How Does a New Service Excel?

There is a resonant belief in many people, that they could make their organization significantly better, if only they could start from scratch and recraft it from whole cloth. But, I have always found the start from scratch approach a little too good to be true. If someone could build a great organization just by starting over, than certainly every new company, new government agency and new school would be in every way better than their predecessors. Alas, this is rarely the case, and often new organizations, which stray too far from the structures and approaches of proven success, fail to gain ground and eventually disappear. This is not to say that, given a clean sheet opportunity, that there is no room to try new ideas or to break glass. Equally prone to failure are those organizations which do little more than provide a carbon copy of their predecessors.

I bring this up in light of the 2019 creation of the United States Space Force, which must seek to craft itself as a new kind of Service, which does military space better than the various services it replaces in that domain, while managing to conversely capture and apply those proven elements of government and military organizations which are necessary to sustain itself in the competitive dynamic of Washington DC. Here is a brief overview of eight essential elements which must be captured for Space Force to succeed as a military service within the Department of Defense, gain broad public acceptance and become the premier military space organization on (and beyond) the planet. All of these deserve more attention than the primer I am offering here.

1)     A bigger view of the space domain and the military’s role in it than the Air Force or the other services had before Space Force was created.

Currently there are two schools of thought on how Space Force should focus its activities. Couched in Naval terms, these schools are the Brown Water School: which emphasizes a traditional focus on space support to terrestrial military activities; and the Blue Water School: which foresees an outward focused organization securing various resources and centers of gravity, not just in earth orbit, but in lunar space and beyond. Both schools have their advocates, but in the end the Space Force has to see itself as the Organize, Train and Equip organization which provides all military things space, both in near earth orbit and wherever else conflict might arise. It is not enough to simply support joint force ISR, weather, PNT and communications from orbit, Space Force must assure such capabilities by protecting those spacecraft and further offer joint force commanders offensive and defensive options for space control activities and the servicing of terrestrial targets. Finally, Space Force must already be preparing to move beyond earth orbit to protect US interests wherever they may reveal themselves.

2)     A culture that is specifically unique to the service and its domain, but close enough to the general Department of Defense warrior culture to ensure mostly friendly rivalry in peace and easy jointness in conflict.

Culture begins with a shared sense of self. The Space Force culture must acknowledge the natural elements which form it: national and military space history, the shared experiences of space professionals in the Air Force, Army and Navy, and the traditions which have arisen throughout the formative period of military space operations. Additionally, space culture must be deliberately nudged to encourage an appropriate warrior ethos, specific to the current and future requirements of space warfighting as well as to cultivate an image of what it means to be a “Guardian.” Many secondary factors will contribute to this end including uniforms, official and unofficial activities, organizational symbology, and developmental structures. Keeping too much from the past may be regressive, making it little more than Air Force Lite, and preventing Space Force from achieving its full potential, while ignoring too much of the past will likely mean repeating mistakes which can easily be avoided. Culture is king, and the kind of culture Space Force cultivates will determine how successful it will be.

3)     A long-term vision with buy-in from service leadership, the majority of Guardians (service members), congress and the American people.

This is kind of like culture, accept it entirely starts at the top. Leadership must conceive and articulate a unifying vision for what Space Force is and where it is going. This vision must be bold and exciting, yet wholly believable. This vision must be sufficiently strong to withstand changing administrations, changing congresses, changing leadership teams within Space Force and evolving culture in the nation. This vision must be intimidating to potential adversaries and inspiring to friends. This is no simple task, yet without such a vision, there can only be insignificance and eventual indifference. What will Space Force be doing in 2050? What is being done today to ensure that we will meet the challenges of the future? Where is it all going? A vision unshared will be a vision unrealized. One need only google Space Force on the internet to understand how hungry the American people, indeed people around the world, are for this vision. Lacking it, they craft their own ideas for the future of Space Force, which isn’t all bad, but is far from unifying. Only with a distinct, clear and inspiring vision can the US craft the Space Force the nation will need to deter and defeat the looming enemies of the next century.

4)     An independent structure for communicating with congress and the American people

To effectively pursue that vision, the Space Force must have the means to directly and honestly communicate with both the nation’s political leadership and the voters, without the filter of another service. Most military organizations have at least moderately effective internal communications facilitated by the chain of command. But external communications require a dedicated public affairs career field which (just as in other military career fields) raises its personnel through various levels of experience and authority, while enabling the development of subject matter expertise (specific to national security in the domain of that service) with the intent that those entrusted with articulating the service’s vision, strategic messages and other vital communications have the judgment, experience and mission knowledge to do so effectively; and to fully prepare their leaders to do the same. Likewise, building teams to liaise with the congress and the White House made up of the best and brightest space professionals, similarly groomed to communicate accurately, effectively and completely the vision and equities of the Space Force organization, particularly with respect to needed authorities and resources is vital to the long term success of the new Service. Washington and the Pentagon are far too competitive an environment to trust such communications to another, competing organization or a perpetual team of novice Guardians. 

