The American military is planning a “spaceplane” designed to fly a crack squad of heavily armed marines to trouble spots anywhere in the world within four hours.

The Pentagon wants to rocket troops through space to hot spots anywhere on the globe within two hours, and planners spent two days last month discussing the project currently named "Small Unit Space Transport and Insertion (SUSTAIN)."

The U.S. Navy is floating the idea of developing a new ballistic missile for global attack operations that could also be used as an interceptor in the nation's evolving strategic missile defense system.

The Pentagon is spending billions of dollars on new forms of space warfare to counter the growing risk of missile attack from rogue states and the "satellite killer" capabilities of China.

An independent panel recently provided a boost to a coolly received Pentagon initiative that would convert some long-range, submarine-launched ballistic missiles to deliver conventional warheads instead of nuclear ones.

A National Academy of Sciences panel has recommended that Congress withhold production and deployment funding for a Defense Department program to modify Trident missiles to carry conventional warheads.

A U.S. Navy program called the Revolutionary Approach to Time-Critical Long-Range Strike (or Rattlrs) aims to build a hypersonic missile demonstrator "with trace-ability to an eventual tactical weapon."

The authors, two former U.S. Secretaries of Defense, argue that the U.S. needs prompt global strike capability to provide maximum flexibility for dealing with the threat of global terrorism. They wrote the article in support of a Pentagon proposal to replace the nuclear warheads on two of the Trident D5 missiles on every deployed strategic submarine with a new type of warhead incorporating four highly accurate, independently targetable, nonnuclear reentry bodies.

The U.S. Strategic Command announced yesterday it had achieved an operational capability for rapidly striking targets around the globe using nuclear or conventional weapons, after last month testing its capacity for nuclear war against a fictional country believed to represent North Korea.

A series of Pentagon initiatives aimed at space militarization and the creation of new types of armament - capable of precisely striking small targets in every corner of the world and neutralizing most of today's anti-aircraft defenses - will likely result in a new power battlefield in the near future.