ICYMI: Pence Justifies Need For Space Force, Says Other Nations Have Been ‘Undermining’ US Space-Based Systems ‘For Years’

Despite the snickering of partisans, and the more credible concerns from some worried about reassigning military resources, Space Force appears to be actually happening so everyone go ahead and get used to it. And according to Vice President Mike Pence, the administration is so serious about it they’re seeking funding for a new Department of the Space Force in the next National Defense Authorization Act.

On October 23, Pence — who has become the administration’s face for the Space Force effort — spoke to the The National Space Council at the National Defense University in Washington, DC and detailed President Trump’s vision for “renewed American leadership in space.”

“Today, other nations are seeking to disrupt our space-based systems and undermine our economic and military might as never before. For many years, nations from Russia and China to North Korea and Iran have pursued weapons to jam, blind, and disable our navigation and communications satellites through electronic attacks from the ground. But recently, our adversaries have been working to bring new weapons of war into space itself, from anti-satellite weapons and airborne lasers to highly threatening on-orbit activities and evasive hypersonic missiles, both China and Russia have been aggressively developing and deploying technologies that have transformed space into a warfighting domain.”

This is a much more militaristic take on the space-based project that many had assumed would basically be a new bureaucracy to manage aging satellites and communication efforts. However, Pence was clear that the administration was working toward a unified combatant U.S. Space Command that would be modeled after US Special Operations Command.

Pence told the room the goal was to integrate space activities into already existing armed services and to adjust and develop “warfighting” procedural guidelines and doctrines as necessary.

Watch Pence’s address below.

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