President Donald Trump calls for the formation of a United States Military Space Force

BUILDING SPACE FORCE: President Donald J. Trump and his Administration are laying the groundwork to build Space Force as the sixth branch of the United States military.

• On June 18, 2018, President Trump directed the Department of Defense to immediately begin the important process of establishing Space Force as the sixth branch of the armed forces.
• The Department of Defense issued a report, pursuant to the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2018, describing the following five actions that can be taken immediately to begin building the Space Force:
  • Accelerate space technology and development initiatives, which were modernization priorities laid out in President Trump’s National Defense Strategy;
  • Establish a Space Development Agency charged with developing and fielding new next-generation capabilities for national security space development;
  • Establish a Space Operations Force of professionals who will form a new community of experts working to lead America’s national security space efforts into the future;
  • Establish an operating structure and accountable civilian oversight for Space Force; and
  • Create a United States Space Command, a unified combatant command, to improve, evolve, and plan space warfighting.

DEFENDING AMERICA’S INTERESTS: President Trump knows that space is integral to our American way of life and economic prosperity, and is a vital domain for national defense.

• With Space Force as a sixth branch of the United States military, America’s interests in space will receive the focus and investment that the domain deserves.
• As the world’s space development leader, the United States relies on space for everything from popular commercial systems to critical military and intelligence systems.
• Space is also invaluable to American private industry, which is developing revolutionary technologies that will utilize space for exploration, resource extraction, and tourism.
• Unfortunately, potential adversaries recognize the importance of space to our country and are actively developing ways to deny our use of it in a crisis.
  • The Director of National Intelligence has warned that multiple countries, including Russia and China, are developing both destructive and nondestructive antisatellite weapons that could come online within a few years.
• The United States national security community recognizes the necessity of developing new technologies for space to defend against an increasing array of threats.

LEADING INTO THE FUTURE: Under President Trump, America is reclaiming its heritage as the world’s greatest space-faring Nation and is leading space development into the 21^st century.

• President Trump has signed three Space Policy Directives in the last year, each of which strengthens our economic prosperity and national security.
• In 2017, President Trump established his National Space Council, a body of senior officials charged with developing modern policies for commercial and international space utilization.
• On March 23, 2018, President Trump announced his National Space Strategy, which recognizes that America’s competitors have turned space into a warfighting domain, and charts a whole-of-government approach to maintaining America’s leadership in space.

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