Keep U.S. Space Command Where It Is

U.S. Space Command Insignia

U.S. Space Command

While there will be a multitude of defense issues debated as the transition from the Trump to the Biden administration unfolds, there is one that is already agreed upon—the importance of space to the nation’s well-being and the associated stand up of both the U.S. Space Force, and the U.S. Space Command (USSPACECOM). At the same time there is a growing realization of needing to accelerate change in the way our security institutions do business. Unfortunately, politicians and the Department of Defense (DOD) have embarked on a process that will impede progress in this regard by launching an open bid process to select the permanent location of the USSPACECOM headquarters (HQ) and is neither affordable nor efficient. It already has one—Colorado Springs, Colorado—and it should stay there.

Reading the compelling Forward to the Center for Security and International Studies (CSIS) 2019 U.S. space threat assessment written by Congressman Jim Cooper (D-TN), clearly identifies why the threat to U.S. space assets posed by our adversaries is real and urgent. Congressman Cooper states that, “The risk of a space Pearl Harbor is growing every day. Yet this war would not last for years. Rather, it would be over the day it started. Without our satellites, we would have a hard time regrouping and fighting back. We may not even know who had attacked us, only that we were deaf, dumb, blind, and impotent.” 

Through the bipartisan support of Congress and senior leaders in the DOD and the White House, the U.S. Space Command was reestablished on August 29, 2019, with a laser focus on space as a warfighting domain. Currently headquartered at Peterson Air Force Base in Colorado Springs, Colorado, the importance of this newest combatant command is urgent and must be achieved rapidly, affordably and efficiently without diversions or disruptions to current mission operations.

However, in May 2020 the DOD began a several month’s long process, opening to communities across the U.S. that meet minimal screening criteria the opportunity to permanently host USSPACECOM HQ. Over 60 communities were initially interested, and currently locales in 26 states are competing. Congressman Cooper rightly criticized the process, saying that, “There are only a handful of States that have the qualifications to compete for… USSPACECOM HQ, so to tempt other states during a time of record unemployment is senseless and cruel. Some states might even try to use pandemic funding to compete for the new headquarters.” That does not even address the hundreds of millions of dollars the government would spend to relocate the USSPACECOM HQ from its current location in Colorado Springs, or the significant loss of existing investment already made in the region’s military space infrastructure. All of this waste, when the federal debt is $27 trillion and growing.

Knowing how critical it is to successfully execute the missions required in a space environment that is currently and constantly under attack by electronic warfare, kinetic, and cyber threats, what is the rationale for diverting U.S. space operations by disrupting them simply to move USSPACECOM HQ to a new location? What is so drastically broken that will be fixed by re-basing?  If this is, as Air Force Secretary Barbara Barrett said at the 2019 Reagan National Defense Forum, “a Sputnik moment” that will require the very best in integrated space assets and operations, what sense does it make to jeopardize and delay achieving full operational capability of U.S. Space Command by relocating it outside Colorado Springs and away from the extensive military space infrastructure already in place?

Disrupting the connective tissue that enhances the collaboration and coordination that occurs on a continuous face-to-face basis between USSPACECOM, U.S. Northern Command and the North American Aerospace Defense Command—all co-located in Colorado—should only be accomplished if there existed an unsurmountable basing problem—and none exists. No one can explain what is so broken that it is worth further separating USSPACECOM HQ from the critical components of its missile warning center in Cheyenne Mountain, CO; its joint overhead persistent infrared center at Buckley Air Force Base, CO; or its subordinate command, the Joint Task Force–Space Defense which includes the National Space Defense Center (NSDC), also in Colorado. The NSDC, which performs the mission to conduct unified actions with the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) and other mission partners to ensure space operations superiority to “deter aggression, defend U.S. and allied interests and defeat adversaries in space” certainly will not benefit from a re-basing of USSPACECOM HQ outside Colorado. 

The DOD and Congress must do the smart thing for our national security both in terms of the U.S. Space Command mission and the national economy. End the distraction from keeping our space assets and the homeland safe from attack. End the wasteful process that further contributes to our national debt. Keep U.S. Space Command in Colorado Springs and let us get on with building a stronger U.S. Space Command by not diverting resources to move the command for no good reason.