The Epoch Times Development of “space warfighters” is a priority, the head of the newly-minted Unites States Space Command said on Monday, as he expressed his hope that Congress can break the budget deadlock and green-light a fully-fledged Space Force.
Space Command had grown to around 400 staff members in the span of a year, General John Raymond told an audience at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, describing progress as “unprecedented.”
He said that an 11-word sentence has become something of a mantra: “Space is a warfighting domain just like air, land, and sea.”
“I’m really eager for Congress to pass this NDAA (National Defense Authorization Act) so we can have the Space Force,” said Raymond.
“What we’re looking to do is to elevate space and separate it from the Air Force and have a singularly focused service focused on this domain,” he said.
The importance of space as a warfighting domain, alongside various incarnations and plans for a space force, has drifted in and out of vogue with defense analysts and policymakers for decades.
President Donald Trump had originally planned for the creation of a separate Space Force on an organizational par with the Air Force, Navy, or Army when he announced it in 2018, following the publication of the 2018 National Defense Strategy which picked out space as a key domain in renewed military competition with Russia and China.