Pentagon is moving toward establishing Trump’s Space Force

WASHINGTON — The Pentagon is moving toward fulfilling President Donald Trump’s request to establish a Space Force, the first new branch of the military in more than 70 years.

In a speech at the Pentagon today,Vice President Mike Pence will lay out the administration’s plan. The Pentagon is also expected to release a congressionally mandated report on the issue.

Calls for a separate military branch have been met with reluctance in some parts of the Pentagon, concerned that a new bureaucracy isn’t needed. The move could significantly reorganize the military and potentially strip the Air Force of some of its key responsibilities.

Last year, Defense Secretary Jim Mattis wrote in a memo that he opposed “the creation of a new military service and additional organizational layers at a time when we are focused on reducing overhead and integrating joint warfighting functions.”

On Tuesday, however, Mattis said military leaders “are in complete alignment with the president’s concern about protecting our assets in space to contribute to our security to our economy and we’re going to have to address it as other countries show a capability to attack those assets.”

Congressional approval would be needed to create an entirely new military branch. A Space Force, dedicated to space the way the Navy is to the sea, would be the first new military service since the Air Force was created in 1947. But Mattis said that creating a new combatant command for space, such as one that governs the Pentagon’s Special Operations, “is certainly one thing that we can establish.”

He added that the plan for how best to implement it was ongoing: “I don’t have all the final answers yet. We’re still putting it together.”

Defense One, a news outlet focused on the military, recently reported that a four-star general would lead the combatant command and an agency would focus on buying satellites.

For years, the Pentagon has warned that space has become a contested domain of war, like the land, air and sea. And it has become increasingly concerned that its assets in space are vulnerable to attack. Military leaders have said repeatedly that modern warfare depends on space.