Is The Force With The Space Force?
Now is the time for the Space Force. Trump just needs to get it right, op ed, Washington Post
“The Pentagon helped shoot down the “corps” idea a year ago. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis wrote congressional leaders last October: “I oppose the creation of a new military service and additional organizational layers at a time when we are focused on reducing overhead and integrating joint warfighting functions.” But Trump continued to push his pet space project. One advocate was Vice President Pence, chairman of the National Space Council and a rocket enthusiast who’s said to have brought his family to Florida to watch NASA launches. Another was Newt Gingrich, the peripatetic former House speaker who, like Trump, enjoys promoting flashy, controversial ideas. “If Trump can break through the bureaucracy, all this will happen within a decade,” even by 2020, Gingrich predicted in a phone interview Tuesday. Gingrich, who informally attends Space Council meetings, says he has talked with Trump about the idea but that the passion for it is the president’s. The Air Force had been hoping this proposal would go away.”
The Air Force is “as serious as a heart attack” about opposing the Space Corps, MuckRock
“While President Donald Trump’s announcement earlier this year regarding the possible establishment of a “Space Force,” FOIA shows that not everyone in his own administration is so keen on the idea. In a series of recently released emails from last year, Secretary of the Air Force Heather Wilson made clear her opposition to the establishment of a semi-autonomous “Space Corps,” insisting that it be the USAF in charge of militarizing the cosmos.”
The New Arms Race Threatening to Explode In Space, Wired
Since he took office, President Trump has dropped numerous hints of the warnings he’s evidently getting from military and intelligence leaders. During a spring livestream with astronauts aboard the International Space Station, he alluded, obliquely and without context, to the “tremendous military applications in space.” And he has repeatedly floated the idea of creating a new branch of the armed forces specifically for celestial combat–culminating last week with a speech out-and-out ordering the Joint Chiefs of Staff to begin developing plans for a new “Space Force.”
OK, I am in a minority in trying to be realistic. But creating a new service because we feel space projects aren’t getting enough funding is counterproductive. Instead of putting astronomical amounts of tax dollars, technical effort and political infighting into creation of a new DOD service that will further fragment the DOD, we should correct the problems that exist in the current systems for procrement and prioritization, many of which already result from Congressional micromanagement. The DOD succeeds when it operates in an integrated fasion, and DOD space assets have value only when they support operations involving ground, air and sea forces.
Or we could just revel in flash and grand but vague gestures, knowing that a gullible public will feel entertained, ignore the mounting deficit, and vote for us.
I agree.
By spinning it off from the USAF you would make it easier to integrate into the DOD because it would have equal status. You also fix the procurement problems by taking its budget away from control by the pilot dominated USAF and placing it under a group of leaders only focused on space. So actually a new U.S. Space Force could make be better in terms of both of the criteria you are stating. Personally, I am waiting until the report comes out in August to see how good the arguments are for it.
None of this is obvious. No one has said what this “Space Force” is for, what its mission is, and what it would involve. Is it about human spaceflight, unmanned spacecraft or both? What about suborbitals? If unmanned spacecraft are involved, which ones? Just the ones the Air Force is currently responsible for, or all military spacecraft? What about NRO satellites? Are they going to be operating their own launch vehicles, or contracting out? Developing their own spacecraft and/or launch vehicles?
I think some of those are pretty unlikely, but nothing we’ve heard rules them out. Until we know that, it’s hard to say if this is a good or a disastrous idea. Discussion of where to locate them are also a bit murky. Saying it should be where people are already doing similar work is fine. But when we don’t know what the work will be, that line of reasoning doesn’t go very far.
Which is why it is probably good to wait until the DOD puts out its report on it in August. Then there will be something to actually discuss instead of just speculation.
Stating the obvious: could we, before recently, even imagine a President offering a new branch of the military with no prior discussion with the Pentagon? It’s stunning really how little our President appreciates about complexities.
Yes, I know, many elected him to blow through the complexities. That hasn’t worked out well: immigration being a huge example. And now this.
I believe the expression is “the devil is in the details”, and our current president is NOT a details person. A major reason why nearly every single one of his business ventures have gone spectacularly bankrupt. Trump steak, anyone?
“… could we, before recently, even imagine a President offering a new branch of the military with no prior discussion with the Pentagon? “
No prior discussion????
The Rumsfeld Report came out in 2001.
The House was pushing forward legislation last year, and was visibly briefing the WH much of the first quarter.
The JCS were told about it weeks in advance.
The agency costs of present practice are obvious. *Some* agency cost will be there once a new hierarchy emerges. Complexities are a useful topic when you are not looking at a potential avalanche of failure.
Assuming the report is infallible and without bias.
Many of your initial questions were considered by the Air Force many decades ago, when it was learned that humans in space are a hassle, and the warfighter (this is a repugnant word) could be a remote machine.
I think you have summarized the situation well. DOD needs space, in fact it has a larger space budget than NASA. But after decades of attempts at finding a military role for human spaceflight, from MOL to the final Shuttle classified mission, the DOD has concluded that human spaceflight is not a practical way to accomplish any part of their mission.
Do we need a Space Force? DOD says no. DOD space missions involve disparate DOD organizations from nuclear deterrence to drone control, each closely tied to different missions, organizations, and chains of command. Spacecraft are a tool, not an end in themselves.
Trump’s proposal appears to be a nationalistic gesture aimed at the public rather than a practical advance in military strategy.
