‘We must have American dominance in space”- Pence

WASHINGTON(TIP): ‘We must have American dominance in space”, said Vice President Pence, outlining an ambitious plan on Thursday, August 9 that would begin creating a military command – “Space Force” as the sixth branch of the U.S. military as early as 2020.

Pence warned of the advancements that potential adversaries were making and issued what amounted to a call to arms to preserve the military’s dominance in space.

“Just as we’ve done in ages past, the United States will meet the emerging threats on this new battlefield,” he said in a speech at the Pentagon. “The time has come to establish the United States Space Force.”

But the monumental task of standing up a new military department, which would require approval by a Congress that shelved the idea last year, may require significant new spending and a reorganization of the largest bureaucracy in the world. And the idea has already run into fierce opposition inside and out of the Pentagon, particularly from the Air Force, which could lose some of its responsibilities.

Defense Secretary Jim Mattis last year said he opposed a new department of the military “at a time when we are focused on reducing overhead and integrating joint warfighting functions.”

This week, Mattis said the Pentagon and White House “are in complete alignment” on the need to view space as a warfighting domain. But he stopped short of endorsing a full-fledged Space Force. In a briefing with reporters after Pence’s speech, Deputy Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan suggested that Mattis’s comments opposing the Space Force were made at a different time, before the Pentagon received a bolstered budget.

White House officials have been working with national security leaders to aggressively move ahead without Congress. The first step is creating a new U.S. Space Command by the end of the year, which would be led by a four-star general, the way the Pentagon’s Indo-Pacific Command oversees those regions.

The new command would pull space experts from across the armed services, and there would be a separate acquisitions office, dedicated to buying satellites and developing new technology to help the military win wars in space.

After the announcement Thursday, President Trump tweeted, “Space Force all the way!”

For months, Trump has been calling for a Space Force, a new, free-standing military department, with its own chain of command and uniforms.

The White House intends to work with lawmakers in submitting legislation by early next year, a senior administration official said, with the hopes of standing up the first new military department since the Air Force in 1947.

Some members of Congress and military leaders have been warning space is no longer a peaceful sanctuary, but a domain of conflict that needs more attention and resources. Space is vital to the way the United States wages war; The Pentagon’s satellites are used for missile-defense warnings, guiding precision munitions and providing communications and reconnaissance.

Russia and China have made significant advancements, challenging the United States’ assets in space.

After Pence’s speech, Reps. Mike Rogers (R-Ala.) and Jim Cooper (D-Tenn.), members of the House Armed Services Committee, praised the move, saying a Space Force “will result in a safer, stronger America.”

“We have been warning for years of the need to protect our space assets and to develop more capable space systems,” they said in a joint statement.

In his speech, Pence urged the audience to support the administration’s effort to create the new department.

Speaking to a room made up mostly of U.S. troops in uniform, Pence said their “Commander-in-Chief is going to continue to work tirelessly toward this goal, and we expect you all to do the same.”

“The only thing we can’t afford is inaction,” he said.