"Space Wars Are Over in 24 Hours—Most People Don't Even Know They're Happening": The Father of Space Warfare Doctrine on Why the U.S. Lost the First Global Space War in 2014

At 6:30 AM on April 2nd, 2014, something unprecedented happened in the darkness of space above Earth. One by one, in precise numerical order, Russia's GLONASS navigation satellites began failing as they passed over a remote facility in Central Australia. The attacks were so methodical, so obviously deliberate, that even a casual observer with basic orbital mechanics knowledge could prove they were intentional. Yet the world barely noticed. This was the opening salvo of the first global space war—and according to Paul Szymanski, the man many consider the father of space warfare doctrine, America lost.

Szymanski has spent over 50 years developing the theoretical framework for how nations fight in space. His work is required reading at Space Force officer training schools, he's briefed military leaders in 23 countries, and he's been involved in a dozen different anti-satellite weapons programs. But perhaps most importantly, he's one of the few people who saw the 2014 space conflict for what it really was: a new kind of warfare that most military leaders still don't understand.

In this comprehensive interview, Szymanski reveals the hidden history of space conflicts, explains why current U.S. space doctrine is fundamentally flawed, and warns that we're potentially facing an even more dangerous threat—one that could render the U.S. Navy obsolete overnight.

Let's start with your background. What initially drew you to space warfare, and how has your understanding of it evolved over five decades of work in this field?

"Fifty years ago, when I first started at a think tank in Washington, DC, I had a choice between nuclear war or space," Szymanski recalls. "As a 23-year-old, space seemed more futuristic—you know, Star Wars and all that. I'm glad I chose it. The nuclear field eventually decayed—no pun intended. Though it's still critically important, of course—it could potentially kill six billion people—but it no longer has the same forward momentum."

But Szymanski's approach has always been different from his peers. "I've always loved planning and thinking about the bigger picture—not necessarily the technology itself. A lot of people consider me the world's top expert on outer space warfare, but I don't focus on the technical details like which laser wavelengths to use to blind satellites."

What sets him apart is his focus on strategic rather than tactical questions. Over his career, Szymanski held 86 different security clearances and spent nearly three decades working in military deception. "I was a professional liar for 27 years," he says. "We developed cover stories using what we called the onion theory—you have one cover story, and when you peel back that layer, there's another one underneath, then another. You never really know which layer you're on. Many programs at the labs are actually fake—they're just cover stories. We used to call it the mushroom theory. You know how you grow mushrooms? Keep them in the dark and feed them shit."

Instead of focusing on technology, he concentrates on what he calls the foundational questions. "Why are we attacking this satellite? When should we attack it? Should we coordinate with what's happening on the ground? We're not defending space colonies here—the whole purpose is to help ground forces succeed."

This perspective led him to a key insight about the nature of space warfare itself. "Space generates or transmits information—mostly, if not entirely. Weather data, signals intelligence, imagery, communications. So at its core, you're really talking about information warfare." That insight, he says, transforms how conflict in space should be approached. "You're not attacking a satellite because it feels good—you're attacking the mission it serves. And ultimately, you're not even doing that. You're targeting the mind of the adversary commander who's using this information."

Given your extensive experience with the Air Force Research Lab and your criticism of current doctrine, what are the fundamental problems with how the U.S. Space Force approaches space warfare, and how does this compare to how other nations think about space conflicts?

"There's a lot of fuzzy thinking in the U.S. Space Force," Szymanski states bluntly. "I was on the board of directors at the Air Force Research Lab, and when they couldn't secure enough funding for space research, their argument was basically, 'Well, the Army gets this percentage, so we should too.' Like little children."

The fundamental problem, he explains, is tactical thinking without strategic context. "Most Space Force personnel think tactically—they focus on attacking individual satellites. They think, 'We're going to sneak up on this satellite and poke it or tweak it.' But that takes days and weeks to maneuver around, and my simulations show that a real space war is over within 24 to 48 hours."

Szymanski's frustration with doctrine becomes personal when he describes his experience briefing Space Force officers. "I was briefing a Space Force guy who was telling me how proud he was of the three major precepts of being a guardian. One of them was bravery. I'm kind of a wise guy, so I said, 'You mean you're going to be really brave pushing that big red button? You're in some air-conditioned, underground command post outside Las Vegas, playing video games with satellites.'"

This disconnect, he argues, leads to a dangerous mismatch between planning timelines and real-world dynamics. "What if there are 100 space weapons coming at you? The most difficult thing to figure out in any conflict—whether it's ancient Greek warfare or futuristic space warfare—is the adversary's intent. Are they going against decapitation command and control? Are they targeting imagery satellites? Are they just making a political statement? Like when the Arabs would run their armies up to Israel's border and stop, just to make Israel mobilize everyone, quit their jobs, and screw up the economy."

He contrasts this lack of clarity with the Army's more grounded approach to planning and budgeting. "Let's say you have an extra $100 million at the end of the fiscal year. Should you spend it on this fancy new space weapon system that just sounds cool, or should you re-equip an Army brigade with better tanks? The Army has been very good at this for the past 80 years. They invented operations research to calculate these things. They can say, 'If we take out this bridge, it delays enemy forces 24 hours, we estimate 5% fewer casualties, and the war ends 10 days early.' They can go to the Pentagon and push that. But with space? 'Oh, look at this space weapon. I'm going to destroy information.' Prove how it helped on the battlefield. It's really fuzzy."

His critique deepens when it comes to military exercises. "I've been to about 15 different space exercises, and they have trouble with everything. Some general on the ground says, 'We're going to make this attack tomorrow.' And some super-secret Space Force guy shows up and says, 'Sir, we can attack this satellite to help you, but I can't tell you how or why.' The general just kicks them out of the room."

