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Top leaders of the U.S. Air Force are doing their best to counter
the narrative that they oppose President Trump’s plan to establish
a Space Force.
"The United States Air Force is all in on Space Force and we've
been contributing input to making the President's vision a
reality,” Lt. Gen. John Thompson, commander of the Air Force Space
and Missile Systems Center, told the MILCOM technology conference
yesterday in Los Angeles. (h/t Kim Underwood of Signal
Magazine)
 SMC oversees $7 billion a year in space program funding, and is
where most of the Defense Department’s space expertise and
resources reside. Thompson noted that SMC stands ready to help the
Space Force. “The U.S. Space Force is going to need experts,” he
said.
Thompson’s remarks come on the heels of extensive comments by Air
Force Secretary Heather Wilson last week on
“The Takeout” podcast with CBS News' Major Garrett.
“I am completely aligned with the president,” Wilson insisted,
reiterating what she had said publicly over the past several
months. Garrett pressed Wilson to address the rumor that the
president was “peeved” at her for opposing the Space Force and was
considering replacing her.
Garrett: “Do you have any reason to believe the
president is peeved with you?”
Wilson: “No”
Garrett: “Do you have any reason to believe
you’re in any jeopardy?”
Wilson: “Not at all”
Garrett: “So what’s behind a
report saying there is distance between you and the
president?”
Wilson: “I wouldn’t put too much stock in it.”
And she added, facetiously, “When the White House denied it, my
husband was very disappointed.”
Garrett: “Are you willing to serve after the
midterms?”
Wilson: “I take my life day by day.”
 On the Space Force issue, the secretary also pushed back on
Garrett’s suggestion that the Air Force could end up weakened by
the establishment of a new service that presumably would draw on
Air Force resources.
The Air Force is focused on “developing capabilities,” she said.
“The organization chart is less important.”
She repeated one of her frequent lines that the Air Force is “the
best in the world at space.” That said, “Our adversaries want
to deny us use of space” and the question is “do we organize in a
different way given the emergence of a new threat and a new set of
circumstances?”
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Rundown of the latest Space Force developments
BIG PUSH BY VP PENCE At the National Space Council meeting last week, Vice President Mike Pence
made an impassioned case for the establishment of a Space Force. But no matter how much President
Trump wants it, congressional authorization by law is required to form a new military branch.
Pence said Trump will work tirelessly to
make sure the legislative language to create a Space Force
makes it into the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2020. The council endorsed the Pentagon’s
recommendations and a policy directive is being drafted for
Trump’s signature.
Stephen Kitay, deputy assistant secretary of defense for space policy, also offered a strong endorsement for
the president’s plan. “This will be a force that is focused on space and the space needs of our combatant commands,”
he said at a space conference in Huntsville, Alabama. “This force will train and grow national security space professionals and will develop
the doctrine and capabilities needed to enable the joint warfighter and ensure that we can fight and win should warfare extend into space.”
Kitay,
formerly a senior staff member on the House Armed Services Committee’s strategic forces subcommittee, said that the administration is "working to
make sure that we educate Congress and the American people more about the serious nature of those threats and the importance
of space.”
On the upcoming debate on Capitol Hill: “I think it’s going to be an exciting and interesting discussion.”
 PENTAGON
PURSUING SPACE DEVELOPMENT AGENCY
Deputy Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan said his primary focus as he drafts a Space Force legislative proposal
is on how the military will acquire cutting-edge space technologies.
He is pressing forward with the establishment of a Space Development Agency to take the lead in acquisitions of new
systems and also to help to consolidate duplicative space projects pursued by individual services. “How do you align the
department so we don’t solve the same problem multiple times?” he asked.
All the services use space, and some investment should be shared, he said. The biggest challenge here is “not the technology but how do you get DoD aligned?"
Shanahan’s thinking appears to be influenced by conversations with Army Futures Command’s Lt. Gen. John Murray. Ground forces
are the military’s biggest users of space services like communications, timing, navigation and early warning of missile launches. Shanahan said
the Army should have some say in the “space architecture,” such as how future constellations are designed and constructed. “If the
Army is first in developing a component of our space architecture, how do we get everybody to hold hands and say the Air Force is going to adopt
the same thing?"
WARNING ABOUT SPACE FORCE A contrarian view on the Space Force comes from
Dan Grazier, military fellow at the Center for Defense Information at the Project on Government Oversight.
He predicts that “if we create this new bureaucracy, its first goal is going to be protect its
own existence. A secondary goal
will be to justify its existence.
Only after that it’ll start
focusing on the mission at hand.
And even then, the mission at
hand is going to be disconnected
from the operations of the other
services.”
Drawing on his research as a
military historian, Grazier said
the establishment of a new
service is likely to fuel
rivalries, which could be
counterproductive, he argues. The
military already struggles to
deliver space capabilities to
forces in the field because the
organizations that worry about
space are not responsible for the
equipment that is needed on the
ground. The Air Force buys
satellites but the Army has to
buy the radios that talk to the
satellites. “We see this now,”
says Grazier. "An independent
service dedicated to space will
quickly forge its own
bureaucratic path separate from
the existing military forces.
This will provoke more
inter-service rivalries and
distract from rather than
contribute to future military
success.”
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Nonprofit led by former U.S. lawmakers working to connect DoD
with commercial space industry
The national security space
program at the Center for
the Study of the Presidency and
Congress is working on a
list of recommendations on how
the Pentagon could work better
with the commercial space
industry.
Congress next year will consider
a Trump administration proposal
to establish a new military
branch for space. One of the
justifications for creating an
independent Space Force is that
the Air Force’s procurement
system is stifling innovation.
The Space Force debate might not
be settled for another year or
two, but there is a lot the Air
Force could do today to modernize
space systems faster, said Joshua
Huminski, director of the
National Security Space Program
at the Center for the Study of
the Presidency and Congress. 
The program is run by the Mike
Rogers Center for Intelligence
and Global Affairs, co-chaired by
former Republican congressman
Mike Rogers of Michigan, and
former Democratic congressman
Glenn Nye of Virginia.
“The question we’re tackling is
what is the Air Force doing today
and what can it do tomorrow to
better integrate capabilities,”
said Huminski.
The center is nonpartisan and
“vendor neutral,” he said. Rogers
started the national security
space program with the goal of
promoting closer ties between
policy makers and the business
community.
MAKE CHANGES SOONER NOT
LATER The national
security space sector is poised
for sweeping change if the
Pentagon moves forward with
efforts to create a Space
Development Agency and if
Congress approves standing up a
Space Force. Huminski said Rogers
believes procurement should be
fixed sooner, regardless of how
the reorganization pans out.
“We’re driving ahead rather than
waiting to see what happens.”
The center’s national security
space program aims to “identify
ways in which commercial,
particularly emerging ‘new space’
technologies, can be more
efficiently and effectively
integrated into the national
security space architecture,
where appropriate,” Huminski
said.
“Commercial space is in the midst
of a massive boom. From new
launch providers, reusable
rockets, new and smaller
satellites, larger
constellations, and more capable
sensors are rapidly coming
online. If the United States is
to remain the dominant power in
space, it will need to seize
upon, integrate, and exploit
these technologies more swiftly
than it currently is doing.”
Joshua Huminski, Center for the
Study of the Presidency and
Congress.
The center's recommendations will
be rolled out next year when the
new Congress is in session. The
group so far has hosted three
off-the-record roundtables in
Washington and in Los Angeles,
and more are planned, Huminski
said. The proposal will
address acquisition culture,
mission assurance and risk
tolerance. "Our goal is to
strengthen the national security
space architecture as a whole,
not advocate for one vendor over
another.”
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