President Donald Trump’s call this week for a separate U.S. “space force” was the culmination of months of frustration over what he felt was a lack of Pentagon action on his initial suggestions about the topic, according to people familiar with the decision, Wall Street Journal reports.
The announcement on Monday—which surprised many military officials, senior aerospace industry executives and lawmakers—went against well-known opposition by Pentagon leaders to the idea of establishing a new branch of the U.S. armed forces.
The week before, Air Force Secretary Heather Wilson and the service’s senior commanders gathered for a strategy session in Dayton, Ohio, but none had an inkling about Trump’s impending announcement on Monday, according to one of these people, who attended the sessions.
The evolution of the President’s idea of a space force, the people familiar with the issue said, reflects his management style – he occasionally offers seemingly ad hoc ideas in public, but at some point expects aides and cabinet officials to follow up with specific implementation plans.
White House consideration of creating a sixth branch of the armed forces stretches back at least to March, when Trump gave a speech at a Southern California air base raising that prospect. During his initial discussions with aides, Trump said in remarks then, “I was not really serious.” But then: “I said, ‘What a great idea; maybe we’ll have to do that’.”
Proponents contend the change is essential because the current airplane-focused structure hasn’t responded adequately to fast-growing threats outside the atmosphere. On May 1, Trump returned to the topic, this time at a White House reception. “We’re actually thinking of a sixth branch of the armed services and that would be the space force,” Mr. Trump said
In those tentative sets of remarks, he appeared to take at least some of the credit for a concept the House included last year as part of its national defense authorization bill, the Journal writes.
That proposal, to carve out a dedicated “space corps” from the Air Force—much like the Marine commandant answers to the civilian head of the Navy—failed to become law, as the Senate subsequently stripped it from the legislation. Senior Air Force civilian leaders and top Pentagon officials had urged senators to block the provision.
“I oppose the creation of a new military service and additional organizational layers at a time when we are focused on reducing overhead and integrating joint warfighting functions,” Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said in a 2017 letter to the Senate Armed Services Committee.
Trump revived the idea with his comments in March and again in May, although Air Force leaders remained noncommittal in congressional testimony and in other venues. Asked to evaluate Trump’s proposal during a House defense appropriations subcommittee hearing after Mr. Trump’s March speech, Gen. David Goldfein, the Air Force Chief of Staff, said: “I’m really looking forward to the conversation.”
As the Pentagon continued to study the issue, its basic message was: “This will happen, but now is not the time,” according to the person who participated in the high-level Air Force strategy session. Behind the scenes, Air Force brass continued to debate the pros and cons, with some commanders urging a more open-minded approach, according to the people familiar with the issue. But ultimately, the consensus was that it was premature to immediately move toward a space force.
One of his top supporters, Lt. Gen. John Thompson, head of the Air Force’s sprawling satellite and missile purchasing command, said at the same news conference that he was seeking ways to cut costs and accelerate deployment of hardware. But he acknowledged that “in the short term, you’re not going to see anything different” in how the Air Force procures multibillion-dollar satellite constellations, the Journal notes.
In his Monday announcement, Trump sharply upped the pressure, saying: “I’m hereby directing the Department of Defense and Pentagon to immediately begin the process necessary to establish a space force as the sixth branch of the armed forces.”
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