The Space Force, the sixth and newest branch of the U.S.
military, was authorized by Congress and signed into law by
President Donald Trump in December 2019. The initiative had been
shaped within the armed forces and Congress over the previous 25
years, based on the premise that as satellite and space
technologies evolved, America’s military organizations had to
change as well.
From the start, the Space Force had detractors. Air Force
officials wondered if it was necessary, while some political
observers believed that it signified the start of a dangerous
(and expensive) militarization of another realm. What seemed
harder to argue against was how nearly every aspect of modern
warfare and defense — intelligence, surveillance, communications,
operations, missile detection — has come to rely on links to
orbiting satellites.
The recent battles in Eastern Europe, in which Russia has tried
to disrupt Ukraine’s space-borne communication systems, are a
case in point. And yet the strategic exploitation of space now
extends well beyond military concerns. Satellite phone systems
have become widespread. Positioning and timing satellites, such
as GPS (now overseen by the Space Force), allow for digital
mapping, navigation, banking and agricultural management. A world
without orbital weather surveys seems unthinkable. Modern life is
reliant on space technologies to an extent that an interruption
would create profound economic and social distress.
For the moment, the force has taken up a problem not often
contemplated outside science fiction: How do you fight a war in
space, or a war on Earth that expands into space? And even if
you’re ready to fight, how do you make sure you don’t have a
space war in the first place?
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