reagan administration. He famously had a very expensive program, which was called Star Wars, to protect the US from ballistic missiles coming from what was then the Soviet Union. So the planning of it has been long in the making, but this is very much the first time or believed to be the first time that the US or a US official has publicly acknowledged putting weapons in space. And in his remarks, he was very clear that he's not giving details because of the sensitivity around the system, which one imagines is extremely sophisticated and expensive.

Alex Ritson (4:06)

And to Boosman.

Opinion polls suggest the majority of Americans are worried about data centers and the wider impact of artificial intelligence. But Donald Trump rejects those concerns and says warnings about the technology destroying humanity are a hoax. In a series of posts, the US president railed against what he called a sick conspiracy against AI, saying the only guardrail it needed was a strong and smart president. But from within the AI industry itself, there has been a stark warning against the potential risks of the tech. The Anthropic co-founder Jack Clark told our economics editor Faisal Islam that the world must set limits to prevent it becoming uncontrollable.