He recalls specific examples of strategic blindness. "At one exercise, I suggested, 'Let's attack the satellite but use two seekers on the same rocket. Keep one weapon seeker held back and let the other one go in to see if it works. If needed, use the second one to increase the probability of kill, or if not, just have it hide out in the space debris. When it's over Antarctica, it can come out as an uncorrelated target.' The colonel in charge said, 'We can't do that.' When I asked why not, he had no answer."

Another incident stands out as even more revealing. "I think we were refighting Desert Storm in this exercise years ago. I said, 'Let's destroy all the heavy earth terminals—the satellite terminals—in Iraq, but purposely lightly damage one of them. Then go in six to 12 hours later with anti-personnel weapons and take out the maintenance people. That's what really counts. Oh, by the way, they were Germans—sends a message.' The colonel was horrified. 'You're attacking space personnel!' Meanwhile, in this same simulated conflict, thousands of people are dying on the ground. What's wrong with killing space people? They're enemies."

This NASA-like mentality, he argues, persists even in military space operations. "There's a certain psychology there—a NASA psychology—even though you're in the Air Force, you're military. I hope it has changed, but I've known everyone from the captains and colonels up to the four-star general officers, and they all just keep thinking tactically, not about true war fighting."

You've claimed to have documented at least 11 space wars, including conflicts that most people have never heard of. Can you walk us through this hidden history of space warfare, culminating in what you call America's loss in the 2014 space war over Ukraine?

Szymanski's research reveals a pattern of conflicts dating back decades that challenges conventional understanding of space as a peaceful domain. "In the 1960s, when I first started working at the Pentagon, we went to the Federal Communication Commission satellite monitoring station in Laurel, Maryland, outside of Washington. They told me about an incident where someone off the East Coast of the United States started jamming our COMSAT communication satellite for several days. They could change the antenna orientation and see the maximum signal strength of the jammer—it was coming from somewhere out in the ocean. We figured it was a Russian trawler. You really don't know why they did it or what the result was. Maybe it was some sort of test, or maybe just to irritate us."

The pattern accelerated during the Cold War. "During the mid-1980s, there were all kinds of launch failures for about six to eight months. Every time the U.S. or Russia launched a satellite, it would crash into the ocean or into Siberia. It almost felt like tit-for-tat—like we were taking out each other's launch systems." He hints at how fragile these systems can be. "I've heard they're very thin-skinned, trying to save weight. I've heard stories that you could be off Cape Canaveral in a ship with a high-powered rifle and take out a NASA launch."

One of the most telling cases, Szymanski says, came in the late 1970s with the SEASAT satellite. "When I was working for a think tank, a NASA employee came over and told me what happened to SEASAT. It was supposed to measure wave height for meteorological purposes. But when NASA turned it on, they discovered they could see nuclear submarines operating deep under the ocean. The submarines apparently created subtle wave patterns that pointed directly to their location. This SEASAT negated one-third of the United States nuclear triad. According to this official—and there are rumors on the internet saying the same thing—they purposely turned it off and claimed it was dead. When we were imaging it decades later, it was always bent out of shape."

He mentions another incident from the 2010s: "There was an incident—I can't specify exactly when—but it's rumored it was started by a drunken Russian Colonel." And in 2014: "Someone told me that some of the NOAA weather satellites started getting jammed from the southeast Pacific. They assumed it was Chinese. Again, you wonder—why would they do that?"

Fast forward to 2017, and the stakes had clearly risen. "According to multiple sources—including two French lieutenant colonels who hinted this to me when I was invited by the French Air and Space Force to Lyon, France—in 2017, the Chinese took one of their manipulator satellites and came up close to a SIBRS satellite, an American missile launch satellite in geosynchronous orbit, and started tearing it apart."

The reaction in Washington was revealing. "I doubt the Chinese would do that just for fun. It must have been a response to something the U.S. did. You look at Congress at the time—the Republicans and Democrats hated each other and couldn't pass any legislation. But Space Force? 'Oh yeah, we really need this guys.' It readily passed. About a year and a half ago, a Fox News personality was interviewing a Space Force General Officer and asked, 'Well, General Sir, what would you do if one of these Chinese manipulator satellites attacked one of our missile warning satellites?' The general, being a politician, didn't say anything meaningful. What this tells me is that the press knows about this attack on an American satellite, the politicians know about it, and many countries around the world know about it. To quote a famous Maryland saying, we are fat, dumb, and happy not to know about it."

Still, the 2014 space conflict over Ukraine remains, in Szymanski's view, the clearest and most consequential example—one he claims to have proven mathematically. "On April 2nd, 2014, Russian GLONASS satellites—their GPS system—started failing. Russia published the date and time when each one stopped working. So I thought, 'I'm a rocket scientist. I have all the orbital elements. Let me check exactly where they stopped working.' I propagated the GLONASS satellites' orbits and discovered that every time a GLONASS satellite came over Central Australia—specifically Pine Gap—it would stop working. And if several GLONASS satellites were within view, they would stop working in numerical order: GLONASS 9, 10, 11, 12, 13. They were checking them off a list."

He points to Pine Gap, the U.S.-Australian NSA listening site since the 1960s, as the likely source. "These attacks started exactly at 6:30 in the morning. I know these sites. They come in at 6:00, get their coffee at 6:15, start doing simulations, and at 6:30 they push the button."

But the objective, he argues, wasn't military. "Russia didn't need GLONASS to operate in Ukraine. Ukraine was part of Russia 30-plus years ago. They built the roads. They know where everything is. They're not going to get lost without satellites. This was a diplomatic attack—a political message saying 'stop whatever you're doing, or else.'"

When that warning went unheeded, Szymanski says the U.S. doubled down. "Two weeks later, a whole bunch of Russian GLONASS satellites started blinking out again. What that meant is they didn't get the message—not the militaries, but the politicians you're sending the message to. They probably said, 'Oh, that was just solar flares or something broke.' So we sent the message again."

