Trump’s Space Force Smoke and Mirrors or a Step Towards War in Space?

Trump’s Space Force
Smoke and Mirrors or a Step Towards War in Space?
By William D. Hartung
On June 18th, President Trump announced that he was directing the Pentagon to develop a new branch of the U.S. military, a “Space Force” that would give the U.S. “dominance” in that realm. It would be, he said -- and here he used a classic phrase from the Jim Crow era of racial segregation -- “separate but equal” to the U.S. Air Force. Much of the rest of his announcement sounded like it came directly out of a Star Trek episode. (“My administration is reclaiming America’s heritage as the world’s greatest space-faring nation. The essence of the American character is to explore new horizons and to tame new frontiers...”) And like Jean-Luc Picard captaining the USS Enterprise, he promptly (if redundantly) ordered the “Department of Defense and Pentagon” to make it so.
The president’s sudden enthusiasm seemed to come out of the blue. Even advocates of the Space Force concept were surprised. His Space Council, chaired by Vice President Mike Pence and advised by a flock of space and defense industry executives, was only informed of Trump’s decision to proceed with what he called “the sixth armed service” shortly before the announcement was made.
Nor was it greeted with universal enthusiasm in either Washington or the U.S. military, to put it mildly. Secretary of Defense James Mattis, who had written a letter to Congress in July 2017 opposing an earlier, less ambitious version of the plan, had little choice but to go along with the new scheme (though his reluctance was obvious). However, its reception among key Republicans was, at best, decidedly mixed. A number of them were skeptical, like Texas Senator John Cornyn who said, “I have not yet heard a compelling case why we need a separate force.”
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