“When it comes to defending America, it is not enough to merely have an American presence in space,” President Donald Trump said Monday as he announced the creation of a new “Space Force” to protect U.S. interests and assets in space. “We must have American dominance in space.”
Past American presidents may have thought the same, and acted accordingly, but rarely have they ever expressed this sentiment so brazenly. It's yet another way Trump has broken with past precedent—and it could set off a dangerous arms race, potentially sparking a Cold War in space.
As one top expert on space security, Joan Johnson-Freese of the U.S. Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island, put it to me, “This will probably be seen as another indicator that the United States is moving towards a more militaristic position regarding space activity.”
Trump directed the Pentagon on Monday to establish a sixth branch of the military to focus on space, presumably separating personnel that concentrate on things like military satellites and their ground infrastructure from the Air Force. Though he called American “destiny” in space “a matter of national security,” the president didn't say anything specific about whether the Space Force will simply be continuing U.S. Air Force activities, or whether it would be launching new ones, such as developing offensive or defensive weapons capabilities. A separate plan for developing missile defense platforms to be deployed in space may be in the works as well, though, if Congress decides to fund it.
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