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National Security Space Strategy: Unclassified Summary

During the past 50 years, U.S. leadership in space activities has benefited the global economy, enhanced our national security, strengthened international relationships, advanced scientific discovery, and improved our way of life.

Space capabilities provide the United States and our allies unprecedented advantages in national decision-making, military operations, and homeland security. Space systems provide national security decision-makers with unfettered global access and create a decision advantage by enabling a rapid and tailored response to global challenges. Moreover, space systems are vital to monitoring strategic and military developments as well as supporting treaty monitoring and arms control verification. Space systems are also critical in our ability to respond to natural and man-made disasters and monitor longterm environmental trends. Space systems allow people and governments around the world to see with clarity, communicate with certainty, navigate with accuracy, and operate with assurance.

Maintaining the benefits afforded to the United States by space is central to our national security, but an evolving strategic environment increasingly challenges U.S. space advantages. Space, a domain that no nation owns but on which all rely, is becoming increasingly congested, contested, and competitive. These challenges, however, also present the United States with opportunities for leadership and partnership. Just as the United States helped promote space security in the 20th century, we will build on this foundation to embrace the opportunities and address the challenges of this century.

The National Security Space Strategy charts a path for the next decade to respond to the current and projected space strategic environment. Leveraging emerging opportunities will strengthen the U.S. national security space posture while maintaining and enhancing the advantages the United States gains from space.

Our strategy requires active U.S. leadership enabled by an approach that updates, balances, and integrates all of the tools of U.S. power. The Department of Defense (DoD) and the Intelligence Community (IC), in coordination with other departments and agencies, will implement this strategy by using it to inform planning, programming, acquisition, operations, and analysis.

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