What Does Trump Mean By ‘Space Force’?

The amendment made it into the House’s version of an annual defense bill, but the Senate’s version banned it. The Pentagon stood by in its opposition, which was carried over from the Obama administration. Congress passed their final bill in November with no mention of the space corps. Its most fervent supporters vowed momentum would return, but the idea has mostly fallen out of consideration again.

Until, of course, Trump brought it up on Tuesday. The president’s view of space as a “war-fighting domain” is in line with what multiple Air Force officials have said since he took office. But it’s not clear what—if anything—Trump’s accidental pivot means for future policy. The Pentagon told me they wouldn’t release an official statement Tuesday night and suggested calling again in the morning. The White House did not respond to a request for clarification of Trump’s comments. Rogers and Cooper, meanwhile, are pleased.

“I am so proud of President Trump’s support of this important and historic initiative to create an independent space force,” Rogers said in a statement to The Atlantic. “I look forward to working with the Trump administration to make this a reality in the near future.”

In a separate statement, Cooper said that “while I have not seen anything beyond President Trump’s comments today, his remarks seem encouraging.”

Trump’s appearance in California marks the second time in less than a week that the president’s statements about the nation’s space ambitions contradict actual policy. During a Cabinet meeting at the White House on Thursday, Trump decided to praise the work of SpaceX, Elon Musk’s company, and ended up undermining a very expensive rocket program at NASA. Trump made supporters of the NASA program wince when he seemed to suggest that he’d rather have commercial companies like SpaceX paying for rocket launches than the government.

War in space, despite what the tone of some leaders may suggest, is not imminent. But peace, as in many places on Earth, is tenuous. While the Outer Space Treaty of 1967 bans the placement of weapons on mass destruction in Earth’s orbit, there’s no comprehensive treaty on the use of space weapons, nor any international agreement on what, exactly, a space weapon would be. If fighting breaks out, it would unfold in the mess of hundreds of communications, navigation, weather, and reconnaissance satellites on which society depends in countless ways. Infrastructure could crumble without a single shot fired.

It’s been more than 70 years since the United States established its last new military branch, the Air Force. The president may be keen on establishing another while he’s in office, but the country probably will stick with the ones it has.