"America forgot the concept of combined arms," he continues. "Russia got pissed off and attacked the American banking system. In August, five major banks in Manhattan had something like 60 million bank accounts and stock accounts hacked. The banks said, 'Oh, it's coming from Russian servers.' But a few days later, you heard nothing more about it. Immediately, Obama stopped talking badly about the Russians, and a week later, everyone was at the negotiating table."

Szymanski's conclusion is unequivocal. "I interpret that to mean we were pushing buttons, happily attacking Russian satellites. Russia got pissed off and brought the space war to the ground by attacking the American banking system. They probably told Obama, 'Stop whatever you're doing—stop supporting Ukraine with the CIA—or we'll release these bank accounts and destroy the banks.' We lost that space war because we weren't thinking about the broader picture."

A few months later, another telling incident occurred: "An American GPS satellite failed in the same way the Russian ones did. I've never heard of a GPS satellite failing that way before or since. I don't know if that was a revenge attack—a message saying, 'Well, we could do it too.'"

Your analysis incorporates cultural and civilizational factors that are often missing from technical discussions of space warfare. How do these deeper historical patterns influence modern conflicts, and what does this tell us about China's approach to space compared to Western military thinking?

Szymanski approaches space warfare through a cultural and civilizational lens, drawing on what he calls the "farmers versus herders" framework—a dynamic he says has shaped conflict for over 10,000 years. "There's been an ongoing conflict for 10,000 years between farmers and herders. We are fundamentally a herder culture," he explains. "Ninety percent of Europeans eat cheese—they're not lactose intolerant. China, on the other hand, has a farming psychology, culture, maybe even a genetic predisposition for farming. They needed group effort to harvest the crops, dig the irrigation systems."

This cultural distinction shows up clearly in military psychology and recruitment. "If you look at the military recruitment ads for China, you'll see 10,000 soldiers marching in columns. The individual feels safe in the group. Then you see American ads—it's gung ho, 'Army of One,' 'I'm gonna kill them all.' Completely different psychology."

He sees evidence of China's collective mindset in their infrastructure capabilities. "I've seen videos where China put up a whole new train station—a huge train station—and changed all the tracks in nine hours. It looks like a video of ants—1,500 people working in perfect coordination. They're really good at that. Eastern culture is more shame-oriented. Go to Thailand and they'll laugh at you openly if you don't dress right. They use that to control people."

He argues this cultural divide also shapes how nations perceive and respond to threats. "When is the last time in the past 1,000 years that China made a major invasion and conquered another country? None. People say China is a big threat. Well, threat to whom? They don't even have landing craft. Are they going to cross 8,000 miles of the Pacific and land in California? They haven't invaded anyone."

To Szymanski, even language tells the story of historical expansion. "Look at the Indo-European language family. Sixty percent of the world's main languages are based on Indo-European—English, French, German. Now let me ask you: how many countries have Chinese as their main language? One. So who is the invader?"

He extends this analysis to how different civilizations approach warfare itself. "Pull up a map online listing all the wars from the past 5,000 years. Ninety percent of them are in Europe. Those guys really like war. They're really good at it."

This extends to tactical understanding as well. "I was good friends with the Navy captain who was in charge of General Schwarzkopf's intel staff during Desert Storm. He said the Arabs just never understood the strategy. When he was explaining the left hook maneuver to panic them, they kept asking, 'What about those Marines right off Kuwait City? When are they going to land?' He said they never got that it was a feint."

The same cultural patterns, he argues, explain why certain approaches don't translate across civilizations. "People ask why the Germanic barbarians didn't just grab all that Roman equipment after defeating them, hire a Roman general, and fight like the Romans. The Romans beat them all the time. Well, it just doesn't work that way. It's not the right culture."

Even maritime expertise follows cultural lines: "I think 80% of all commercial ship captains are British. They've been doing it for 500 years. There's something about the culture—you just end up being better at it."

"It's human mind against human mind," Szymanski emphasizes. "It's adversary commander against adversary commander. It doesn't matter what equipment you have or soldiers—though that does matter. They send messages to each other with the soldiers and equipment to make the adversary change his mind. The ancient Greeks understood this: war is not about killing people and destroying things. It's about making them change their mind. This is something the United States doesn't understand. As I've gotten older, I've realized you're not fighting the war—you're fighting the peace, the geopolitical realignments afterwards."

The psychological dimension of space warfare seems fundamentally different from traditional combat. How does this affect military planning, and what examples of current space warfare are happening that most people don't recognize as conflicts?

"There's a fundamental difference in the psychology of space warfare," Szymanski explains. "It's one thing to be in a trench in Ukraine where your best friend's head just got blown off and blood is all over you. It's another to be controlling drones from Creech Air Force Base outside Las Vegas, flying 8,000 miles away, killing people from high altitude where you don't see the blood and gore. Space takes this even further—it's really just a video game. You're not there with ray guns killing people. You just have simulations on the screen. You don't really see things directly."

That emotional distance, he says, creates both advantages and complications. "Satellites have no mothers. You blow up a satellite and someone might say, 'Oh, I can't get my MTV now, I'm mad.' But there aren't body bags coming back. There's no emotional attachment to equipment the way there is to human casualties." But that same detachment raises a serious problem: how do you confirm what's real? "The favorite technique of space warfare—and there have been weapons for 50 or 60 years, at least 11 space wars that I can prove—the favorite weapon is cyber."

He illustrates the verification problem with a thought experiment. "Imagine you're Ukrainian soldiers in the trenches. You hear Russian tanks revving up early in the morning to attack. This egghead scientist shows up with a black box with a big red button and says, 'This is a cyber weapon. Push the button and it'll kill those tanks. It always worked in the lab. We didn't have enough funding to test it in the field, but I assure you it'll work. Sorry we used up all your budget—we couldn't buy you a bazooka—but this will work. Goodbye.' The tanks come, you push the button, the tanks stop for 30 seconds, then they reboot and come squish you. As a soldier, it's just more emotionally satisfying to see a big smoking hole in the ground where the tank used to be."

