Space Weapons Report Adds Geopolitical Risk to Energy Operations

OilPrice.com reported that a new United States intelligence report warns China is developing energy weapons and spaceplanes that could be used for military operations in outer space, with the capability of using directed-energy weapons in orbit by the end of the 2020s. The report, from the US Defence Intelligence Agency (DIA), was published Sunday and is titled Challenges to Security in Space.

According to OilPrice.com, the DIA report includes a rare image of a newly developed reusable spaceplane. The outlet said it is the first time the U.S. government has offered an estimated timeline for China’s development of space-based energy weapons.

For Bakken operators, the report is not an oil supply bulletin, but it touches infrastructure that energy companies depend on. North Dakota oil production, pipeline logistics, field data transmission and remote monitoring rely on communications and navigation networks that can be affected by disruptions to satellites. The report says Beijing already has established earthbound energy weapons capable of disrupting, degrading or damaging satellites. It also says those capabilities will be stronger by the end of the 2020s, with the ability to impact satellites beyond low Earth orbit.

The report warns that new space-based energy weapons would add an even more dangerous disruptive capability to China’s arsenal. The DIA cited Chinese military statements about directed-energy weapons, noting that in January 2021 PLA media asserted laser weapons were entering a golden age and cited dazzling, or temporarily blinding a sensor, as one operational use.

Not all analysts agree with the timeline. Victoria Samson, chief director of space security and stability at the Secure World Foundation, told the South China Morning Post, “I would be very surprised if China fielded space-based laser weapons by the late 2020s,” according to OilPrice.com.

The report also highlights the propaganda battle. OilPrice.com said China has blasted back at the U.S. assessment. The state-run propaganda news site Global Times released a report titled “US intelligence hypes Chinese, Russian space threats while accelerating its own military buildup in orbit.” It wrote, “Like Don Quixote tilting at windmills he mistook for menacing giants, Washington appears to be sounding the alarm over alleged threats in outer space, even as it presses ahead with its own military buildup in orbit.”

The outlet said the Chinese criticism has a factual basis because the United States has been preparing for the development for some time. It quoted U.S. Space Force Gen. Stephen Whiting, speaking in August at the annual Space & Missile Defense (SMD) Symposium in Huntsville, Alabama. “From the broadest perspective, maybe the most critical characteristic of the responsive and adaptive national security space architecture called for in the President’s Ensuring American Space Superiority executive order is that survivability matters at least as much as performance,” Whiting said. “In space, there is no safe harbor. You can’t dig a trench or build a shield.”

For North Dakota royalty owners and Bakken operators, the significance is indirect but real. The Williston Basin is not a battlefield, but its energy infrastructure depends on communications and sensing networks that can be affected by satellite disruptions. The report does not quantify Bakken-specific costs, but it shows that space competition is becoming part of the geopolitical backdrop for energy operations.