Trump Adviser Says U.S. Military Must Prepare for Combat Near the Moon
The statement marks a formal extension of U.S. Military planning doctrine into cislunar space, a domain where no binding international rules of engagement currently exist.
The top military adviser to President Donald Trump has stated publicly that U.S. Armed forces must prepare to conduct combat operations in the vicinity of the moon, according to a report published September 16, 2026 by The Hindu. The adviser was not identified by a specific title in the available source material; The Hindu described the individual as Trump's top military adviser.
The statement represents one of the most expansive articulations of U.S. Military ambition in space to date. Prior official U.S. Space defense posture has focused on Earth orbit, satellite protection, and the operational mandate of U.S. Space Command, which was re-established as a unified combatant command in August 2019 under then-President Trump's first term, according to U.S. Space Command public records.
Cislunar space, the volume of space between Earth and the moon, has drawn increasing attention from defense planners in recent years. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency launched a cislunar tracking program called the Novel Orbital and Moon Manufacturing, Materials and Mass-efficient Rockets initiative, and the Defense Intelligence Agency published an unclassified report in 2022 warning that China and Russia were developing capabilities to operate in cislunar space, according to that publicly released DIA document.
China's lunar program has accelerated materially. The China National Space Administration successfully returned samples from the far side of the moon in June 2024 via the Chang'e 6 mission, according to state media Xinhua. China has publicly stated an ambition to land astronauts on the moon before 2030, as reported by Reuters.
The United States has its own crewed lunar program. NASA's Artemis program aims to return American astronauts to the lunar surface, though the program has faced repeated schedule delays. As of the most recent NASA status reports available, no firm crewed landing date has been confirmed beyond general target windows in the late 2020s.
The Outer Space Treaty of 1967, to which the United States, Russia, and China are all signatories, prohibits the placement of nuclear weapons in space and bans military bases, installations, or fortifications on the moon or other celestial bodies. The treaty does not explicitly prohibit conventional military operations in cislunar space or in lunar orbit, a legal gap that scholars of space law have identified in published academic literature, including work published by the Journal of Space Law.
What specific operational scenarios the adviser's statement is meant to address remains unknown. A full public transcript or official policy document expanding on the remarks had not been released at the time of publication. Such a document, if released, would clarify whether the statement reflects a formal update to U.S. Military doctrine or a rhetorical position.
The statement connects directly to ongoing U.S. Budget debates over Space Force, the military branch established by the 2020 National Defense Authorization Act. Space Force received a budget request of approximately $30 billion in fiscal year 2026, according to Department of Defense budget documents submitted to Congress.
The Pentagon has previously flagged China's growing space and counter-space capabilities as a priority concern. A recent Pentagon intelligence report examined risks associated with technology transfer in the context of a Saudi F-35 sale, illustrating broader U.S. Concern about allied and adversarial access to sensitive military technology.
No allied government or international body had publicly responded to the adviser's statement at the time of publication. NATO's space policy, adopted at the 2021 Brussels Summit, designates space as an operational domain but does not address cislunar operations specifically, according to the NATO Brussels Summit Communique released June 14, 2021.