Szymanski encountered this verification issue firsthand during a cyber warfare exercise in San Antonio. "It was an official military exercise, unclassified. They built a fake satellite on air bearings with actual satellite antennas pointed at it. They had about 40 cyber warriors from the Space Force attacking each other all week. On Friday, the blue side—the good guys—inserted a logical computer simulation. The red side spent all day attacking what they thought was the satellite, but they were actually attacking a fake electronic box. In space, you can easily fake that something is dead. How do you really know?"

Despite these challenges, he insists space warfare is already happening—just unrecognized by the public. "We're seeing active space warfare constantly. The 'AcidRain' cyberattack on ViaSat happened on February 23, 2022, at 6 PM UTC by Russian military intelligence. It affected tens of thousands of users across Ukraine and Europe. There's constant GPS jamming within Ukraine."

The Starlink incident, he says, is especially telling. "In February 2023, Elon Musk's satellites started falling out of the sky. Around the same time, Russia was complaining that Ukraine had weaponized the Starlink systems Musk had given them. I've seen Starlink antennas mounted on top of missiles. Supposedly, Elon and Putin had a personal phone call. Then these satellites started falling—over 200 satellites were lost in the next two months. I'm theorizing that was a warning shot telling him to stop supporting Ukraine to the degree he was. Everyone has to save face, like with Israel and Iran. You can't be too dramatic. Let them still use Starlink, but not to the degree they were using it, or we'll de-orbit more satellites."

And the method behind such an attack? It's far more elegant than brute force. "People say, 'Oh, there are 14,000 Starlink satellites. You'd need 14,000 times two attack missiles to increase the probability of kill.' No. Thirty-five years ago, I saw cyber attacks conducted through the electrical cord from the wall. There's always a clever way. These Starlink satellites sense how close they're getting to each other and automatically maneuver further away so they don't collide. Well, you could do a cyber attack on one Starlink satellite. They communicate with each other, so it spreads to all of them. You just put a minus sign in front of the algorithm instead of a plus sign. Instead of moving apart, they move closer."

Even more alarming are the incidents quietly acknowledged in closed-door settings. "I was at an Air Force Research Lab board of directors meeting—you know, retired general officers, admirals, assistant secretaries of the Air Force. We went out to dinner, sitting around the table with a senior vice president from Maxar. I'm eating my burrito and say, 'I'm really surprised the Russians haven't taken their mobile laser blinder and attacked the Maxar imagery satellites.' Everyone started giggling around the table. They didn't have to say it, but I could tell—yes, they did."

You've described creative methods of space warfare that go beyond conventional thinking. Can you explain some of these unconventional approaches and why traditional military thinking might miss them?

Szymanski's decades in the field have pushed him far beyond the traditional satellite-versus-satellite mindset. "I have a briefing on 100 ways to attack satellites without creating debris," he says. "For example, we have hundreds of spent rocket boosters floating between low Earth orbit and geosynchronous. They stay there after launching something to geosynchronous orbit. You could hide a space weapon inside one of the exhaust cones for years. No one's going to waste fuel checking all of those. When it's over Antarctica or somewhere remote, you activate it and do something interesting."

His thinking includes using the orbital environment itself as a strategic tool. "You could have a space mine floating close to another satellite for years, and that's perfectly legal. There are no keep-out zones. Satellites normally come close to each other all the time due to orbital dynamics. I did a simulation where I took 100 random space objects—not even active satellites, maybe dead ones—and calculated how long it would take them to match orbits with another 100 random space objects. In 24 hours, 96% of them could match orbits and attack with reasonable fuel expenditure."

Deception, he adds, is key. "Two years ago, something was published in a Chinese journal about a sticky bomb that goes inside the exhaust cone of a satellite. By 'bomb,' they actually meant a thermite charge. It doesn't blow up the satellite—it melts it. There was a hell of a lot of engineering that went into that design."

Even Earth-based systems aren't off-limits in his thinking. "You could get into the supply chain and insert some kind of cyber chip to activate two years later. I've theorized about attacks through the electrical cord from the wall. There's always a clever way."

These ideas often clashed with conventional mindsets during military exercises. "At one exercise, I suggested using two seekers on the same rocket to attack a satellite. Keep one held back as insurance." Another time: "I suggested we destroy all the heavy earth terminals in Iraq except purposely lightly damage one. Six to twelve hours later, when maintenance crews converge to repair it, hit them with anti-personnel weapons. That's what really counts—the trained technicians." The colonel was horrified at the idea of targeting space personnel.

He even questions basic assumptions about debris. "A DMSP or NOAA satellite fell down in the factory once. Who knows? That could be space warfare—some disgruntled janitor pulled the pins."

You've described something called FOBS—Fractional Orbital Bombardment Systems—as perhaps the most dangerous threat that receives no attention. Can you explain what these weapons are, what evidence suggests they're already operational, and what the strategic implications would be if they were used?

"This is perhaps the most concerning threat that receives almost no attention," Szymanski warns. "FOBS—Fractional Orbital Bombardment Systems—are hypervelocity weapons from space. They come down at Mach 26 and three times hotter than the surface of the sun. This is 1960s Russian technology—they developed it to put weapons into orbit and have them come from the south to attack the United States. Originally designed for nuclear weapons, but anything that de-orbits from space hits at these speeds and temperatures."

The physics behind these weapons make them nearly impossible to stop. "Even Nikita Khrushchev said in 1961: 'We placed cosmonauts in space, and we can replace them with other loads that can be directed to any place on Earth.' These hypervelocity weapons don't need explosives. One pound of TNT equivalent is the same as a pound of lead at 12,000 feet per second."

