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Space could be Trump’s new battlefield Metro investigates how feasible it is to create a Space Force, as proposed by President Trump DANIEL CASILLAS
Metro World News
U.S. President Donald Trump recently stated that it is necessary to create a new military division called the ‘Space Force,’ with its main goal to guard space, which is considered by the POTUS to be a battlefield. The proposal generated many reactions among experts and especially social network users, who began to imagine what this space force would look like and even compared it to the Star Wars franchise. But how feasible is it to create such a force? Experts explain. But the president’s approach is not new, in fact, during part of the 1980s and up until 2002 there was a U.S. Military Space Command, “the United States created the U.S. Space Command in 1985, merging space operations conducted separately by the Air Force, Army and Navy departments. Prior to that, each service established its own
space command. Advocates of a stronger organization have periodically called for an elevated command structure, so that space would at least be equal in status to the Marines (part of the Navy) or perhaps a department equal to air, ground and sea operations”, explains Howard McCurdy, professor at the American University in Washington, D.C., expert on space policy and author of the book ‘Space and the American Imagination’. McCurdy adds that U.S. efforts to protect it with military dates back to the beginning of the space era in 1957, when the United States relied on robotic spacecrafts for its defense needs. Years later, in the early 1960s, the U.S. Department of Defense created its own astronaut corps, but it was dissolved in 1969. The most recent attempt to create the Space Force, before Trump proposed it, was in July 2017, when a U.S. Congressional commission proposed that the U.S. military add a new
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REASONS WHY SPACE IS IMPORTANT TO ARMIES 1. COMMUNICATIONS Most U.S. and other nation’s military communications are space-based with the help of satellites, so it is critical for the military to make sure their communication’s are safe. 2. DEFENCE Space is one of the first defense shields for many nations around the world, because it is from space that you can detect and, in some cases, defuse airborne attacks that aim at a ground target.
military branch that would literally send soldiers out of this world, but Trump’s Pentagon opposed it. Although experts do not believe that for now this type of armed force can be used to combat hostile aliens who want to attack our planet, as many social network users have said after listening to Trump’s proposal, they do believe that space is important for the U.S. military, because it is a critical component of its military capacity and is already a battleground used by world powers. “Actually, it (space) is already a domain where conflict is engaged or ‘war fighting’ is conducted. Cyber warfare is the most complex offensive weapon capable of disrupting power grids, financial systems and communication networks - without firing a shot”,
Sean O’Keefe, Professor at the Maxwell School, Syracuse University and former NASA administrator and Navy Secretary under President George W. Bush, explained to Metro. “At another level of space related capability, strategic intercontinental ballistic missiles, or ICBMs, are designed to be launched from surface, at sea or aboard aircrafts, and enter exo-atmospheric altitudes — space — in sub-orbital route to destinations”, he added In that sense, space is seen as such an important field for the armies of many nations, including the United States, as is land, sea and air, because many military and defense components are there, so a space corporation could help defend its assets in space, including satellites used to target weapons fired from Earth, communicate between command centers and spy on othe In addition to the United States, other powers such as China and Russia are already focusing their attention on conquering space through their armies, or at least on
interest to the United States, and that the nation would be willing to defend its interests there if needed.
other space powers, such as Russia and China), a Space Force would be designed to represent the interests, and express the defensive capability, of the United States, with respect to space assets and utilities. The potential adversaries here are seen as other nation-states on Earth.
the possibility of disabling the space equipment of some other nation that decides to attack them, “Russia and China are preparing to fight wars in space – or more specifically, to disable the space-based equipment of any nation that attacks them. At the least, the United States needs to strengthen its ability to protect its own equipment”, said McCurdy. While leaders and experts recognize the importance of space in U.S. military capability, the debate is expected to continue on whether the creation of a space force is indeed necessary or whether space protection should remain in the hands of the U.S. Air Force, as it has been so far. “Whether or not it is necessary to create a Space Force is a matter of diverse, and sometimes divisive, opinion. There are many policy-makers and legislators in Washington D.C. that are content to leave space defensive operations with the United States Air Force, which is currently tasked with most of the military space portfolio. Other politicians see a Space Force as a means of extracting space activities from
3. ATTACK As Trump said, space is becoming a battleground and many nations would not hesitate to attack other countries’ space assets if they felt threatened. From space, different nations are also spied on with the help of satellites.
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the Air Force--which has excelled at air power--and placing space activities in a branch that can dedicate itself to space as its primary mission”, Michael S. Dodge, Assistant Professor in the Department of Space Studies at the University of North Dakota, told Metro.
Q&A MICHAEL S. DODGE
Assistant Professor in the Department of Space Studies at the University of North Dakota
What is your opinion about President Donald Trump’s proposal to create the ‘Space Force’? President Trump has recognized that space is a rather critical component of U.S. military capability, and is key to many defense strategies. Many nations have been using space as a means of assisting their national defense, and this has been going on for many decades. Some of the
earliest spacecraft projects were designed by the U.S.A. and U.S.S.R. to engage in remote sensing capabilities, which were meant to give those states advantages in determining what other nations were capable of fielding in the event of warfare breaking out on Earth. One such early program in the U.S. was the Corona satellite program, so it was recognized early on how valuable space assets could be towards preparing defensive strategies here on Earth. In some ways, what President Trump has proposed is really an acknowledgement of long-standing policy in the United States. The U.S. National Space Policy does allow for the notion that space is a vital field of
Many people who have heard Trump’s proposal think that this force will fight aliens, what is your opinion on this? The proposed Space Force/Space Corps. is not meant to fight aliens, or any kind of conceivable extraterrestrial threat. It is merely meant to be a discrete military service that is capable of marshaling technology and military strategy for the purposes of U.S. national defense. Since the United States already sees space as a potential battlefield (as do many
Can space be considered a warfighting domain, as Trump stated? Space can be seen as a war-fighting domain, just as noted by President Trump. This has actually been the belief in Washington for some time, and was acknowledged by the Congress of the United States, which gave the U.S. Air Force the mandate to maintain
space as a useful domain, and to be prepared to defend assets in place if necessary. Practically, the U.S.A., the Russian Federation, China, and other nations all see space as a place where technologies like global navigation satellite systems, remote sensing satellites, and communication satellites can be employed to assist in Earth-based defensive and offensive needs. Consequently, these nations all strategize for the possibility that they will need to defend these assets against potential attacks (anything from jamming to actual kinetic anti-satellite weapons), and also, no doubt, plan for how they might need to impair other nations’ space assets, if necessary.
Has the idea of the U.S. Space Force come up before, or is this Trump’s novel idea? The idea of a Space Force is not a new one. Indeed, Donald Rumsfeld hinted at the potential need for such a force, back in the early 2000s. Further, some in Congress, such as Representative Mike Rogers, have argued for such a branch in the past. Rep. Rogers does seem pleased that President Trump has taken to argue for a Space Force (or Space Corps. as it is sometimes called here), so there could be more movement on the idea both in Congress, and at the level of the presidency.