When President Trump chose SDSM&T President Heather Wilson to become Secretary of the Air Force in 2017, he was already convinced that a US Space Force was absolutely necessary to allow America to compete with China’s aggressive, anything-goes economy. Trump had to do something quickly to heal the damages that eight years of Obama had done to the military.
As Secretary of the Air Force through 2019, Wilson “proposed and supported three straight years of double-digit budget increases for military space capability and publicly acknowledged that space is likely to be contested in any future conflict,” according to Wikipedia. When Trump issued the order to create the US Space Command in December 2018, she was with Vice President Mike Pence at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida to make the announcement.
Three days ago, on January 14, Pence “swore in Gen. John W. Raymond as the highest-ranking military leader of the newly created U.S. Space Force, adding a prominent White House ceremony that recognized the arrival of the nation’s newest, separate branch of the military.”
“The Urgent Need for a U.S. Space Force” was spelled out last month by former Air Force General Steven L. Kwast at Hillsdale College, now available as an hour-long YouTube video. Kwast agues that China is already fully engaged in space initiatives to achieve worldwide economic domination of transportation, energy, information, and manufacturing. The country that first succeeds in capturing space will weaponize it, shutting the door to others, even the United States, now behind.
There will be a “dominance of the electromagnetic spectrum,” he warns. All aspects of human life will be revolutionized beyond even what science fiction can imagine. Technology set up in space will make our current applications outdated. America will have to leave bickering behind and embrace new paradigms and ways of thinking. Trump seems to know that nations that come in second will turn into economic vassals.
A former B-1 Weapons Systems Officer at Ellsworth AFB emailed this response:
Adult talk about the US Space Force and why. Chilling analogy to the 1930s; It appears we’ve been asleep at the wheel (again), technologically speaking. Speaker is a retired LTGEN, USAF. Met him. Very sharp guy. A long pitch, but worth the look.