He believes there's already evidence these weapons have been used. "About two years ago in Kiev, the night sky lit up in the middle of the night. A video camera caught it. Looking at the frames—and the timestamps show this happened in the same second—this thing is coming down incredibly fast, and it's coming straight down. It's not a meteor. It has a final flash, probably for final acceleration or slight maneuvering. You can see it dumping what might be heat shields. By the way, if you watch videos of the Iranian hypervelocity attacks on Israel, you'll see the exact same characteristics. You see nothing for a while, then the whole sky lights up because these weapons create their own plasma field."

"The rumor—I can't confirm it as fact—was that this hit a giant NATO-Ukrainian command center 400 feet underground and completely obliterated it." The strategic implications, Szymanski says, are staggering. "If an adversary like China deployed these FOBS systems and had them in space for years, all they'd have to do is give them a slight push out of orbit. They could target every single American aircraft carrier—I think there are twelve around the world. Coming down at Mach 26, three times hotter than the surface of the sun, there's absolutely no defense. A carrier moves at maybe 20 knots. This thing is moving at Mach 26. You can't maneuver out of the way. It would punch a 100-foot hole in the carrier, create a massive steam explosion when something that hot hits cold ocean water. The ship would crack in half and sink in minutes."

That kind of strike would change the balance of power overnight. "Suddenly, they would control all the world's oceans. They could charge transit fees—call them anti-piracy fees. If you don't pay, they'll sink you. All that oil in the Middle East becomes worthless if you can't ship it out. You'd go back 500 years to when ocean control didn't matter. Naval power becomes irrelevant overnight. How is the United States going to walk a couple hundred thousand troops across the Atlantic? They can't defend Europe anymore without a navy. The U.S. instantly becomes a second-rate power."

But what alarms him most is the immediacy. "This could happen tonight. It's 1960s technology. China has been confirmed to possess operational FOBS systems as of 2021—they're ahead of the US in hypersonics. You could drop one on the White House, and I don't care how deep the bunker is—these hypervelocity weapons penetrate 600 feet underground. It's something to be concerned about."

Looking at China's recent satellite maneuvers that were characterized as "dogfighting in space," along with your insights about temporal patterns in conflicts, how should we interpret current space activities and what does this tell us about the evolution of space warfare doctrine?

Szymanski's analysis of recent Chinese satellite maneuvers reveals a far more strategic mindset than the simplistic label of "dogfighting in space" suggests." Back in 2022, China announced in the open press that they were going to use their manipulator satellite, the SJ-21, to grab a supposedly dead satellite called COMPASS G2 or BEIDOU G2 that was drifting around the geosynchronous belt and pull it up to graveyard orbit—which is normally plus or minus 300 kilometers above GEO. But when you look at the details, something doesn't add up. They did all the maneuvering during daylight hours so American optical sensors couldn't see what they were doing. They grabbed the satellite when it was over the Chinese mainland. They towed it many tens of degrees across the geo belt—and fuel is everything in space, so why waste it for no apparent reason? Then they pulled it up not to 300 kilometers, but to 3,000 kilometers—ten times higher than necessary for standard disposal orbits."

The timing, he notes, was particularly revealing. "They did this two days after the U.S. proudly announced the launch of two more GSSAP inspection satellites. To me, they were clearly trying to hide something. Now, why would I readily believe that? Because 35 years ago, I was on a program to do the very same thing—use a spent stage drifting around the geosynchronous belt that wasn't actually dead. It had ASAT capabilities. Nothing's new under the sun."

He urges military planners to consider timing and pattern recognition as part of strategic assessment. "Civilization was invented to reduce drama in your life. When you see a lot of drama, it's usually because people have been trained by Hollywood to create maximum dramatic effect—call it propaganda or whatever. But people are very easy to manipulate emotionally. One thing they don't seem to manipulate well is simultaneity. If a very dramatic event happens on Monday and another dramatic event happens on Wednesday, that doesn't normally happen by chance. They're probably correlated. It usually takes a few days for an adversary to plan and execute a counter-attack."

This principle, he says, is critical for interpreting space conflicts. "Using this framework, it's actually pretty easy to figure out what's fake news." He applies this to the government's claims about Russian nuclear weapons in space: "Last year, the federal government announced that Russia was putting nuclear weapons in orbit. I've been in this business a long time. I remember the 1960s when they did all these nuclear tests in space—the radiation killed satellites indiscriminately. Now think about it: Russia uses more satellites than we do because of their northern latitude. They use Molniya orbits instead of geosynchronous. So they're going to detonate a nuke in space that kills their own satellites and those of their allies like Iran and China? Does that make any sense? Everyone was arguing about how we need to worry about this threat. I asked them: under what escalation ladder would they actually use that?"

He points to other examples of temporal signaling. "In May 2014, a Russian Proton-M launch vehicle carrying the Express-AM4R heavy telecom satellite—which would have covered eastern Ukraine—crashed in a Chinese village just as Vladimir Putin was conducting a diplomatic visit to Beijing to sell Russian space capabilities. I can't prove it was intentional, but the timing is delicious."

Another example reveals subtle geopolitical signaling. "In February 2022, Russia shot down one of its own supposedly dead weather satellites. That was a warning shot. Weather satellites are sun-synchronous, which means they were sending warnings about American imagery satellites. Then they claimed the space debris would endanger the International Space Station. But Russia was sending cosmonauts up there a few weeks later and launching a couple-hundred-million-dollar module a few months after that. The message was clear: they're so serious about space that they're about to invade Ukraine."

Given the global nature of space and the speed at which space wars unfold, how does this change traditional concepts of warfare strategy, and what fundamental shifts in thinking does the U.S. need to make to be prepared for future space conflicts?

