In a 1995 my article “Who Needs Space Command?” I observed that unified commands exist to command forces, not to control systems, and therefore suggested that United States Space Command was both unnecessary and counterproductive to the advancement of holistic warfighting capability.

As a trained space systems engineer and former astronaut nominee/wannabe, I was one of the Navy’s lead space action officers at the time of the article’s publication, and an energetic space proponent. What I did not support was the notion that we needed a unified combatant command to manage space systems.

The premise of the article was that the conduct of “space warfare,” in the conventional sense of what “warfighting” means, may one day be a reality, but does not exist today. Therefore, space is merely a place from which warfighting capability is based and is not a warfighting domain itself, and therefore should not be the sole focus of one of our precious and vital combatant command staffs.

In the article, reciting the then-common observation that Desert Storm was often described as the first “space war,” I decried the proclivity of military officers who wanted to appear “in tune” with evolving warfighting doctrines to summon the term “space” as often as possible. The article further established that:

• Grouping warfighting capabilities together based on environment rather than function suboptimized warfighting architectures. Said differently, space intelligence is more appropriately aggregated with other cross-domain intelligence systems than it is with space-based communications or navigation systems. Functional architectures must be optimized before consideration of the “environment of operations” architectures.
• To make the point more directly, although we conduct surveillance from space, we also conduct surveillance from hills; yet we do not use the expression “hill warfare.”
• Suggesting that all “flavors” of space systems be lumped into the same unified command regardless of function or mission makes no more sense than suggesting that all aircraft or all terrestrial forces be managed by the same command regardless of function or mission.
• Authorizing U.S. Space Command to resolve operational shortfalls inappropriately drove solutions into expensive, space-based solutions when lower cost alternatives might be available. I suggested, for example, that if U.S. Space Command were put in charge of resolving communications deficiencies, more effective and less costly ground-based architectures (like cellular telephones) would likely not be pursued.
• We instead should pursue the “normalization” of space, giving it the attention and resources it merits, while not taking action that would cause space-based systems to be “first among equals” in competition with actual combat power.

Although I regret that some Air Force folks reacted badly to specific elements of my 1995 article, appearing to believe I was challenging their leadership in space, that was never my intent. Instead, my intent was to argue for an appropriate balance of the nation’s space systems as a supporting capability for our true warfighting domains— air, land, and sea—and to ensure space systems did not inappropriately draw resources away from much more critical weapon systems.

Apparently, someone fairly senior in the Department of Defense must have agreed with me, because seven years after the publication of my article, U.S. Space Command was eliminated (or more precisely, combined with U.S. Strategic Command and appropriately relegated as a supporting, rather than supported, area of operations).

Therefore, I find it curious that Congress this summer has taken up action to create a United States Space Corps within the Department of the Air Force by way of statute, 22 years after I first pointed out the folly of separating space systems (which some space advocates continue to refer to as “space forces”) from true, functionally-based warfighting architectures.

As illogical as it was to create a unified command to control space systems, it is even more puzzling how creating a separate “Space Corps” will ameliorate the most vexing problems of today’s military. We have many serious ailments. This action would solve none of them.

One could make the argument that, if anything, we have to learn how to live without space systems in combat with near-peer adversaries, since enemy action will likely deny use of space systems for days or weeks following initiation of hostilities.

If so, creation of a Space Corps would be tantamount to creation of a military service that would be rendered irrelevant for some of the most pivotal moments of a modern campaign. And, as I indicated in 1995, to the extent that such a corps draws funding, focus, or resources away from actual combat power, such a move would be a giant step backwards.

While the Air Force hated my proposal in 1995, in 2017 they are dead set against the idea of creating a Space Corps, and for good reason. In a period where Air Force warfighting manpower is the smallest in postwar history, further reducing the Air Force’s manpower flexibility by carving a Space Corps out of the Air Force is exactly the wrong move for the United States.

Congressional action is often required, even vital, for improvement in defense. For example, major improvements in defense information technology are unlikely to occur without bold intervention by Congress. But creation of a Space Corps, drawing time, money, and DOD attention away from other more serious problems, does not appear to be one of those areas where intervention would help now. Instead, this action appears to be a solution in search of a problem.