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Analysis
Analysis
Posted 2 y ago
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SSG Robert Mark Odom
"The U.S. Space Force has a problem: the public does not know it is a military service. Guardians have trouble receiving the special recognition from the airlines given to the other service members, and they lack access to special license plates as well. Ironically, though, the public instinctively knows what those who created the Space Force do not. Whatever the law might call it, the USSF is not, in fact, a military service.
What it does is absolutely vital to America’s national security, but it lacks the core relationship to organized violence that defines the other services. Thus, by making the Space Force a military service, Congress has done it a disservice, forcing a poorly suited organizational identity onto it in the process. Fortunately for the Space Force and its leaders, there are other models that it might look to as its culture and identity take shape. But let’s look first at the reasons the military-service model is a bad fit.
First, the Space Force lacks the formative wartime experiences to give it credibility as an independent service. By comparison, World War II, for example, provided such experiences for the USSF’s parent service, the U.S. Air Force. The Air Force itself bristled under the control of its own senior service, the U.S. Army, for decades prior to World War II. Once America entered the war, the then-Army Air Forces brought to both major theaters of war a theory of victory through airpower. In the United Kingdom-based Eighth Air Force alone, 26,000 airmen died attempting to turn this theory into practice. As controversial as the strategic bombing campaign was, the airmen’s efforts and sacrifices impressed their fellow Americans and provided much of the impetus for service independence after the war. No such defining experience or theory of victory underpin the USSF.
Second, this lack of formative experiences makes it difficult to create an internal narrative to shape the Space Force’s identity and organizational culture. As I’ve argued separately, military services provide organized violence-based solutions to national problems. To achieve this objective, services traditionally created more hierarchical organizations, emphasized physical hardship, and stressed operating in closer proximity to violence than their civilian counterparts. Especially in last few decades, the adherence to these characteristics has waned somewhat, but the relationship to organized violence remains central to military service cultural identity. The USSF’s tie to organized violence is fundamentally different. To the extent it physically strikes anything, its targets are satellite, not people. Disruption or destruction of the satellite might ultimately cost human lives, but the connection to violence against humans is much less direct and difficult to discern. Thus, organizationally, USSF leaders potentially create profound dissonance for their fellow guardians if they attempt to mimic an internal culture and create an internal narrative more akin to the other services, rather than allowing a unique culture to emerge organically.
Third, the Space Force’s designation as a military service drives guardian leadership to create staffs and structures to compete directly with the other services for resources and attention within the Defense Department. This means that, although the USSF is very small compared to the other services, nonetheless it will create a large staff relative to its own size, and pursue more peripheral undertakings such as building international ties or educational programs. Such activities might eventually be important, but they are hard to pursue effectively until guardians themselves better understand their organization and its culture."
"The U.S. Space Force has a problem: the public does not know it is a military service. Guardians have trouble receiving the special recognition from the airlines given to the other service members, and they lack access to special license plates as well. Ironically, though, the public instinctively knows what those who created the Space Force do not. Whatever the law might call it, the USSF is not, in fact, a military service.
What it does is absolutely vital to America’s national security, but it lacks the core relationship to organized violence that defines the other services. Thus, by making the Space Force a military service, Congress has done it a disservice, forcing a poorly suited organizational identity onto it in the process. Fortunately for the Space Force and its leaders, there are other models that it might look to as its culture and identity take shape. But let’s look first at the reasons the military-service model is a bad fit.
First, the Space Force lacks the formative wartime experiences to give it credibility as an independent service. By comparison, World War II, for example, provided such experiences for the USSF’s parent service, the U.S. Air Force. The Air Force itself bristled under the control of its own senior service, the U.S. Army, for decades prior to World War II. Once America entered the war, the then-Army Air Forces brought to both major theaters of war a theory of victory through airpower. In the United Kingdom-based Eighth Air Force alone, 26,000 airmen died attempting to turn this theory into practice. As controversial as the strategic bombing campaign was, the airmen’s efforts and sacrifices impressed their fellow Americans and provided much of the impetus for service independence after the war. No such defining experience or theory of victory underpin the USSF.
Second, this lack of formative experiences makes it difficult to create an internal narrative to shape the Space Force’s identity and organizational culture. As I’ve argued separately, military services provide organized violence-based solutions to national problems. To achieve this objective, services traditionally created more hierarchical organizations, emphasized physical hardship, and stressed operating in closer proximity to violence than their civilian counterparts. Especially in last few decades, the adherence to these characteristics has waned somewhat, but the relationship to organized violence remains central to military service cultural identity. The USSF’s tie to organized violence is fundamentally different. To the extent it physically strikes anything, its targets are satellite, not people. Disruption or destruction of the satellite might ultimately cost human lives, but the connection to violence against humans is much less direct and difficult to discern. Thus, organizationally, USSF leaders potentially create profound dissonance for their fellow guardians if they attempt to mimic an internal culture and create an internal narrative more akin to the other services, rather than allowing a unique culture to emerge organically.
Third, the Space Force’s designation as a military service drives guardian leadership to create staffs and structures to compete directly with the other services for resources and attention within the Defense Department. This means that, although the USSF is very small compared to the other services, nonetheless it will create a large staff relative to its own size, and pursue more peripheral undertakings such as building international ties or educational programs. Such activities might eventually be important, but they are hard to pursue effectively until guardians themselves better understand their organization and its culture."
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