"Space is global—it's not tactical," Szymanski emphasizes. "A satellite covers a large portion of the Earth. If you want to take out someone's satellite during the Ukrainian conflict, you can attack it from the South Pacific or anywhere along its orbital track. You don't have to attack it in theater. Even tactical actions have strategic implications because space is inherently strategic."

This global reach introduces strategic complexities that traditional military thinking has yet to internalize. "Let's say you're in a conflict with Iran and want to deny them the ability to image Israel. You might use laser blinders, but can you cover the whole country? And here's the real problem: Iranians can download commercial imagery data anywhere on Earth. They could download it in Thailand and send it via submarine cables back to Iran. So what do you do? Drop a bomb on a terminal in Thailand? Blow up a submarine cable? Probably not. But nevertheless, you're talking about World War in one way or another."

The covert nature of space warfare creates both opportunities and risks. "Military actions in space are hidden from public view. You can win or lose wars without getting the populace upset. Governments love secrecy because they don't want to look bad. But it also means different parts of your own government might be conducting operations without coordination. Is the Space Force going to attack a satellite and tell the Navy? No."

This compartmentalization has frustrated Szymanski for years. "I've been on twelve different anti-satellite programs, and I kept telling them: before we spend hundreds of millions—now billions—on these systems, we need to get the State Department involved early. Because at the National Security Council, when you want to push that big red button, State will say, 'This is terrible, it'll ruin our diplomatic efforts.' If you got them involved early, they could help adjust the program to be more acceptable. But the generals always said, 'No, Paul, we don't trust the State Department.' Even a former assistant secretary of state in my LinkedIn group agreed—he said, 'I wouldn't trust them either. They never met a treaty they didn't love, even if it's detrimental to the U.S.'"

The speed of space conflict is another critical factor. "My simulations show a real space war—where hundreds of things are happening—is over within 24 to 48 hours. You don't have days and weeks to maneuver satellites into position. You have to fight with what you've got."

That's why Szymanski stresses pre-positioning. "Space is fundamentally information warfare. If you're facing a dictatorship where soldiers avoid independent thinking—they don't want to get lined up and shot—you might pre-position weapons that target command and control. Maybe physically in Australia, or in certain key orbits. But if you're fighting Western forces—remember in World War Two, German generals complained that Americans didn't even follow their own doctrine manuals—taking out command and control won't stop them. They'll keep fighting independently. So maybe you pre-position space weapons targeting signals intelligence or imagery instead."

Ultimately, he calls for a total overhaul in strategic mindset. "Space is strategic by definition. Satellites cover the world. During a war in Ukraine, you could attack a satellite from a Navy ship in the South Atlantic. We need to think globally."

One of his most important insights concerns how proximity in space is misunderstood. "How do you define closeness between two objects in space? The Space Force defines it by physical distance. I define closeness by the time and fuel required to match orbits with your target. A satellite can be on the opposite side of the Earth, but if it's at the same altitude and inclination, it takes minimal time and fuel to phase into an attack position. You need different situational maps that understand these orbital dynamics."

He emphasizes the need for integrated thinking: "You have to integrate space maps with Army situation maps on the ground. That's why you're there. The Space Force might hate me for saying this, but you're there to support the ground battlefield. You're not defending space colonies. Yet I've met Army generals who think satellites can hover over battlefields."

How does deception play into space warfare, and what should people understand about the information environment surrounding space conflicts?

Szymanski's background gives him a unique lens on how space conflicts are concealed. "Cover stories are easy to create for space because you can't directly image events easily. When you shoot down an aircraft, you have wreckage on the ground with serial numbers on missile parts. In space, a satellite just stops working one morning. You have all these cover stories."

That understanding of institutional deceit informs his analytical framework for interpreting public narratives. "I think there are usually two reasons for everything. There's the flashing billboard reason—the emotional, childish, even animalistic reason they tell the public. Then there's the real reason, which is in the sewage flowing underneath the billboard."

This, he says, is crucial to understanding modern conflict narratives. "This whole thing about countries being evil or good versus bad—that's childish. Churchill had it right: there are no permanent enemies or friends, only permanent interests. It's just like Orwell's 1984—we're attacking them, now they're our friends, back and forth. That's the reality."

Szymanski applies this framework broadly, even to current conflicts. "Being Polish, I might have a biased position, but I consider the Russian-Ukraine conflict a NATO proxy war where they view Slavic people as disposable, whether Ukrainian or Russian. That's where the word 'slave' comes from—for 1,000 years, they were exploiting Eastern Europeans. Do a thought experiment: What if Italy attacked France? Would we give $350 billion worth of military gear to kill as many Italians as possible? Of course not. We'd say, 'Wait, my neighbor's Italian, he seems like a nice guy. Why are we bombing the Colosseum and destroying the Vatican?'"

Even military unit insignia can tell hidden stories. "In my collection of space warfare unit patches, there's one that celebrates a major security incident that could have caused the downfall of an allied government. But I can't tell you which one. When I worked at the Pentagon, we had a saying about classified programs—they were 'behind the green door.' There was a hallway with nothing but blank walls except for one green door where all the SAP programs were housed."

Looking at the current tensions with Russia and the potential for escalation in Ukraine, what patterns from the 2014 space war should we be watching for, and how might space conflicts develop differently this time?

"The Russians have already been trying to deter the U.S. from space attacks," Szymanski says, referencing their November 2021 anti-satellite test. "They conducted it despite great risk to their own cosmonauts, then threatened US GPS satellites and stated that cyber attacks on satellites can cause terrestrial wars. They're trying to prevent a repeat of what happened in the 2014 Ukrainian conflict."

He sees the current rhetoric as part of Russia's established doctrine. "Their doctrine is 'escalate to de-escalate,' combined with cost imposition as a strategy. Back in December, Putin was threatening to nuke America. Tucker Carlson was talking about how we're at the greatest risk of nuclear war. Then nothing happened. This is what they do all the time."

