This is happening for two reasons. First, the Air Force is trapped in an industrial-age mindset. It is projecting power through air, space, and cyber yet does not properly consider the space geography beyond earth’s orbit. The Air Force does not plan to accelerate the new space economy with dual-use technologies like spacecraft fueling stations in orbit to help commerce and the military rescue tourists and stop space pirates. It does not plan to protect the Moon or key “lines of communication” or travel corridors in space to and from resource locations and other strategic high ground. The Air Force does not plan to deploy Space Force personnel in space to see, build, and apply human creativity to the physical environment. Not does it plan to rescue Americans who may get stranded or lost in space. In short, the current Air Force plan for the Space Force will lose the race to dominant the strategic high ground.

The second reason America is losing the race to space with China is because the Air Force is trapped in the military-industrial complex that is preventing it from building the right kind of equipment. In President Eisenhower’s last speech, he warned America about the potential danger of the military-industrial complex. That danger is upon us now in the form of a lobbyist culture that defends the companies that build equipment for the last war.

If America wants peace in space, it must supply some form of guardian force with the power to hold participants accountable to international law and American values. China is already building its guardian force. China is building a navy in space, with the equivalent of battleships and destroyers that can move fast and kill. America's satellites will be helpless to win against the superior speed and firepower in China’s force.

China is winning the space race not because it builds better space equipment but because it has a superior strategy. For example, if China stays on its current path, it will deploy nuclear propulsion and solar power stations in space within 10 years. While China will claim that power stations in space can beam clean energy to anyone on Earth, the alarming fact is that the same capability can be used to turn off any portion of the American power grid, and has the ability to paralyze our military might anywhere on the planet.

Technologies and inventions over the last decade have created a new marketplace in space that offers raw materials worth trillions of dollars, all available within a few days travel-time from any point on Earth. Anytime humans discover new resources or new markets violence ensues, unless there is predictability and rule of law enforced by a guardian force. A security force with the mission to provide predictability allows venture capitalists to make smart risk decisions to accelerate the prosperity from space to all customers. Unless America immediately builds the Space Force to guard our economic interests, Chinese values will dominate the economy and domain of space.

There is one simple action that can propel America to win. Congress must take steps to make the Space Force independent of the Air Force and give it the mission to defend the economy of space. If not it will evolve too slowly and lose this strategic high ground. There may not be time to recover.

Lt. Gen. Steve Kwast, USAF retired, is CEO of Kwast Enterprise, a consulting company dedicated to building a future space economy