President Trump called last week for the establishment of a new military branch – the space force.
Independent and coequal to the US air force and navy, it would deal with all matters off-world. A
crazy idea? The Pentagon certainly isn’t keen, says John Kirby. Although military leaders can hardly
claim they lack the resources to establish a space force, what with having a record $700bn budget
at their disposal, they insist there’s no need for such a move. There’s already an Air Force Space
Command and an Army Space and Missile Defence Command, they say. And the navy and army
both also boast space-related activities and facilities. Setting up a separate branch with its own
people, command structures and resources would just complicate matters. These are valid points.
Still, it may be that Trump is right on this. With potentially hostile states such as Russia and China
in danger of overtaking America’s offensive and defensive space capabilities, the US needs to take
space more seriously as a “war-fighting realm”. The top brass always resists change: navy admirals
complained bitterly in 1947 when Harry Truman established the air force as an independent service.
Perhaps we’ll “look back ten years from now and wonder why we didn’t have a space force sooner”.
