Early in 2020, Russia positioned one among its satellites dangerously near an American satellite tv for pc after which instructed it to execute a sequence of provocative and unsafe maneuvers. This summer season, that satellite tv for pc backed away, launched a goal, after which performed a weapons take a look at, firing a projectile at that concentrate on. This uncooked show of house fight energy was rigorously designed as an act of intimidation, proper out of the Nineteen Fifties Soviet playbook.
Over the previous 5 years, house has develop into a contested business and navy realm. Throughout that point, the variety of lively satellites in orbit has grown from 1,250 to three,400. By 2023, there might be about 5,000 lively satellites orbiting the Earth. The Satellite tv for pc Business Affiliation estimated the 2019 world house financial system at $366 billion, and Morgan Stanley tasks that revenues may prime $1 trillion by 2040. Throughout this era of explosive progress, Russia and China have made apparent their intention to problem American preeminence in business and navy house and to forestall the U.S. from utilizing its house capabilities in disaster and battle, elevating the prospect of struggle starting in, or extending into, house. We’re nonetheless coping with the fallout from China’s 2007 anti-satellite take a look at, which left a cloud of house particles that even right now should be rigorously tracked to keep away from collision with a big selection of spacecraft, together with the Worldwide Area Station. The implications of a full-blown struggle in house can be far worse.
A yr in the past, to take care of these challenges, the US created its first new unbiased navy department in additional than half a century. The U.S. Area Drive, which I’m privileged to guide, is a brand new type of service. The Area Drive headquarters on the Pentagon could have about 600 navy and civilian members in a constructing that homes greater than 20,000 Protection Division staff. Solely by staying lean, agile, and tightly centered on our mission can we achieve defending the US.
In our first yr, now we have had the possibility to systematically design a Twenty first-century navy department. Our objective is to boost American navy energy as house techniques assume an ever-greater position within the missions of the armed forces. The Military, Navy, Air Drive, Marines, and Coast Guard rely upon house to navigate trackless deserts, broad oceans, and world airspace with certainty; to speak anyplace, anytime, and in any menace situation; or to strike targets with precision and lethality.
Pace is a trademark of our intentionally lean new service. We have to quickly design, take a look at, and make use of the brand new applied sciences and modern working ideas we would require to compete, deter, and win. The department’s creation got here one yr after the Pentagon crafted a brand new Nationwide Protection Technique designed to pivot towards great-power competitors and the delicate threats it brings, and away from the counterterrorism focus that has marked the previous twenty years.
We’ve eliminated a number of layers of command construction and forms, to maneuver leaders nearer to these on the entrance strains and shorten the pathways and timelines for modern concepts to bubble up. That is particularly essential in establishing a tradition for a service so closely reliant on expertise to discourage or defeat adversaries.
The final new unbiased navy department earlier than the Area Drive—the U.S. Air Drive—was shaped simply after World Conflict II. That service’s distinctive tradition, identification, and focus allowed its management to ascertain and develop essential applied sciences, together with stealth, sensible weapons and exact world navigation.
In his e-book A Fiery Peace in a Chilly Conflict, the journalist Neil Sheehan chronicled the efforts of 1 such visionary: Air Drive Brig. Gen. Bernard Schriever, maybe a very powerful normal that few Individuals have ever heard of. Using a lean, centered workforce, Schriever helped the U.S. navy race forward of the Soviet Union within the Nineteen Fifties, creating intercontinental ballistic missiles and reconnaissance satellites, opening the door for house exploration and preserving peace for generations.
Within the years since, many have advocated for the creation of a separate navy house service. Creating the U.S. Area Drive earlier than a national-security disaster compelled its formation provides the nation’s latest navy department the time and respiratory room it wants to prepare rapidly however methodically.
Within the yr now we have spent standing up the nation’s latest service, house has grown extra crowded, extra contested, and extra important to our financial system and nationwide safety. Anybody who has used a visitors app on a smartphone or a digital platform for a gathering has seen the methods during which space-based networks govern our every day lives, from commerce to communication.
We have no idea which future visionaries will emerge to comply with within the footsteps of leaders like Schriever. However by staying lean and centered, the Area Drive can deal with the various challenges that lie forward, outcompeting adversaries, deterring battle, and conserving Individuals protected.
This story was initially printed by The Atlantic. Join their publication.