00:00The first shots of World War III will almost certainly be fired in space.
00:05Because the priority in modern warfare is to make the enemy blind and deaf.
00:11And that means taking out the satellites that Russia, China, the United States,
00:16and other powers use to see everything on the ground.
00:20The most common way is electromagnetic jamming.
00:24That happens all the time. It doesn't even make the headlines.
00:26More aggressive measures include lasers or missiles fired from space or from the ground.
00:33Another technique, ramming satellites.
00:36Defense experts told me that the Russians have satellites that are like nesting dolls.
00:41They open up to release other satellites that can clean up space junk or destroy satellites.
00:49China has satellites with robotic arms that can become wrecking balls.
00:53The biggest threat is space nukes.
00:57According to the U.S. intelligence community, Russia is preparing to put a nuclear weapon up there in space.
01:05If Moscow ever thought it was about to lose a war on the ground, it might strike first in space.
01:11And that might set humanity back by a century.
01:15Space nukes wouldn't kill humans on Earth directly, but a detonation would destroy all satellites in an orbit and leave
01:23it unusable.
01:25Credit cards, GPS, gas stations, agriculture, almost the entire modern economy would be disrupted.
01:33The more space assets a country has, the more vulnerable it is to this kind of warfare.
01:38America and Europe are most dependent on satellites, with China rapidly catching up.
01:44Russia is less dependent.
01:46The brightest minds in space warfare are now working on this problem.
01:51And they know that the best strategy is not necessarily the one that will win the next war, but the
01:58one that will prevent it.
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