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UNIVERSAL TELEVISION/EVERETT COLLECTIONPOLICY
Is Space Force for Real?
Does President Trump’s #SpaceForce sound like science fiction
to you? It’s actually
already happening. When Trump told the Department of Defense to start one up as a new
military branch in June, critics flocked to Twitter to suggest that Trump has
been watching too much Star Wars (Strategic Defense Initiative, anyone?) or
point to issues right here on terra firma
#SpaceForce might sound like the stuff of science fiction, but it’s not too that could use the cash instead.
far out there. The U.S. and other nations’ militaries are already active in
orbit. Space-based cyber warfare — attacking
satellites to mess with communication systems,
power grids and so on — is a real possibility. The administration calls #SpaceForce a bold new step
for the U.S. military, but the DOD delivered a report on
the proposed military branch to Congress in August —
and it doesn’t lay out clear plans for any new research.
“A lot of what they’re talking
about is just bureaucratic
reorganization of ‘how does
the Pentagon do military [in]
space.’” — Laura Grego, senior
scientist with the advocacy group
Union of Concerned ScientistsThe U.S. already has a military unit that handles space
security. Air Force Space Command oversees military
navigation and communications satellites and watches
for ballistic missile launches. Under the #SpaceForce
plan, this role would fall under new leadership.The president and vice president have
compared the plan to the startup of the Air
Force as an example of adapting to changing
times. The Air Force was split off from the
Army in 1947 after going through phases as
the Army Air Corps and Army Air Forces.Both the Air Force and the proposed
#SpaceForce would be military branches born
from an existing branch, but the circumstances
of the splits aren’t really comparable. After
WWII, the U.S. government went through
huge organizational changes to switch from
an all-out war effort to peacetime.“That kind of massive institutional
change that you saw in those very
few years right after the war is not
something that we’re seeing now.”
— Thomas
Lassman,
space history
curator at the
Smithsonian’s
National Air
and Space
Museum“Separating an organization
can often be traumatic
organizationally, in terms of
personnel. ... Creating a whole
new wing of the Department
of Defense, essentially
another branch, poses a lot of
organizational and leadership
challenges.”— Lassman, who
sees the plan as a potentially
risky moveLeaving the bureaucratic struggles aside,
dedicating an entire branch of the armed forces
to space might have serious implications for
how the military treats space in the future.“The way you set up a system is not separate from its
outcomes.” — Grego
Setting up a #SpaceForce as its own entity could
incentivize space warfare, Grego says, if promotions are
awarded for inventing new weaponry or starting and
winning battles in space. “We have a chance to shape
that environment to be much more stable and peaceful.”