As the fifth anniversary of the creation of the Space Force approaches, we must never forget why a military branch dedicated to protecting our interests in space became so desperately needed.
Eighteen years before establishing what is now known as the Space Force, some of the most elite current and former defense and space leaders convened at the urging of the Senate to address the limitations of the Air Force leading the space mission. Rarely do these routinely maligned Congressional reports have as much impact as The Commission to Assess United States National Security Space Management and Organization report did, and this one hit the bullseye.
Both political parties in Congress have been supportive ever since, although for a long time the uniformed military largely opposed it. That was until President Trump adopted it as a signature initiative and, with especially strong bi-partisan support in the US House of Representatives, made it law.
Three important factors drove Congress’ decision to construct the Space Force. First, the major system acquisitions which accounted for 80 percent of the space budget were hemorrhaging money with unending cost and schedule overruns. Second, space was no longer a benign sanctuary – our ability to operate in this domain was being contested by China and other space-faring adversaries. Third and most importantly, satellite systems were becoming increasingly vital to our country’s civil and military infrastructure, especially in modern warfare.
Quite a bit of administrative progress has been made since, but in the past five years, the nature of warfare has changed dramatically, and the original problems that called for the Forces’ construction continue to fester to this day amid bureaucratic inertia and resource constraints.
The ubiquitous and global reach of space, coupled with the interconnected nature of military and civilian systems, puts the space domain at the core of every aspect of modern life. At the same time, the speed of warfare continues to accelerate, and space systems have become the center of mass around which all aspects of the fighting forces must be communicated, informed, and directed.
There are many physical threats to these critical hybrid systems, including laser blinders, radio jammers, and even “grapplers” – robotic arm wrestlers that could grab and throw a satellite out of its orbit. The most immediate and persistent threat; however, remains a cyber-attack. Even today, we remain highly vulnerable to these types of attacks across all space missions. That vulnerability will increasingly impede the integration of advanced AI algorithms and other edge computing into truly meshed networks, something foundational to ensure dominance in this realm. In other words, only by maintaining cyber superiority can we achieve space superiority.
The services are therefore choosing to address these changes by recapitalizing their infrastructure. The military of today prefers more resilient force structures, relying less on the “exquisite few” mindsets of the past and more on networked and commoditized swarms. In its role as a supporting force, the Space Force is deploying and operating the secured mesh networks and applications, and generating data, which are quickly becoming the cornerstone that its sister services will rely on in future military contests.
Our Space Force’s Semper Supra (Always Above) attitude towards space, which demanded a separate service five years ago, still faces the challenges borne of a once-air-minded culture. Casting aside an Air Force mindset that has been ingrained for over 50 years and embarking on such an historic endeavor has not been easy — no instruction manual or rule guide came with the bag of parts they inherited – just a lot of challenges to overcome.
Compared to other services, very little about the Space Force should be led or managed as it had been in the past with its sister services. For example, we can no longer measure progress with battle lines on a map. Preparedness cannot be quantified in soldiers under arms or bombs and bullets in a bunker. Courage under fire is no longer about jumping on a grenade or staring down a machine gun nest. Instead, it is about making timely, critical decisions to innovate, deploy, and maintain advanced space capabilities, while letting go of a culture ill-suited to the domain.
Today’s Space Force needs uniquely charismatic leaders for its contribution to the profession of arms. It needs people of superior military intellect who can lead the teams of Guardians to make the millions of decisions to buy, integrate, deploy, and operate machines in a race to guarantee space supremacy. The most decorated Guardians should be those who demonstrate the real-time creative and critical thinking that will assure space superiority today and long into the future.
To realize the goals that brought forth the Space Force years ago, we need bold leaders adept at overcoming the psychological fear of failure or ostracization rather than a fear of death. They must assert dominance over adversaries using largely commercial technologies to secure and exploit highly complex networks orbiting earth. It might sound easy, but it isn’t. Just ask the hundreds of senior leaders who have been clamoring for it for more than 20 years. Today, failing in one particular Space Force mission will mean not just the loss of a particular land battle, it could cost us our entire modern way of life.
