Psaki was asked Tuesday by Bloomberg White House reporter Josh Wingrove if Biden has made a decision about “keeping, or keeping the scope of, Space Force.” Psaki responded as though she’d been asked about the happy hour specials at the Trump International Hotel.
“Wow, Space Force. It’s the plane of today,” Psaki sarcastically said, referring to silly questions she fielded during her first press briefings about Biden’s thoughts on the color scheme of Air Force One… On one hand, Psaki’s dismissiveness is understandable. As Defense News recently explained, the Space Force “is fundamentally a rebranding of the Air Force’s legacy space organizations.”
That was an awful article from Vox, Jen Psaki’s Space Force comment and the ensuing controversy, explained. I felt guilty reading this article, like I could have been reading something substantive and instead watched Desperate Housewives. But it’s always interesting to see what the media thinks of defense topics. The takeaway is that the popular view of Space Force is that it’s nothing more than Trump’s “vanity” project (despite having been a Democratic initiative years before).
The article, by the way, had seven embedded tweets — five from journalists, one from Mark Hamill wanting to sue the Space Force, and one from the press secretary. In other words, zero for seven in terms of people who know anything about Space Force.
The only substantive reference was to a Defense News article. But is the Space Force simply a “rebranding” of existing space elements as the quote implied? The Defense News article followed up with some actual analysis, and I’ll add to that. Let’s what is significant in the Space Force:
(1) A new Chief of Space Operations with its own staff that sits on the JCS. This makes it equivalent to the Marine Corps in the Navy.
(2) Space Force has its own appropriations, and will separately POM for its own programs. Never underestimate the power of the budget to control one’s own destiny. The Space Force POM will go through the Chief of Space Operations before it gets to the Air Force corporate structure for final review and release to OSD.
(3) Transfer of personnel from Army, Navy, and Air Force to serve as space operators.
(4) Space Systems Command stood up, which will bring in SDA and SpRCO in addition to SMC. It will potentially consolidate other space acquisitions from Army and Navy.
(5) The Space Force acquisition executive, called ASAF/SP, will come online at the start of fiscal year 2023. ASAF/SP will sit on the Space Acquisition Council. This gives the Space Force more acquisition autonomy than the Marine Corps has.
(6) A new head of contracting activity is delegated to the Space Force.
(7) Change in the interaction Space Force has with AFRL, test centers, and installations.
(8) Anyone remember that amazing May 2020 Space Force report on acquisition? Too bad it was retracted the next day, but the Space Force was thinking big. In particular, Space Force asked for more budget flexibility, different requirements process, and a new AAF acquisition pathway. These points are still in coordination, but if Space Force becomes a pilot for some new authorities, then that could be huge.
(9) This isn’t directly related to the Space Force itself, but there’s been a huge culture change going on. First, the reorganization of Space and Missile Systems Center from program-oriented directorates to functionally-oriented corps. For example, you no longer have Space Superiority or MILSATCOM directorates, and instead you have Development, Production, and Enterprise Corps. This change has a huge affect on those in the organization. And to follow that, there is the cultural shift to EPIC Speed. I wouldn’t downplay these efforts, or all the other efforts currently happening in Space Force to train acquisition officers.
I’ll bet there’s a lot of other things going on with the Space Force. It’s really keeping its staff/overhead structure quite lean. Steven Kwast makes a powerful argument about how small changes to culture can really have huge impacts on decisions and force structure.
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