The Strait of Hormuz is exposing the future of space warfare, as ship access is still very restricted.

The Guardian, 22 Apr. 2026

Headlines make it seem as though a hostile space domain emerged in 2022. It didn’t. It has been building for many years, long before the Space Force was created. Near-peer adversaries have steadily increased both capability and intent in countering the space-based advantages the United States has relied on for decades. Nearly 20 years ago, China demonstrated it could shoot down its own satellites from the ground. In 2025, Russia’s now-infamous nested satellites began conducting proximity operations after sitting quietly on orbit. Most recently, General Guetlein has testified in open hearings about China’s ability to maneuver satellites in ways that should command attention.

This is concerning, of course, but the solution has not changed. In fact, as it has become more urgent, it has become easier. Policymakers and investors need to step back from the media hype and recognize that the solution remains the same: deploy what General Saltzman calls “minimum viable capabilities” now. All the essential sensor, satellite, and ground technologies have been available for years, but the emergence of a robust commercial marketplace now makes it possible to deploy capability at scale and at the speed required to overwhelm adversaries.

The most important lesson from conflicts in Ukraine and Iran is that modern military resilience comes from numbers — not size, not complexity.

The current standoff in the Strait of Hormuz offers a clear example. Low-cost rockets and drones allow a relatively small nation, with a GDP comparable to the state of Missouri, to put the global economy at risk. A limited number of actors, using large quantities of low-cost weapons with precision, are disrupting a significant share of global energy flows. Other shipping has slowed as vessels wait for the system to stabilize.

Brittleness is what happens when critical infrastructure lacks redundancy and relies on a limited number of high-value assets. Space is no different.

Another lesson we are relearning from Iran that is not getting enough attention: We go to war with what we have, not with what’s planned. When the next space crisis or conflict arises, we will not be able to fight with space capabilities still in development. We will fight with what is already operating on orbit.

Programs built around hype cycles that overpromise exquisite capability five or ten years from now do not deter anyone today. They do not shape behavior because adversaries know most will never come to fruition. They do not change an adversary’s military calculus. Only deployed capability does.

Much like the real pump and dump schemes iconically depicted in The Wolf of Wall Street, hype cycles do little more than reward those who exit early, long before results are delivered.

That is why fielded systems matter. It is why speed and scale matter. And it is why architectures that can be built, launched, and replenished quickly will outperform those that exist only in PowerPoint when conflict arises.

Government engineers must move beyond the instinct to design solutions from their desks inside the Pentagon. Instead of following the false lead of hype cycles, they need a better understanding of the real industrial base. They should visit factories, and review performance data from the field. They should not be swayed by polished sales pitches. To understand what can be deployed next year, leaders must focus on what exists today, not on concepts that promise delivery years from now. Then they should compete solutions against meaningful performance specifications and pay only when capability is delivered and proven. The NewSpace Nexus’ iconic annual report summarizes it succinctly: “Technical capability is no longer the primary bottleneck… Alignment is the critical variable necessary to enable the speed and scale required to ensure national security.”

Need enhanced propulsion? Define realistic performance requirements from demonstrated suppliers and allow them to compete. Need a unique payload that only one company currently produces? That’s also workable but requires that the contractor make it available to other qualified bidders while ensuring interface standards are clearly defined so others can integrate it. Want speed? Use competitive fixed-price contracts, paired with incentives for early delivery.

There are many ways to drive the outcomes both the warfighters and taxpayers expect from industry. What must be off the table is the same playbook we continue to fall back on: Overclassifying programs and imposing unnecessary specifications that limit competition and reduce congressional oversight.

These approaches may seem expedient in the moment, but they have proven slower and more damaging over time. The consequences are well understood by those of us who worked to procure space launches before SpaceX introduced meaningful competition for NASA and the Air Force.

If we do not finally take the old approach off the table, very soon we will return to an era of single-thread providers, limited competition and, most importantly, an industrial base that cannot scale when needed. It ends with the perfect archnemesis to a robust US Space Force: brittle architectures delivered by just a few contractors with more political leverage than the agencies meant to oversee them.

As we look to the next decade, the fundamentals still apply. While there is strength in numbers, larger satellites are simply larger targets. Maneuver always matters, but it is only one principle of war among many. Quantity delivers its own form of positional advantage.

Resilience, redundancy, and the ability to replace capability quickly will determine outcomes. Breakthroughs are not required. What matters is the ability to build, deploy and compete at scale. Everything else is a delay the battlefield will not forgive.