India, Sept. 17 -- The American disclosure of having on-orbit weapons raises the prospect of a new arms race in outer space, where international rules offer few safeguards

For decades, Washington maintained careful ambiguity about what orbits above us. That ended Monday at the Air, Space and Cyber Conference in Maryland, when Air Force Secretary Troy Meink told a packed hall that the United States now possesses "on-orbit space control weapons" able to defend American forces against hostile action. By his own admission, this was no slip - the phrasing, he said, was "very well thought out". For the first time, a senior Pentagon official confirmed what analysts had long assumed but no administration had said aloud: America has weaponised or...