A consensus has gradually emerged that space has become 'militarized' - in the sense that technologies placed in outer space are increasingly used to facilitate and augment traditional military activities. During the Cold War this included satellite surveillance of troop movements and weapons facilities, intelligence gathering and early warning systems designed to detect the launch of nuclear missiles. In the post-Cold War era, reliance on space-based systems in support of military actions has been demonstrated in particular by the United States - initially in the Gulf War of 1991, and successively in Kosovo, Afghanistan, and the Iraq War of 2003 - in its increasing use of satellite technologies to provide battlefield information, reconnaissance, communications, and in the provision of targeting data and guidance systems for its core strike capabilities. In fact, American reliance on space-based systems has reached the point where one former Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff could claim that, 'It is impossible to think about deploying forces without relying on support from space.'
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