While the jokes basically write themselves on something like this, I’ve read a number of analyses of why this is not a new idea and that there are good reasons for separating out the command of space defence.
Mainly that the various threats have been neglected while it’s been just a side issue on the air force’s plate. It was China shooting down one of their satellites in 2007 that focused minds on the various What ifs?
So for the second time in a day a stopped watch is displaying the right time – Trump may not be doing something entirely stupid and self-serving.
I brought up a USMC logistic officer’s concerns over corporate control of military systems because a space force precluded from field maintenance due to supplier contracts - that’s a nightmare! I’ve read of horrendous maintenance backups with much military hardware left unfit for service. That’s bad enough in atmosphere. When (say) a vital pump blows as your USSF warcraft is boosting past Luna, can you wait for Dynex to ship one up to you?
My point: the current travails of surface forces don’t bode well for a combat-ready USSF.
For the purposes of “do something now” I’d have renamed the Air Force the Aerospace Force and the only expense would be on whatever stationery and signage spells it out completely.
But I could see the notion of taking Space Defense Command and gradually elevating it to a more autonomous form in a similar way as the Navy/Marines relationship evolved with time, but that’s the thing, it should happen with time.
And as far as the distinguished CinC’s dreams of glory, well as mentioned before, the real primary interest of Space Defense should NOT be as a “fighting line” force but rather a big-picture/crucial details outfit regarding access/denial/optimization of space resources – so yes, it would help if there is a dedicated budget line for space defense interests that does not have to compete with keeping the fighter jocks happy (and BTW the transport people feel similarly about theirs). But in turn that means that we’ve better avoid letting this new outfit’s outlook grow from preconceived notion of what is it to be a “fighting force”. As someone else said, for instance, one critical Space Defense planning component is “what do we do down here if the GPS/weather/recon satellites are knocked out?” That is a critical thing to deal with, but I can just imagine the vote-seekers (prez, committee chairs, reps from the districts where Boeing, Lockheed, Northrop, etc. have plants) thinking that’s boring and prosaic and wanting to promise real-life space battle and rod-bombardment capability. I pity the experts trying to tell them that in our real world, the Space Force cannot and should not waste time and money preparing for the third act of Moonraker.
I mean, there is a reason the Marines evolved to be essentially separate from the Navy, and there’s a reason the USAAF became the USAF.
It is unclear to me why SPACE FORCE! needs to be its own thing, separate from the USAF. One could say “well, one’s for air, and one is for space,” but that is no logically different from arguing that the US Navy should split off the submarine arm into SUB FORCE! There isn’t any reason for this based on economy of scale; there just aren’t that many personnel, but U.S. standards, involved in fighting in space. There is at present, indeed, no fighting restricted to space at all. It has no peaceful purpose, because that’s why NASA exists.
The reason the USAAF became the USAAF is because there is such a huge difference between running an air force and running an army that it’s worth separating them. It’s best to have experienced Air Force personnel running the air force, and soldiers running the Army. They have dramatically different needs in terms of procurement, training, logistics, and so on. It’s just more effective for them to operate independently.
Navy and Marines? Same thing. A very logical case could be made that efficiencies would be found in merging the Marines with the Army, though.
Yet administratively the Marines are still under the Navy Department, while the Air Force spun off completely (the advantages of being the ones with the B29s and nukes). It will be interesting to see if an administrative Secretary is created anew or if they follow the naval model and keep a single Department of Aerospace Forces. Space Force would have likely spun off from the Air Force more in the manner of Navy/Marines, as a closely associated but autonomous body given the fullness of time, the way the Marines were around for like a century and a half before beginning to truly function like a separate entity and having the Commandant be the equal of the COSArmy and the Chief of Naval Ops at the Joint Chiefs and even then there wasn’t a Marine named as Chair of the JCS until 2005. The unusual thing about what is happening with Space Force is the decision on the part of the CinC that it must be created NOW!! apparently just because “Space Force! Now! The best, tremendous!”
I’m not following parts of that last post, but the Space Force is established within the Department of the Air Force. The Secretary of the Air Force is the Chief of Space Operations’ boss.
We did delay large organizational change recommendations for almost two decades. In early 2001 the Commission to Assess United States National Security Space Management and Organization* finished its Congressionally mandated review. Their report included a mandated review of four Congressionally defined possible approaches. One of those was creation of a wholly separate Department within DOD. While the report generally came out against it they did think changes should be structured in a way to enable that potential move later. Another of the approaches they evaluated is what we basically just did. That was a model similar to the Marine Corps existence within the Dept of the Navy. They assessed that as having many of the same strengths and weaknesses with the added disadvantage of maintaining the budgeting issues between space and other Air Force priorities.
They did come up with a lengthy list of specific recommendations. The commission chair was even Donald Rumsfeld shortly before he was confirmed as SECDEF so it should have gotten quite a bit of traction. Mostly the recommendations got ignored. The ones that got implemented largely got reversed or watered down with time. The problem was they completed their work in early 2001. 9-11 happened and the recommendations were overcome by events.
We are into the kind of time frame where we reasonably could have been asking the question about whether to create a wholly separate Department of Space within DOD. Instead we ignored the issues. In the intervening years, satellite technology has gotten cheaper and more effective while launch costs have gotten cheaper. Two new countries, India and China, have recently demonstrated effective anti-satellite weapons. Military operations have become increasing reliant on effective satellite communication and intelligence. Development of hypervelocity missiles makes increasing or satellite capability to detect them early very important…at least if we want to avoid mushroom cloud shaped miscalculations. We probably should be making big changes with respect to military operations in space and making them “NOW!!” Those changes are long overdue.
That doesn’t mean these are the right changes. It doesn’t mean that I trust Trump made a good and informed decision. The timing is pretty understandable, though. I would like to think Clinton would be major pretty big changes, too.
Will the current astronaut corps be incorporated into the USSF? Will all space missions be USSF ops? Should suppliers of aerospace warez be nationalized? Can Elon Musk be drafted? (Visualize a space version of MASH. “How did that scumbag reach such a level of authority?” “He was drafted.”)
When will USSF Capt. Midnight and sidekick Ichabod Mudd roar through the vicious vacuum lasering hostile satellites and devious solar kites while advertising Ovaltine? Has the USSF chosen any official sponsors yet?
