2020 American Space Force

By: M. Lutfalla

The American Vice President has recently announced that extra steps are going to be taken in the takeover of space. He claims the country’s aims to set up an American Army in space, as they strongly believe that the space is becoming a new battlefield.

Trump has claimed: “We should have a new force called the Space Force. It’s like the Army and the Navy, but for space, because we’re spending a lot of money on space”. The US aim is put these troops out by 2020, there is an estimate of approximately US$ 8 billion to be spent on the development of this 6th part to the American army. President Donald Trump describes this as a way to gain control of part of space and also to shelter themselves from Russia and China.


Currently the Air Forces of the US is the one in charge of controlling the satellites, and all the US space missions; and what will now happen is that this new Space Force will absorb all of these duties under one bigger and more organized force.

They plan on starting the Space Force organization by firstly setting up a Committee of Space, which would be responsible for looking out for the troops out in space. Following they will select a couple of military from the different sub divisions of the American military to build this new division which will be looking out for space. Nevertheless, there will also be a set up a Spatial Agency, which is designed to research and innovate this army. Lastly, they plan on nominating a new defense sub secretary for taking care of the space agenda, and so that it administrates their plans and objectives.

The Vice President and the Defense Secretary claim that it is extremely vital for the US to take this initiative. As their enemies such as China has already implied Space of being its next battlefield, - it has destroyed part of its Satellite with a missile and a laser which has the ability to block the infrastructure of Russia in Space.  

The Air Force is known to be strongly against this decision. It is known that in November the Congress tried to set up a Space Force and it was a failure. The defense department has now concluded, “Space is no longer a peaceful domain” – Deborah Lee James, she also says “there is a real possibility that a conflict on Earth could bleed into space”.

This is proven by the increase of satellite in space since 1960:

The biggest issue here is whether a set up of a Space Force is actually necessary, or is there a better way to secure the US space assets? The Vox News paper https://www.vox.com/world/2017/7/5/15905018/space-force-trump-congress-russia-china defines it as: “This is a solution in search of a problem”. 
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