Whither Space Force?
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My latest column is a distillation of a conference paper that I recently gave at the Southern Political Science Association conference in New Orleans…
The first and most significant question is whether the US Space Force is actually an independent military service (as we use the term to describe the Air Force or the Marine Corps) or something else that is simply masquerading as one.
The Space Force is very small (roughly 5 percent the size of the next largest branch), does not have a service academy, does not have its own civilian department (as the Marine Corps sits in the Department of the Navy, the Space Force is in the Department of the Air Force), and does not have a mission set that can be described independently from the other services.
Given that the Space Force emerged almost fully formed from Air Force Space Command, it’s worth wondering how its independence actually matters in day-to-day operations. That said, given that the Pentagon calls the USSF an independent service, we have little choice but to treat it as such even if it falls short on many metrics.
The rest of the column evaluates organizational effectiveness, culture, domestic impact, and international impact. TLDR we’re still way short of any sound evaluation of whether Space Force was a good idea, but I’m still leaning no. For anyone who plans to be in Columbus for ISA in March I’ll be presenting an updated version of the paper…