5)     A well distributed geographic footprint

Also vital to community outreach is presence in local communities. This is a particular challenge for small services like the Coast Guard, Marine Corps or Space Force, wherein there are a limited number of organizations which can be distributed around the country. This is made worse by a natural desire to congregate as much as possible to reduce infrastructure expenses and enable greater organizational span of control. However, the clustering of most Space Force units in a few geographic locations prevents most Americans from every having the opportunity to interact with them. Certainly Colorado Springs, Denver, Huntsville, Cocoa Beach and Santa Maria have good sized populations of retired Space Professionals combined with lots of opportunities to interact with current service members; but the rest of the country does no. Thus the congressional support, recruiting and goodwill which automatically follows military communities will be minimized, and most Americans will form an impression of Space Force based on a Netflix comedy. If undertaken, greater geographic distribution will increase the number of Senators and Congressmen with a direct stake in the success of the service, leading to resources that might otherwise go elsewhere, especially if the service beds down in communities without a large existing military presence. Additionally, geographic distribution of space assets in a time of growing great power competition is simply a smart survival decision for the nation. Finally, Space Force should really own some territory in the National Capital Region, from which it can host events and bed down its senior leaders. I hear that one of the other services owns an actual space observatory, with accompanying property, in the District of Columbia; that would work.

6)     A resilient organizational structure with room for expansion, including Reserve components

How effectively the service will implement that footprint will depend on its organizational structure. What are the key elements? The headquarters, Field commands, Garrisons and Deltas of Space Force tell us something about the organizational structure, but not how it will grow or evolve. Where do you invest your limited number of senior officers? Instinct is always to keep as many of them as you can as close as possible, to distribute work and decision making and to keep the senior team effectively one-voiced. However, in a service as small as Space Force it is worth considering that moving more senior leaders into the field will enable the kind of mission specialization needed to dominate space. Currently, almost all operational units in the Space Force are under Space Operations Command, repeating largely the practice of the US Air Force of treating all space operations as kind of the same thing. The specialization at the Delta level is noteworthy, but in choosing to specialize at the Colonel (O6) level of command, it virtually ensures that there are no senior leaders who have the time or attention to ensure the development of specific mission areas, an absolute necessity in the competitive and rank conscious world of military prioritization. Instead one general led headquarters will be balancing time and attention across eight different distinct operational mission areas. The Space Force is small, but other services have learned to distribute their senior leaders geographically, by specialization (Cyber, Strategic, SOF, etc.) by component, (Active, Guard, & Reserves) and into especially required expertise (academia, legal, etc.) and in one case, an actual observatory. The Acquisition and Training/Education commands make good sense, but Space Force should consider more than one operational command, to ensure that all space mission area are getting the attention they need, especially during this critical developmental period. There must also be a fully realized reserve component, and in the case of Space Force a National guard component as well.  Such a small service must have a hefty reserve element from which it can augment its ranks in war time and a National Guard element which vest various States in the Space Force mission while further augmenting available talent in crises. Since space reserve and guard elements already exist in the Air Force and the Army, incorporating them into Space Force seems like the easiest way to gain these benefits and lay the groundwork for future growth.

7)     Dedicated accessions paths and organizations

How will the Space Force gain new Guardians? Currently it cribs them from other services or counts on the Air Force to willingly produce enough accessions to meet requirements. In the near-term this is a perfectly acceptable approach. In the long-term, however, Space Force must have the means to generate its own accessions with a full suite of training dedicated to producing spacepower leaders and advocates. A few hours of dedicated space training distributed over eight weeks of Air Force basic training will not have near the resonance of the otherwise airpower centric training. Similarly four years of Air Force ROTC or the Air Force Academy will still largely instill a sense of Air Force culture rather than the space mindedness needed from those who are to fight and win space wars. While some might point to the Marine Corps who accesses many of its officers from the Naval Academy, it is worth noting that the Marines still have their own basic training, their own officer Candidate School, and more importantly, exist in a perpetual operational partnership with the Navy to present amphibious power from the maritime domain. Space Force’s operational relationship to the Air Force is tenuous at best.

8)     Dedicated support and advocacy organizations

Services have aligned non-profit organizations which exist to advocate for them, speak with the service’s internal voice when senior leaders cannot speak out themselves, for political or other reasons, and encourage popular support for the service within the larger national community. Currently there are two dedicated organizations vying for this role in Space Force, the National Security Space Association and the Space Force Association. Additionally, the Air Force Association also seeks to play this role for the Space Force while simultaneously continuing to do so for the Air Force. (As an aside, I am proudly a member of all three organizations.) Interestingly, much of the Space Force leadership appears to be placing their trust and support behind the Air Force Association, the only one of the three organizations with a conflict of interest in representing Space Force’s best interests. Make no mistake, the Air Force Association has been a magnificent advocate for Airmen and airpower, but it will always first and foremost be an advocate for Airmen and airpower. As the services compete for resources, talent and mission space, no one can realistically believe that in any conflict between the needs of the Air Force and the needs of the Space Force that the Air Force Association will prioritize Space Force or its Guardians. Space Force Association and the National Security Space Association both offer unconflicted alternatives and because their approaches are dissimilar might even eventually combine or partner. 

These ideas really just scratch the surface, but they make an important starting point. Any service also needs an educational support structure which produces professionals with the specialties needed by the service, first in the public education systems and then, building on that, within the service’s technical training structure. Separate career fields and mission identifiers to specialize the personnel for their roles are also essential in developing mission experts rather than space generalists. Finally a fully realized image of “the Guardian” must be crafted, in the same way there is an image of the Soldier, Airman, Sailor or Marine, such that when someone speaks about Guardians or the Space Force a common image comes to mind, reinforcing the mission and character of the Space Force professional service member. Only by actively working toward a greater common understanding of mission and purpose, can Space Force gain the support and trust of the American people and with it the tools needed to deter and if necessary defeat this nation’s adversaries in the high frontier of space. Some new and some old, in the right mix will be the key.

Timothy Cox is a retired Air Force officer and defense professional with decades of military space experience. He works in the aerospace industry and lives in the National Capital Region. His opinions are entirely his own.