EPISODE 48: Our digital competition with China heats up

Disinformation Wars

In this episode of DISINFORMATION WARS, host Ilan Berman speaks with Col. Peter Garretson, AFPC Senior Fellow in Defense Studies and former chief futurist for the U.S. Air Force, regarding China’s recent strides forward in space internet, and what it might mean for the unfolding “great power competition” between Washington and Beijing.

BIO:

Peter Garretson is a Senior Fellow in Defense Studies at the American Foreign Policy Council and a strategy consultant who focuses on space and defense. He is the coauthor of Scramble for the Skies: The Great Power Competition to Control the Resources of Outer Space and the host of AFPC's Space Strategy Podcast.
Prior to joining AFPC, Col. Garretson spent over a decade as a transformational strategist for the Department of the Air Force, where he served as a strategy and policy advisor for the Chief of Staff of the Air Force, as Division Chief of Irregular Warfare Strategy Plans and Policy, and as the Chief of the Future Technology Branch of Air Force Strategic Planning. As an instructor of Joint Warfare at Air University, he laid critical foundations for the future of American and allied spacepower, initiating the Schriever Scholars (America's premier program to develop space strategists), the Space Horizons Task Force (America's think tank for space), and developing the rationale for a U.S. Space Force. He taught courses in war theory, joint planning, and national security implications of artificial intelligence.

MATERIALS REFERENCED IN THIS EPISODE:

— Richard M. Harrison and Peter Garretson, The Next Space Race: A Blueprint for American Primacy (Praeger Security International, 2023), https://www.amazon.com/Next-Space-Race-Blueprint-International/dp/1440880808/ref=sr_1_1?crid=UFE24YXJ64RY&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.U5jc8fFfd3tUDF3jfbDynL9Nuq9BLl_DkRXTRmNuvtM76WLNhBJZaoe0LEhH22OR8D_kBygP0ixcMFkPOGTkc1oBimuINW2JB20AeEYleaWJNzMgO-S-zrz2EEtnDy1NnoxVCNxzUTBDnCNN0Peg2OjrzjVZtN3LlliApM3LuFnUTGrhiRdcBHpx1sf6ahlcExyjdN2OH56fXcxfoyN4tLDnSrzVpGoyQvZ1JgxF0Dw.XqO3ZsBLh237M-t_eWtecmX8EF7h1Jfrq6IyoMNBlrg&dib_tag=se&keywords=the+next+space+race&qid=1725217225&sprefix=the+next+space+race%2Caps%2C89&sr=8-1.

— Peter Garretson and Richard M. Harrison, “Reacting to Major Space Events at or Below Geostationary Orbit - After Action Report 1,” AFPC Special Report, July 5, 2024, https://www.afpc.org/publications/special-reports/reacting-to-major-space-events-at-or-below-geostationary-obit-after-action-report-1.