January 21, 2020—Urgently Need US Space Force!

“ . . . entrenched bureaucrats and military leaders across the Department of Defense, especially in the Air Force, have been resisting the President’s directive in every way they can. And this December, although Congress voted to approve a Space Force, it did so while placing restrictions on it — such as that the Space Force be built with existing forces — that will render it largely useless in any future conflicts.” Retired USAF Lt. General Steven Kwast

Click here for the complete Patriot Post article by General Kwast, giving this stunning observation of the current state of affairs in the Pentagon, immediately after aptly commenting that:

“In June 2018, President Trump directed the Department of Defense to ‘begin the process necessary to establish a space force as the sixth branch of the armed forces.’ The reason for a space force is simple: space is the strategic high ground from which all future wars will be fought. If we do not master space, our nation will become indefensible.”

General Kwast’s article, published by The Patriot Post, was adopted from a speech he gave at Hillsdale College’s Allan P. Kirby, Jr. Center for Constitutional Studies and Citizenship. It is well worth your reading in detail. However, I will highlight and comment on what I believe are his most important observations and conclusions that back up his opening comments and his recommendations for urgent action.

In the first place, he notes underlying perceptions that the Space Force is only 1) to “continue performing tasks that current space assets perform — supporting wars on the surface of the Earth,” 2) “while being mired in an outmoded industrial-age mindset that sees the Space Force as projecting power through air, space, and cyberspace, understood in a way that precludes space beyond our geocentric orbit.”

These are two important criticisms — not unrelated, but in my mind distinct with important consequences that deserve to be clarified and rectified.

Performing Only Tasks Our Current Space Systems Perform

First, it should be understood that only to continue to perform what current space assets perform equates to focusing on sensors and communication systems that support our warfighting efforts on the surface of the Earth and in the atmosphere…while omitting the means to apply force directly in, through and from space.

This constraint is a de facto effort supporting the unhelpful arms control mantra not to deploy “weapons in space,” never mind that weapons of mass destruction have traversed through space ever since the invention of long-range ballistic missiles to carry those weapons, while space-based defensive interceptors to destroy those offensive weapons would not employ weapons of mass destruction.

I have considered various aspects of this issue numerous times . . . click here for messages that have referred to Space Force issues, most recently on December 13 when considering my New Year’s Resolutions, mostly repeated below.

The good news is that the National Defense Authorization Act for 2020 — NDAA (2020 ) — includes specific language establishing a U.S. Space Force as President Trump wanted. But the possible, even likely, “Bad News” is that it is established within the US Air Force rather than as the completely separate service advocated by President Trump.

This arrangement is generally described by the press and others as being like the Marine Corps, which reports to the Secretary of Defense though the Secretary of the Navy as it has since we have had service secretaries.

However, I would prefer to describe the situation to be like the Army Air Corps, which in turn grew out of the Army Signal Corps that during World War I was an adjunct to our ground-based fighting forces.

But then, World War II demonstrated beyond dispute that we needed a completely separate Air Force to champion the nation’s Air Power — just as General Billy Mitchell had advocated decades earlier when he was reduced in rank and court-marshalled for his outspoken advocacy. (He actually predicted Pearl Harbor — over 15 years of strategic warning that was ignored because then Army and Navy “powers that be” did not believe it could happen.)

Click here for my April 23, 2019 message that included my then just published Newsmax article recalling some of this important history while remembering the famous Doolittle heroic raid on Tokyo that demonstrated America’s resolve to fight back after Pearl Harbor.

As a tribute on the death of the last of the Doolittle Raiders — Jimmy Doolittle’s co-pilot, USAF Colonel Richard Cole, then USAF Secretary Heather Wilson named the B-2 Bombers now under development as “Raiders.”