But this time, he argues, the dynamics are different. "If Russia invades Ukraine again, there will be a major space war initiated by the United States. Attacks against Russian imagery, communications, and navigation satellites will be designed to limit Russian force effectiveness on the ground."

Szymanski expects the conflict to unfold through a gradual escalation ladder. "At first, the cyber attacks will have reversible effects and be non-attributable. But Russia will still understand who's conducting them. If these reversible attacks don't deter Russian actions, then we'll see different cyber attacks with more permanent effects. This might include laser blinders against imagery assets that can later increase power to cause permanent damage to optical sensors."

He anticipates broader international participation. "Some key European nations may covertly participate in these cyber and laser attacks to prove they're part of the team and to justify further funding for their ASAT programs."

Russia's response, he predicts, will be more sophisticated than in 2014. "The Russians will counter with more physical attacks against satellites, creating a high probability of space debris. They'll also conduct cyber attacks against space-related ground systems. They might cyber attack the US banking system again and hold it hostage against further space attacks and economic sanctions. As we saw in 2014, severe space actions can escalate to linked ground attacks."

Yet the overall strategic environment has shifted. "Most if not all of these attacks will be invisible to ordinary people on Earth. This is why space has become the preferred option for nations—you can escalate without triggering ground conflicts. Space attacks have a certain acceptability due to legal overflight rules and the lack of human casualties."

He offers an unconventional but telling intelligence indicator: "Check if the U.S. Space Force is particularly busy right now with late-night efforts. Pizza deliveries are good INTEL."

China's role will be crucial. "The Chinese will be watching intently, learning key lessons. There's a slight chance they might participate in a minor way to test some of their systems and to 'stir the pot' among their adversaries."

And the preparations are already underway. "I'm sure Rendezvous and Proximity Operations spacecraft—these 'inspector' satellites—are already positioning themselves for the coming battle. This includes U.S., Russian, and Chinese RPO satellites. They're advertised as simple observers, but after spending hundreds of millions to develop and launch these systems, it's way too tempting not to include small ASAT capabilities—cyber, laser, or manipulator arms that can cut cables."

The stakes, he emphasizes, are higher than most realize. "A smart adversary would take out U.S. eyes and ears in space before initiating ground conflict. This requires pre-positioning ASAT weapons, which takes days to weeks. If the U.S. has good Space Domain Awareness and intelligence assets, we might detect these space attack preparations and get strategic warning of coming ground attacks."

As someone who has been documenting and predicting space conflicts for decades, what do you see as the inevitable trajectory of space warfare, and what should people understand about conflicts that are already happening above their heads?

"Space wars are inevitable because space is too important for potential adversaries to ignore," Szymanski concludes. "As Trotsky said, 'You may not be interested in war, but war is interested in you.' You can be an ostrich with your head in the sand saying 'We don't want space war.' Well, it's already happened, and it's going to continue happening. If you just sit there saying no, you're dead. We need to grow up."

For both the public and military planners, the key insight is understanding the hidden nature of these conflicts. "Most major space wars will be over within 24 to 48 hours—long before we know what hit us, who did it, or what their objectives were. A smart adversary will take out our eyes and ears in space before initiating major terrestrial conflicts."

Szymanski's perspective is shaped by deep historical knowledge—his personal library contains over 3,000 volumes, including 800 on military history. "We've had a major war every 20 to 25 years since before the country was founded. That's the cycle time of a new generation. I found an old book from the 1920s at the Army library in Washington, DC, where prominent people argued that the purpose of war was to get rid of young people so older men would have more women for themselves. It sounds crazy, but there might be a natural cycle there."

He recalls another historical parallel: "In the 19th century, when we were making peace treaties with Indian tribes, the young braves would complain: 'How am I supposed to show my bravery and get the best woman if I don't go to war?' There's a natural cycle there. Maybe I'm not a psychiatrist, but there's something to it."

For Szymanski, the answer isn't just better technology—it's better thinking. "We need a space warfare think tank. We need doctrine that's properly integrated with terrestrial operations. But more importantly, we need to understand that space conflict is ultimately about information dominance. And information wars are about changing minds, not destroying hardware."

The implications go far beyond the battlefield. "If we lose in space, it's not just about satellites. Let's say you lose against China—suddenly all those countries closer to China might think, 'The US isn't as strong as we thought. Maybe we should start aligning with China.' These are the real consequences. That's what space warfare is really about—global power relationships and who shapes the future."

"The biggest challenge is getting people to understand this is already happening," he emphasizes. "During Desert Storm, according to a Navy captain who was in charge of Schwarzkopf's intel staff, Schwarzkopf put the French special forces on the leftmost flank to make them most vulnerable, ensuring France would turn off their SPOT imagery satellite. That is space warfare—economic and diplomatic action against your own ally."

Looking ahead, he sees both opportunity and risk in space's unique nature. "Space provides additional rungs on the conflict escalation ladder where you can demonstrate resolve without getting the populace upset. I was told that in World War One, the British government didn't want to go to war against Germany—it was just another Franco-Prussian war. But the yellow press kept talking about Germans bayoneting babies, forcing public support for war. Up to 60 million people died from that emotion-driven decision. World War Two was just an extension—another 80 million died."

"Space gives adversaries a forum to show intent and resolve without the general population becoming aware and forcing escalation." His final warning is blunt and urgent. "We really need to understand what's happening in space. The technology already exists to collapse global power structures overnight. You could drop a FOBS weapon on the White House, and I don't care how deep the bunker is—these hypervelocity weapons penetrate 600 feet underground. The question isn't whether space warfare will continue—it's whether we'll recognize it when it happens and respond appropriately."

