Playing with all the toys
Meanwhile, Trump and Pence are sweating with excitement at their big plans to put SOJERS in SPASE.
The creation of a new branch of the military — the first since the Air Force was created in the wake of World War II in 1947 — could require a significant reorganization of the Pentagon. Some officials within the military and national security communities fiercely oppose the idea. The Air Force in particular might lose key responsibilities. The proposal would also need congressional approval.
Also it would be a little pricey, but hey, they can just get rid of Medicare and Social Security and bob’s your uncle.
White House officials have been working with national security leaders to aggressively move ahead without Congress. The first step would be to create a U.S. Space Command by the end of the year, a new combatant command that would have dedicated resources, be led by a four-star general and be tasked with defending space, the way the Pentagon’s Pacific Command oversees the ocean.
The Pentagon will also begin pulling space experts from across the military and setting up a separate acquisitions office, dedicated to buying satellites and developing new technology to help it win wars in space.
And there will of course be a golf course division.
Updating to add: I’m not the only one who sees it this way.
When I hear the term "Space Force" I think of boys playing in a sandbox with their G.I. Joe's and model rocket ships, not a sober or coherent evaluation of the risks of military escalation in or on the final frontier.
— Dan Rather (@DanRather) August 9, 2018
This is the force that Trump says will be “separate but equal”.
On a separate note, where did all these dogs appear from?
Dogs?
He doesn’t have his wall yet, so how’s he planning on financing this boondoggle?
Ophelia,
From the sound of the dog whistle.
Oh jeeeez. Now the Chinese will want their own space force. What does this imply, orbiting fortresses, or a ground based rapid reaction force?
Ophelia, you bugger; I’ve just spent 15 minutes trying to work out what the acronyms ‘SOJERS’ and ‘SPASE’ represented. Damn, I can be thick sometimes.
Anyhoo; I was under the impression that there was a unilateral agreement in place not to militarise space, just as there is one forbidding the detonation of nukes in space (which put the brakes on the potential development of space craft capable of relativistic speeds), and another saying that no nation can claim the Moon as sovereign territory.
AoS, agreements are for LOOSERS.
Real men tear up agreements and throw them in your FACE.
There’s also the matter of all those satellites up there upon which we rely for our daily life… And stuff falling out of the sky onto occupied areas.
“He doesn’t have his wall yet, so how’s he planning on financing this boondoggle?”
The space aliens (illegal, every last one of ’em) will pay for it.
gary – you win
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8wPH4MEK4tk
The only sensible form of a Space Force is, as far as I can tell, turning the Air Force Space Command into it. Something like how the Air Force itself originated in 1947.
This toy-soldiers aspect of pResident Trump’s personality has shown itself in other ways:
Like saying “I’ve always wanted a Purple Heart”, without ever having done anything worthy of it, or ever having come anywhere close to doing so.
Or wanting a big military parade in DC.