It also seemed fitting to note that the B-25 used in that “30 seconds over Tokyo” was called “the Mitchell” after Billy Mitchell — still the only USAF aircraft named after an individual. He is revered by many, including yours truly, as the “Father of the USAF.” Note, the separate USAF became a reality in 1947 — after World War II.

Today, we have a similar situation as the USAF provides a home for the U.S. Space Force. It appears to be devoted primarily to supporting the roles of the other services — like the signal corps was to the Army — rather than a fighting force for operating in, through and from space. Air power was needed not only to support the other services — but also to challenge and defeat other nations’ advances in applying air power.

Hopefully, it will not take a modern World War to persuade the current powers that be that the Space Force should rapidly evolve into a completely separate service, as President Trump originally proposed.

We no longer have the isolation provided in 1941 by our “island existence,” oceans away from our enemies. And some visionaries believe we are already playing “catch-up” with Russia and China in exploiting the benefits of space and advancing electronic technology that exceed the possibilities of air power.

We are exposed to immediate threats from long range nuclear armed missiles and essentially instantaneous threats from the 5G electronic realities that will dominate modern warfare in the very near future.

Not the least of the shortcomings that should be rectified is the revival of space-based interceptors and other means to intercept threats in, through and from space.

Recent reports of the Russian Avangard boost glide system that threatens our operational missile defenses should cause pause. If we had built the Brilliant Pebbles space-based interceptor system that we knew was possible by the mid-1990s, this threat would likely have been deterred.

So now we must play catch-up. But while the NDAA(2020) authorizes the Space Force, it provides no apparent support or funding for reviving such system concepts that were the most cost-effective products of the 1983-93 era of President Ronald Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI). Today’s 5G technology can empower even more capable defenses.

Do we have to wait for Avangard and other likely threats from Russia and China to be fully demonstrated before we wake up? I hope not.

We need a separate Space Force ASAP to deal realistically with these threats with the most capable space military systems! Is that our current plan?

Or are we still stuck in a mindset that sees “Space as a sanctuary” to be buffered by arms control and the vagaries of legal thinking and related negotiated measures alone? Didn’t we see this show before?

Click here for Eric Lofgren’s Defense News article, appropriately titled “Will the Space Force control its own destiny?”

He describes the organizational realities that threaten substantial lethargy within the Air Force, my favorite service in which I proudly served. I fear Lofgren’s concern is well justified — and urge the powers that be to pay close attention and rectify this situation as soon as possible.

We will continue to press this agenda, especially to begin a serious revival effort in 2020.

Precluding Space Force Power Beyond Our Geocentric Orbit.

As General Kwast notes,

“The Defense Department and Congress think that the Air Force should build the Space Force. So far, this has amounted to the Air Force planning to improve the current Satellite Command incrementally and call it a Space Force. It is not planning to accelerate the new space economy with dual-use technologies. It is not planning to protect the Moon or travel corridors in space to and from resource locations — raw materials worth trillions of dollars are available within a few days’ travel from Earth — and other strategic high grounds. It is not planning to place human beings in space to build and protect innovative solutions to the challenges posed by the physical environment. It is not developing means to rescue Americans who may get stranded or lost in space.”

I certainly agree with this perspective — and its identification of our collective delinquency. I’d note that High Frontier, led by Dr. Klaus Heiss, explored over 15 years ago how we might return to the Moon within a decade — to exploit the natural resources on the Lunar surface, in particular to build a solar cell farm to beam energy back to Earth using SDI directed energy technology. Click here for our 2003 High Frontier report discussing our specific proposal — that reflected a season of studies in cooperation with NASA and international partners.

Dr. Mike Griffin, NASA Administrator during the George W. Bush administration, agreed to join in seeking funds to return to the Moon if we could assure cooperation from the private sector to establish a habitat on the Moon to provide the means of collecting the solar energy and beaming it back to Earth. We were successful in attracting such support via international conferences and, in concert with George Washington University School of Business, had a plan to proceed.