Author's Analysis

What emerges from this conversation with Paul Szymanski is a uniquely coherent—and deeply unsettling—portrait of space warfare. Because he has both crafted the intellectual architecture of modern space doctrine and witnessed real-world space conflicts, Szymanski can knit together technical detail, operational experience, and strategic context in ways neither scholars nor pure practitioners can manage. 

The most striking revelation is his orbital-mechanics “smoking gun” proving that the 2014 GLONASS outages were an intentional information-warfare strike the United States ultimately lost. By showing that Russian satellites failed in precise numerical order every time they crossed Pine Gap, he transforms what many dismissed as coincidence into documented history—and, more important, exposes how Russia used those space shots to shape events on Earth. 

That episode highlights America’s core vulnerability: an inability to think beyond single-satellite duels toward integrated information and economic warfare. When Szymanski says “most people in the Space Force think tactically” while real space wars end in 24–48 hours, he is indicating a planning culture still anchored to Cold-War timelines and debris-count metrics. 

Equally important is his cultural framing of “farmers versus herders,” which recasts China as fundamentally defensive and group-oriented while portraying Western militaries as individualistic and aggressive. Noting that China has mounted no major invasion in a millennium while Europe has hosted most recorded wars forces a rethink of who is truly expansionist in the heavens. 

The FOBS scenario elevates that rethink to existential stakes. A simultaneous hyper-velocity strike on all twelve U.S. aircraft carriers would, in Szymanski’s words, make the United States “a second-rate power overnight.” The technology is decades old; the capability appears fielded today. Ignoring it because it feels implausible mirrors pre-1941 complacency about carrier aviation. 

Szymanski’s catalogue of current, largely unseen operations—Starlink spoofing, Maxar laser-dazzling, ViaSat and GPS cyberattacks—shows space warfare is already routine. The public’s ignorance is precisely the point: leaders can escalate in orbit without the blowback that body bags create on land. 

His emphasis on simultaneity supplies a diagnostic tool. The 2014 chain of GLONASS failures, Manhattan bank hacks, and sudden U.S. diplomatic retreat illustrates how closely spaced events, separated by domains, can form a single strategic pulse. Analysts who view them in isolation will always misread cause and effect. 

Psychologically, space conflict feels like a video game: satellites have no “mothers,” cyber effects lack the visceral proof of a smoking tank. That distance lowers the threshold for initiating attacks while making it harder to rally public will once deterrence fails—a dynamic every strategist must factor into escalation models. 

Szymanski’s warning about rhetoric is likewise prescient. Phrases such as “dogfighting in space” may animate budgets but also risk creating a self-fulfilling prophecy. History shows that careless language can pave the road to wars nobody wants. 

His prescriptions—link space and terrestrial campaigns, pivot from hardware destruction to information dominance, and remember that wars are contests of minds—would force a wholesale rewrite of U.S. doctrine. They echo Clausewitz more than Kubrick, yet remain largely absent from current Space Force discourse. 

What lends his critique unusual authority is his track record: the GLONASS warning came true, the Starlink losses materialized, and laser blinding incidents he predicted are now whispered about in classified circles. When someone with that batting average says tomorrow’s decisive blow will arrive “before we even know we’re at war,” prudence demands we listen. 

The interview also reveals a man tired of being a “dusty reference book” opened only after crises erupt. Given accelerating militarization and the time-compressed nature of orbital combat, a reactive approach could prove catastrophic. Acting on Szymanski’s insights—rather than merely admiring them—may be the difference between retaining strategic credibility and awakening to find the high ground irretrievably lost. 

About Paul Szymanski

Paul Szymanski is widely considered the father of modern space warfare doctrine, with over 50 years of experience developing space warfare theory, policy, strategies, and tactics. His work is required reading at U.S. Space Force officer training schools, and he has briefed military leaders in 23 countries through over 200 presentations.

He has been published extensively in Aviation Week and other military journals, and has developed what is likely the world's largest unclassified space warfare discussion group on LinkedIn, with over 28,000 hand-picked members including 2,555 general officers and admirals, members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and personnel from the Secretary of Defense office, Congress, and the White House.

Szymanski has supported numerous organizations including the White House National Security Council, Pentagon, Air Force Research Labs, Space Command, and NATO Allied Command Transformation. During his career, he held 86 different security clearances and has been involved in a dozen different anti-satellite weapons programs.

His recent books include "The Battle Beyond: Fighting and Winning the Coming War in Space" series and "Mastering Space War: The Advanced Strategies, Technologies, and Theories Needed For Victory." He maintains a space warfare YouTube channel and continues to consult on space warfare doctrine and strategy.

For more information, reach out to Paul at Paul.Szymanski@satellitewar.com.

For further reading, please see:

• “The Battle Beyond: Fighting and Winning the Coming War in Space”
• “The Battle Beyond—Fighting and Winning the Coming War in Space - Supplemental Details – Volume 1: Space Warfighting Detailed Lists of Attack Options”
• “The Battle Beyond—Fighting and Winning the Coming War in Space - Supplemental Details – Volume 2: Space Warfighting Detailed Lists of Satellite Attack Options”
• “The Battle Beyond—Fighting and Winning the Coming War in Space—Supplemental Details Volume 3: How to Fight and Win Space Wars!”
• “The Battle Beyond—Fighting and Winning the Coming War in Space – Sun Tzu and the Art of War Applied to Space War - Volume 1: Ancient Chinese Military Strategies Applied to Outer Space Warfare Strategies”
• “Mastering Space War: The Advanced Strategies, Technologies, and Theories Needed For Victory”
• “Global Perspectives on Space Power”
• Paul’s Space Warfare YouTube Channel: How to Fight and Win Space Wars
• Support Paul’s work on Patreon where you can view additional briefings on space warfare
• Paul’s Primary Briefings:
  • How to Fight and Win the Coming Space War – by Paul Szymanski
  • Space Operational Art and Design (SOAD)
  • Space Warfare Analysis Tools (SWAT)