Think ‘Space Force’ Sounds Cool? Israel’s Cranky, Celebrated Military Historian Begs to Differ

Following what sounded like a lost Mel Brooks script, President Trump announced Monday plans to create a “space force.” Here, finally, is a way to keep the idle ranks of the American military occupied now that they have secured world peace, with a mission to establish U.S. supremacy in the galaxy and beyond. The announcement, in a speech to the National Space Council, built on plans unveiled in May at a ceremony for the West Point football team.

Among the many reasons to question the new initiative is its resemblance to a strategically distinct but similarly pie-in-the-outer-space-sky earlier episode in American defense policy. Recall President Ronald Reagan’s infamous Strategic Defense Initiative, more commonly known as the Star Wars program. This was the laser shooting, supposedly impenetrable shield built to defend the U.S. from Soviet missiles that cost over $200 billion but that, despite the price tag and the fanfare, never even got close to being testable.

While the latest space force idea may excite defense contractors and fans of movies like The Last Starfighter and that one with the Ewoks, it’s worth bearing in mind the thoughts of the great Israeli military historian and strategic theorist, Martin Van Creveld, who addressed an earlier generations lofty dreams of conquering the stars.

Van Creveld is an original thinker and a fascinating crank with views that are heterodox to say the least. His relevance here comes from his seminal 1991 book The Transformation of War, which developed an influential post-Clausewitzian model of warfare. In a section on the strange paradoxes of the Superpower’s nuclear warfare policies during the Cold War, which he describes as choking on their own absurdities, Van Creveld concludes: “Under the Reagan administration they ascended into the starry heavens and were transmogrified into the Strategic Defense initiative, a great absurdity still.”

But some absurdities never die, and so a new force is supposed to “protect American interests in space through monitoring commercial traffic and debris,” according to the The New York Times, by guarding American satellites and commercial interests while regulating the interstellar sea lanes. The president assured the crowd Monday that the initiative was “great not only in terms of jobs and everything else, it’s great for the psyche of our country.”

Despite these assurances, some doubts persist. For one thing, the Department of Defense is, arguably, already overstretched dealing with the ongoing earth wars. Then there is the problem of adding another branch to the Pentagon’s massive bureaucracy and swollen budget. As recently as last year, Defense Secretary Mattis was among the critics of the new “Space Force” idea, writing that “at a time when we are trying to integrate the department’s joint war-fighting functions, I do not wish to add a separate service that would likely present a narrower and even parochial approach to space operations.”

“You will be part of the five proud branches of the United States Armed Forces,” Trump said in his May address to the West Point cadets and the military academy’s Superintendent, Lt. Gen. Bob Caslen, before unveiling the big surprise. “We’re actually thinking of a sixth, and that would be the Space Force. Does that make sense? The Space Force, General. You probably haven’t even heard that. I’m just telling you now. This is perhaps — because we’re getting very big in space.”

Big in space, indeed. It’s good to be the king.