Nationalism, yes, in the ugly and historical use of the term. But it’s also something else, something that the president does admirably: it’s fear of ‘other’; fear of brown skin, fear of another bogeyman.
A correct analysis of recent and more distant past (from 1960s – 1980s), given limitations of spacecraft technology. But technology moves on. In the 1960s we never had reusable rockets, or the prospect of hypersonic aerospace plane launch capabilities (the former now reality, the later on the horizon for maybe the late 2020s). If you consider where spaceflight tech is headed to the 2030s, then new possibilities for manned spacecraft might emerge. Low cost, responsive, agile space access matched by a growing need to project presence from LEO to Cislunar space makes for some interesting possibilities.
I agree – the bulk of military space will still be unmanned, and fully autonomous unmanned systems are likely to emerge as a new aspect of military spacecraft. But I’d not be so quick to dismiss the possibility of manned military space capabilities going forward, just because we found it too difficult in the past when our spaceflight tech was still pretty primitive.
What are the chief arguments in favor of a separate Space Corps, do you think? As I worked through a few points I quickly discovered that determining the need is largely inseparable from the modality: that is, a separate force, or extend what we already have.
The military is very, very good at assessing risk. They (apparently) see nothing coming from Space, nor do they assess as risky the capabilities of other nations to use space as some sort of platform (as we did during the so-called ‘missile crisis’, for instance, imagining Soviet-dominated orbit).
True, such a force would inevitably catapult our technical abilities, pouring hundreds of $ billions into space. Much would come of this effort. This is not a bad thing. I am thinking of SSTO, perhaps, or other new tech.
What IS bad is the militarization of space and the inevitable response by China, Russia, and the EU, none of whom could possibly simply stand by while we armored space. And then what? It is another bold idea by an administration neither lacking in boldness nor a certain vacuous approach to very complex subjects.
Gen. Mattis, and indeed Sec. Wilson, point out that the American military embarked some years ago on a decades-long process that is to fully integrated American ‘military’ (as compared to Army, Navy, etc.). This long range plan is extremely bright and beginning to show success (the Joint Strike Fighter has serious issues, true, but the track is correct). Were we to extend our military into space, a more sensible approach would extend the Air Force.
Is there a persuasive argument that space could actually remain as the “high seas”? Space and Antarctica have a lot in common. The US could, under perhaps more contemplative leadership, be a world thought leader in the non-militarization of space.
I think you are correct if you assume a “Space Force” would be about astronauts. I can’t see much need for military personnel on orbit. As you note, the military has looked into this fairly carefully and came to this conclusion. Or, more properly, the militaries, since the Soviets came to the same conclusion.
But I would say that operating a spacecraft (operating a robotic one from the ground) is different from flying an airplane or commanding a ship at sea. The skills are different, priorities are different, requirements for promotion are different. We did decide, half a century ago, that there were enough differences between commanding a regiment and a fighter squadron that the Air Force needed to be a separate service. I can see some merits to having operation of military (unmanned) satellites as a separate service.
Defense of satellites is also an interesting problem. In addition to anti-satellite weapons, there are many sorts of denial of service attacks. And the military does depend on those services (not just reconnoissance, but also communications, navigation, and even weather forecasting.) I could easily see a “Space Force” with the equivalent of the Naval Research Laboratory, supporting work on those sorts of subjects. Not warfare in space, but protection of assets.
However, the benefits of a separate service aren’t clear. The military tasks are. As I said, I could see some merits for a separate service. But I can also see inefficiencies and disadvantages. I see defining the tasks as a starting point to a discussion of the best ways to achieve them.
As a footnote, treating space like the high seas and keeping it non-military aren’t necessarily the same thing. From the Quasi-war of 1798-1800 to current differences over international waters in the South China Sea, the US has found uses for a navy (either militant or symbolic) to keep the high seas open.
“What IS bad is the militarization of space and the inevitable response by China, Russia”
With respect, the US is responding to space weaponisation by China and Russia. Both states have been developing a range of ASAT and counterspace capabilities – both hard and soft kill – for some years now. See the excellent reports by the Secure World Foundation (https://swfound.org/media/2… ) and CSIS Space Threat Assessment (https://www.csis.org/analys…
For some reason, people don’t seem to realise that the US is scrambling to respond to peer adversary space weaponisation capability developments – its not the US that is driving this. China and Russia have been ‘militarising’ space (a better term is ‘weaponising’ as space has been militarised since the 1960s) for some years, and the US has to respond.
Space Force can be seen to be part of that response, rather than a cause of space militarization.
Banal observation; but If we go back to the foundation of the Air Force there is a reasonable analogue there isn’t there. As part of the army they were being commanded by terrestrial orientated leaders and logistics systems with a limited understanding of the capabilities, requirements and constraints of the air branch… at least that was the tone of their arguments. If you look at how the Airforce has evolved: The original domination of SAC… The tug of war with the Fighter Mafia. The marginalization of many key missions like close combat support (Lets use fast jets to hit evolving targets close to our troops! c.f. The much unloved A10). The up or out career pressure on roles that require higher levels of continuity and officer level responsibilities. One can easily argue that space is in exactly the same spot as the air force was. Don’t know if another service is the solution though.
I don’t think it will be better in terms of the budget. The military isn’t known for being that much better–or any better at all–at managing its money than NASA, so I see the creation of a space force being just an increase in wasted money or money unaccounted for.
Its hard enough to coordinate the existing services. This is crazy Donald again. http://Www.robert-w-jones.com