4 The United States Space Force serve the nation to have this expertise and perspective under-resourced and buried under another service” (Smith 2017). Yet, if we fast forward only three years from this article to 2020, we see the Department of Defense endorsing the vision of many space power advocates. The Department is taking innovative and bold actions to ensure space superi- ority and to secure the Nation’s vital interests in space now and in the future. Establishing the U.S. Space Force (USSF) as the newest branch of our Armed Forces and the U.S. Space Command (USSPACECOM) as a unified combatant command, as well as undertaking significant space acquisition reform across the DoD, has set a strategic path to expand spacepower for the Nation. (Department of Defense 2020a) This document begins to flesh out the vision that American space power advocates have been evangelizing for decades. It recognizes the fact that it has gone missing for years by many space enthusiasts. Space is in the vital national interest of the United States and is the only way to ensure such national interest broadly. This DOD report maps out three goals: maintain space superiority provide space support to national, joint, and combined operations and ensure space stability (Department of Defense 2020a). One of the other critical items that this report highlight is the declara- tion that space is a “distinct warfighting domain.” In other words, we are abandoning the fashionable fallacy that space is or could remain a sanctu- ary from earthbound rivalries. Instead, if one wishes to embrace peace and order, it must be done under American auspices. SPACE AND AMERICAN NATIONAL SECURITY Space policy is the ultimate high ground and will be synonymous with national security. It “underpins every instrument of national power” (Raymond 2021). It will be the wagon that provides new military and economic power. It will also be the more complicated measure of national prestige. It is a place for America to “put forth grand ideas” (Garretson 2021). Space power will simply be the highest benchmark of military power over everything else (Gingrich 2021). It provides our “maximum field of view” (Moloney 2021). Currently, space is critical. Our space capabilities grant us over-the-horizon communication to the battlefield (Mozer 2021). Today and in the future, space technology offers the ulti- mate military offset (Cooper 2021) that assists America in blunting quan- titative threats. Readers should be reminded about the “offset” strategy. American national security has recognized three eras of the offset strategy. An offset
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