AFA Position on the Proposed Establishment of a Space Force

The major elements of the Administration actions regarding Department of Defense (DOD) national security space include the following:

Creation of a new unified combatant command, the U.S. Space Command “to lead the use of space assets in warfighting and accelerate integration of space capabilities into other warfighting forces.” AFA ENDORSES the establishment of U.S. Space Command .

. Proposal for Congress in the 2020 Budget to create the U.S. Space Force as the sixth armed service under the Department of the Air Force as a separate armed force analogous to the U.S. Marine Corps. AFA OPPOSES the establishment of the U.S. Space Force.

Creation of a Space Development Agency (SDA) “to develop and field space capabilities at speed and scale.” AFA OPPOSES the establishment of the Space Development Agency.

The Air Force Association agrees that the discussion and debate about military space strengthens U.S. national security and that the Department of Defense must change and mature the way it operates with respect to national security space. However, AFA opposes the legislative proposal to stand up a new armed service for space at this time. AFA’s position and rationale are as follows:

1. Standing up U.S. Space Command as a functional unified combatant command focused on warfare in space is appropriate and is the best way to address threats to U.S. operations in space. It will incorporate all the U.S. military service components in a joint organization and marshal their space resources to deter and counter threats in space in accordance with established U.S. joint doctrine.

2. The Space Force proposal presents a resource question writ large: There is today too much mission and too few dollars for space. Standing up a separate space bureaucracy amplifies that problem by spending resources on a headquarters function, rather than on improving space operations.

3. The Vice President stated on March 1, 2019 that, “…our national-security space program is spread across more than 60 departments and agencies, resulting in a glaring lack of leadership and accountability that undermines our combatant commanders and puts our war-fighters at risk.” The Space Force proposal does nothing to consolidate these stovepiped space capabilities across the federal government—it simply creates another one.

4. Space Policy Directive-4: Establishment of the United States Space Force (19 Feb 2019), specifically states that it will, “not include the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO), or other non-military space organizations or missions of the United States Government.” As proposed, the Space Force will result in a segment of the current Air Force Space Command changing uniforms but essentially performing the same functions.

5. A prerequisite to creating a new armed service are arms, and the ability of those arms to achieve military effects commensurate with those of the other armed services. Currently, however, there are no arms in space, nor military capability proportionate with the other armed services. Until such time as Congress has debated and addressed constraints to fullyweaponized space capability and matured space warfare theory and concepts of operation, establishing a separate space armed force will be premature.

6. The AFA recommends that the DOD stand up a new Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Space who is dual-hatted as the Director of the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO). This action will go a long way toward consolidating and integrating critical space-based functions necessary to ensure unfettered access to, and freedom to operate in, space, and to provide vital capabilities to joint and coalition forces. Along with properly resourcing Air Force Space Command, this is the best, and most economical, way to advance military space capabilities needed in the near to mid-term.

7. Establishing a new Space Development Agency only adds to the panoply of space agencies that the Vice President properly laments. It is not necessary and is redundant given the reforms of the Space and Missile Systems Center 2.0 effort.

8. There is still much uncertainty as to what problem(s) will be solved by carving out a segment of the Air Force without consolidating any of government’s 60-plus other space organizations. Personnel manning is yet to be determined and costs are ill-defined. The plan itself was rushed. For example, establishing a new major force program (MFP) for space is critical to both advocate for needed overall space funding, and to make choices between where, what and how to prioritize those resources (and risks). However, nowhere in the administration plans for national security space is an MFP for space addressed. A more deeply considered and deliberate approach is essential to guard against unintended consequences.

9. The risks of a premature Space Force are significant: 1) Lack of cohesive spacepower theory will see space assets sub-optimized; 2) More personnel and money spent on space force organization will divert funding from space force operations to feed a new bureaucracy; and 3) Segregation of air and space will undermine the synergy of the well-established integrated effects of aerospace operations already resident in the U.S. Air Force.

10. The U.S. Air Force has led the Armed Forces in establishing America’s space capability such that it is unrivaled in the world. To split up those well-integrated air and space capabilities, which today seamlessly contribute to America’s military, would result in more harm than good, creating uncertainy and unintended consequences while adding unnecessary bureacracy and cost.

More than 60 years ago, Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Thomas D. White said it well: "Air and space are not two separate media to be divided by a line and to be readily separated into two distinct categories; they are in truth a single indivisible field of operations." That is no less true today than it was in 1958.