In the meantime, the Defense Department may be reorganizing how it does space
This morning, Vice President Mike Pence recommended
creating three new organizations within the Defense Department that
would be devoted to different space military needs. Then, he said
President Trump will work with Congress next year to establish the US
Department of the Space Force by 2020.
Pence’s recommendations are outlined in a report from
Deputy Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan, who Congress directed to come
up with ways the Defense Department could reorganize its management of
space activities. The US military has long relied on space technologies
for various combat operations, such as satellites that do surveillance
and reconnaissance or probes that can detect missile launches from
space. However, all of the military’s responsibilities for space are
spread among the Air Force, the National Reconnaissance Office, and the
Army. Lawmakers have discussed restructuring the military’s space
management system to unify it.
On June 18th, Trump called for the creation of a Space Force
during the third meeting of the National Space Council, a newly formed
advisory group that helps shape the US agenda in space. “I’m hereby
directing the Department of Defense and Pentagon to immediately begin
the process necessary to establish a Space Force as the sixth branch of
the armed forces,” Trump said at the meeting. “That’s a big statement.”
The announcement was surprising, but the Space Force has become part of
Trump’s talking points.
Establishing the Space Force would require Congress to
pass new legislation. Trump hopes to get that process started by asking
for Space Force funding in his annual budget request next year,
according to Pence. Then the administration will work with Congress to
create the Space Force through next year’s National Defense
Authorization Act (NDAA), which is annual legislation that outlines the
policies, responsibilities, and budgets for the various branches of the
Defense Department. Congress recently passed the final NDAA for fiscal
year 2019 on August 1st, but it did not include any language about
creating a Space Force since the process for writing the act started
before Trump’s announcement.
“They put together a draft of that bill in the spring,”
Doug Loverro, an independent consultant and former deputy assistant
secretary of defense for space policy, tells The Verge.
“They’re not allowed to change anything in the draft they put forward,
unless in places they explicitly disagree. The things they can only
negotiate are things they have written. And the whole Space Force
announcement happened in June.”
So the Space Force will have to wait until the next NDAA.
But Pence hopes the military will make a few big changes in the interim
based on the Shanahan report. First, he’s calling for the creation of a
new “unified combatant command” for space that will be named the United
States Space Command. This would seemingly reorganize the warfighting
chain of command for space, which is separate from what the Space Force
would do.
Within the Defense Department, there are two primary
chains of command: warfighting and OTE (organize, train, and equip). OTE
is the responsibility of the various military branches, such as the Air
Force, Army, and Navy. They’re in charge of figuring out what kinds of
military equipment they want to make and then training the necessary
people to use that equipment. This is what the Space Force would focus
on: creating satellites and training personnel to operate them.
The warfighting chain of command works at a higher level.
This area of the Defense Department consists of various combatant
commands, such as EUCOM or STRATCOM, which decide how to strategically
use the branches of the military. For instance, CENTCOM decides what
troops and equipment it needs stationed in the Middle East based on
what’s available, and then the armed forces provide those resources.
Currently, the warfighting chain of command for space is
overseen by STRATCOM, which is mostly focused on nuclear deterrence and
global strike. But the Trump administration would create a separate
command for space apart from STRATCOM, led by a four-star flag officer.
This is a throwback: in 1985, the US created the US Space Command to do
exactly this, but the organization was put under the umbrella of
STRATCOM in 2002.
Pence also wants the Defense Department to create a new
organization called the Space Development Agency, which would reorganize
how the military acquires new space technology. Currently, space
acquisitions are done by the Air Force’s Space and Missile Systems
Center. But this new agency would seem to take that responsibility away
from the Air Force.
Pence called for a new “elite group of joint warfighters,
specializing in the domain of space,” who would be part of a newly
minted Space Operations Force. It’s not clear where this organization
will reside, but it may serve as the backbone for what the eventual
Space Force will become. “They’re going to be pulling people from the
Air Force, from the Marines, from the Army, to put them in this new
organization to think about how space fits into warfighting,” Brian
Weeden, a space expert at the Secure World Foundation, a nonprofit that
specializes in space security, tells The Verge. “It sounds like that is to be the nucleus that becomes the separate Space Force.”
A new civilian position will also be created, Pence says:
the assistant secretary of defense for space. This person will report
to the secretary of defense and make sure the new reorganization efforts
are running smoothly. “Creating a new branch of the military is not a
simple process,” Pence said during his speech. “It will require
collaboration, diligence, and, above all, leadership. As challenges
arise and deadlines approach, there must be someone in charge who can
execute, hold others accountable, and be responsible for the results.”
These changes may sound like good news to some lawmakers
who have supported shaking up the way the military does space. For
instance, experts argue that the Air Force acquisitions process for
space takes too long to get satellites into orbit
and that the military is resistant and slow to implement changes to
space policies. Reorganization could help get rid of those problems or
just create new ones. “There are problems with the current creation,”
says Weeden. “I’m just not convinced these changes are going to fix
those problems. Reorganizations always take longer and are more
complicated than we think they are. I’m concerned this is going to suck
up a lot of time, energy, and resources.”
Comment by Oliviero Mannucci: Do you remember UFO Citizens Hearing of Washington? Do you remember Senator Mike Gravel? The US has an interstellar space force. Trump is talking about something the US has been doing for a long time.
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