Summary
On November 15 2021 Russia tested an anti-satellite weapon, shattering one of their own satellites into over a thousand pieces. This space debris will orbit the Earth for a very long time, posing a threat to space travel and other satellites.
With space increasingly becoming a site of military activity, is war in space a real possibility? In this episode James is joined by Major General Robert H. Latiff, who retired from the US Air Force in 2006, to find out whether human conflict could really cross into the final frontier.
Robert's new book Future Peace: Technology, Aggression, and the Rush to War is available here.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | On November 15th, 2021, Russia tested and demonstrated an anti-satellite weapon, |
| 0:07.8 | shattering one of its own satellites into 1,500 pieces. |
| 0:12.4 | These pieces will orbit the Earth for a very long time, posing a threat to space travel and other satellites. |
| 0:20.0 | But it also raises questions about the extent of which space is increasingly becoming a site of military activity. |
| 0:27.0 | I'm your host James Rogers, and here on the warfare podcast, we wanted to find out the extent to which war in space is a real possibility. |
| 0:34.7 | To find out I invited Major General Bob Laffdiff onto the podcast. Bob retired from the |
| 0:40.0 | US Air Force in 2006 after working predominantly on aerospace defense issues and he continues |
| 0:46.1 | to work on these issues as a professor at both Notre Dame and George Mason. |
| 0:50.8 | He's also the author of a new book, Future Peace, Technology, Aggression and The Rush to War, |
| 0:56.8 | which is out in March 2022. |
| 0:59.2 | This is a fascinating episode where we learn so much about the history of military |
| 1:03.6 | activity in space we debunk a few myths and we pause to consider the extent to |
| 1:08.8 | which weaponization and so-called militarization is really taking place in space. |
| 1:15.0 | Enjoy. Hi Bob thanks for taking the time today. How you doing? |
| 1:32.7 | I'm doing just fine. Thank you for having me. |
| 1:34.8 | Not a problem at all. Where are you in the world? |
| 1:37.6 | I am in the Washington, D.C. area, just outside of Washington and Northern Virginia. |
| 1:42.8 | In the seat of power, the perfect place |
| 1:45.8 | to be discussing the future of space and war |
| 1:49.1 | and maybe a little bit of that history as well. We are actually talking at a time on the exact day where the Chinese |
| 1:56.7 | have just released their new white paper on the future of space and governing space. So this is prime time to be talking about all of this. But before we go into that, |
| 2:06.4 | could we hear a little bit about your own background, your own history? When did you first join the |
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