But alas, with the arrival of the Obama administration, that initiative ended without a commitment from government — and regrettably Dr. Klaus Heiss, High Frontier’s principal advocate for this cause (and principal author of the above referenced report), died.

Hopefully, the Trump administration will revive and advance these ideas — which I feel sure Russia and China are now pursuing. Scientists and engineers for both nations took part in the international conferences we held 15 or so years ago to discuss how best to proceed.

In my opinion, we dare not allow their initiatives to displace our leadership in such exploration of Cis-Lunar space (Earth to and surrounding the Moon) and beyond. We may have less than three or four years to play catch-up and make-up for 15 years of lost time.

As General Kwast pointed out in his Hillsdale lecture and Patriot Post article, China in particular is moving ahead in these areas with related technology advances. As he noted

“Last January, China landed the Chang’e 4 spacecraft on the far side of the Moon. The mission provided valuable knowledge in terms of commercial and military applications. At one time this sort of mission was not beyond U.S. capabilities, but it is today, and it shows a commitment to space that we lack. To be sure, China has yet to achieve the ability to launch a manned spacecraft, but this is also a capability that we no longer possess — the U.S. relies on Russian rocketry to man and resupply the International Space Station.”

Moreover, General Kwast notes that

“China’s goal is to have the capability to shut down America’s computer systems and electrical grids at any time or place of its choosing, using directed energy and 5G technologies from space. Space is the strategic high ground from which China will seek to gain control of our media, businesses, land, debt, and markets. Although American companies are working on these new technologies, they are doing so in separate silos. Real power lies in tethering or combining the technologies together in space to achieve a dominant economic advantage.”

As he indicated — and I agree, if we choose to compete with China in space (and we must in my opinion), we have a cultural advantage. We are more creative and innovative than China, because we have an open society and a free market. But we must be ambitious and act soon.

Moreover, I think General Kwast’s list of action items make sense. As he wrote, with the right vision and strategy for space, America can develop the means to:

Deliver unlimited, clean, affordable energy to every human on the planet without power lines or terrestrial power plants.
Provide fresh water for every human without the need for aquifers or pipes.
Build a new low-cost internet that is designed to be secure so that every human can connect, share, and learn with assured privacy and data safety.
Defend Earth against small asteroids like the one that hit Russia in 2013.
Develop a deterrence capability that will render ICBMs and nuclear weapons useless relics of the past.
Revolutionize manufacturing by acquiring and deploying resources from space and in space.
Provide a shelter in space where we can protect and preserve people, seeds, and life-saving medicines, so humanity can recover from any unexpected contamination, illness, or disaster.
Design defense capabilities to preserve our economy, our people, and our sovereignty, and to allow our allies to defend themselves instead of sacrificing American lives.
Reduce the loss of life and property due to natural disasters by managing the eyes of hurricanes and the funnels of tornados with energy from space.

I also believe Gen. Kwast’s claim that technologies needed to achieve these goals are within our reach, if we have the wit to accept the challenge and again expedite our efforts to achieve them. We are playing “catch up” in some areas, but we have been in that position before and Americans have come through when it was needed. And it is needed now.

Bottom Lines.

To work toward those ends, I also endorse General Kwast’s call for the President and Congress move immediately as follows:

Congress should assign the Space Force the mission to defend commerce in space and define Cis-Lunar space (Earth to Moon) as an area of responsibility in the Unified Command Plan.
Congress should give the Space Force complete independence from the U.S. Air Force so that funds are not diverted from the former to the latter, and so that the Space Force isn’t developed as a mere support function for air power.
The President should issue an executive order protecting the space industry from China’s predatory practices.
The President should promote policies and strategies to maximize the contribution of the private sector, such as directing the Space Development Agency to partner with private companies to develop new space capabilities.

If development of the Space Force continues along the lines of what is currently planned, America will lose the strategic space race to China. This must not be allowed to happen. Our elected leaders must take action now.

What can you do?

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