US Space Force General: America law must turn and punch in space as China’s satellite fleet explodes

The head of the US Space Force’s newly created combat command has warned that China’s massive expansion of surveillance satellites now poses a direct threat to American naval and air forces in the Pacific, and says the United States can no longer afford to play purely defensive in orbit.
Lieutenant General Gregory Gagnon, commander of US Space Force Combat Forces Command, told reporters on the sidelines of the Air & Space Forces Association warfare symposium on Wednesday that Beijing has deliberately built “the second-best remote sensing architecture in the world from outer space.”
China’s orbital fleet has surged from fewer than 100 satellites when President Xi Jinping took power in 2013 to nearly 1,900 today, Gagnon said. More than 500 of those are remote-sensing satellites “purposely designed and networked” to track US aircraft carriers, destroyers, cruisers and combat aircraft across the Pacific — feeding real-time targeting data to China’s long-range precision weapons.
“Those have been built with a purpose,” Gagnon said. “The purpose is to cue their long-range fire weapons.”
The general, whose command was stood up in November to shift the Space Force toward warfighting and anti-satellite operations, drew a blunt analogy to air combat when asked how the US is responding to the growing threat to its own satellites.
“Protecting and defending satellites can’t simply be done by protect and defend,” he said. “You can’t run away from a bully forever. Sometimes you got to turn around and punch.”
Gagnon declined to detail specific US countermeasures, saying he did not want to hand Beijing or Moscow a roadmap. He likened satellite protection to aircraft self-defense but stressed that passive measures alone are insufficient.
The general also flagged spaceplanes as an emerging arena of intense US-China competition, though he offered no further details on American efforts in that domain.
The remarks come as the Pentagon increasingly views space as a potential warfighting domain rather than a sanctuary, with China’s rapid satellite buildup seen as a key enabler for any future conflict over Taiwan or in the broader Indo-Pacific.
Gagnon’s comments underscore the Space Force’s evolving mission: moving beyond traditional space surveillance to active defense and, when necessary, offensive operations to ensure the US can maintain freedom of action in orbit.
The story is based on Gagnon’s statements reported by The War Zone and carried by the South China Morning Post.