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President Donald Trump promised to drain the swamp and restore the strength and focus of our military.  Considering the damage done by Barack Obama, previous progressive presidents, and previous and current politicians and deep state bureaucrats, that’s a Herculean task, but one Mr. Trump steadily pushed forward. One of his most innovative, and necessary innovations is outlined by The Observer.com:

At a meeting of the National Space Council at the White House on Monday [06-17-18], President Donald Trump announced he is going to create something he has teased since March: a sixth branch of the military, dubbed the ‘Space Force.’

‘I’m hereby directing the Department of Defense and Pentagon to immediately begin the process necessary to establish a space force as the sixth branch of the Armed Forces,’ Trump said. He went on to explain that the newly established branch would be ‘separate but equal’ to the Air Force.

That’s a big statement, and one that came with very little details as to how it would operate or, more importantly, how it would be funded.

During the announcement, Trump mentioned that the space program was an issue of national security, and that he didn’t want other countries dominating what he has previously considered to be a new, potential battleground.

‘When it comes to defending America, it is not enough to merely have an American presence in space. We must have American dominance in space,’ Trump said.

To some, this may seem revolutionary, but we have long been working toward, and in, space, not only through NASA, but the military, particularly the Air Force.  Since NASA’s focus is no longer on making Muslims feel good about the achievements of their ancestors, one presumes more rapid progress might be made.  We must, however, realize that much of our space effort has long been shrouded in secrecy.  Consider this from The National Interest:

Artist’s conception of the Aurora spy/space(?) plane
credit wikipedia

Lockheed Martin’s 2013 announcement of a proposed SR-72 reconnaissance and strike drone comes against a backdrop of decades of rumor about a replacement for America’s high-speed SR-71 spy plane. The SR-72 reportedly appeared for the first time in plain view in July 2017.

Since the early 1990s, there have been reports of mysterious sonic booms, unidentified aircraft sightings and a mysterious aircraft on a wall chart at Lockheed Martin.

The existence of an early replacement for the SR-71—which was permanently retired in 1998—has never been verified. Aviation buffs call the apparently mythical plane Aurora. It’s the Bigfoot of the aviation world.

The story of Aurora began in 1990, when Aviation Week & Space Technology mentioned that ‘Aurora’ had been a line item in the U.S. defense budget in 1986 for ‘black aircraft production.’ Aurora funding allegedly reached $2.3 billion in 1986, prompting speculation that a replacement for the SR-71 was in the works.

Lockheed develops such aircraft under tight security at its famous Skunk Works.  One spacecraft we’ve been flying–as far as we know since 1999–is the X-37.  While we know of its existence, its missions are always classified at the highest levels.  Space.com reports:

The X-37 program started in 1999 with NASA, which initially planned to construct two vehicles: an Approach and Landing Test Vehicle (ALTV) and an Orbital Vehicle.

NASA transferred the project to the U.S. military in 2004 — specifically, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). At that point, X-37 became a classified project.

DARPA finished the ALTV part of the program in 2006, conducting a series of captive-carry and free-flight tests. NASA’s envisioned Orbital Vehicle was never built, but it served as the inspiration for the space plane that came to be called the X-37B.

The X-37B program is now run by the Air Force’s Rapid Capabilities Office, with mission control for orbital flights based at the 3rd Space Experimentation Squadron at Schriever Air Force Base in Colorado. The space planes are built by Boeing’s Phantom Works division.

These are only a few of the aircraft, spacecraft, and related programs about which we know.  One would hope the government is hard on work at establishing and maintaining military superiority in space.  Owning the high ground is always vital.  There is, however, disturbing news on that front.

In 2007, William B. Scott, Michael J. Coumatos and William J. Birnes published Space Wars: The First Six Hours Of World War III.   It’s a fictional account of the beginning of WW III, the early stages of which will, of necessity, be fought in space as our enemies seek not only to destroy our satellite capabilities, but to use space weapons to wreak mass destruction on Earth.  Our enemies, particularly the Chinese, who are currently engaged in a massive arms build up, have already demonstrated significant anti-satellite capabilities.  Russia, too is working toward those capabilities.  

They followed that work with Counter Space: The Next Hours Of World War III, in 2009.  The two books are not only well written, compelling thrillers, they’re so influential, so technically accurate, and so prescient in their tactical and strategic predictions, Space Wars has been on the Chief Of Staff of The Air Force’s professional development reading list for more than a decade.  In other words, until recently it was considered essential reading for Air Force Officers.  No longer, as author Bill Scott explains (via personal e-mail):

Thought you’d find this latest exhibition of PC insanity entertaining:  Our novel, ‘Space Wars: The First Six Hours of World War III,’ has been pulled from the USAF chief-of-staff’s professional reading list—where it’s been for the last 10 years—because a few female snowflakes at the senior ‘space school’ found the techno-thriller ‘offensive’. They supposedly cited passages that they considered to be misogynistic.

They complained to the chief and he caved. The book was pulled from his reading list.

I own and have read and enjoyed both books, and agree wholeheartedly both should be on any professional development reading list for our space warriors.  After recently receiving Scott’s e-mail, I re-read the books with an eye toward misogyny; I certainly detected none when I originally read them. Unless one is truly a special snowflake, someone perpetually aggrieved about virtually everything, there is nothing remotely derogatory toward women.  One would hope female Air Force officers would be made of sterner stuff, but apparently not.  In fact, at least one pivotal, heroic character is a high-ranking woman.  But it would appear reality no longer has much influence in the contemporary Air Force.

There is a school in the Air Force, which may eventually be something of a model for the nascent Space Force, called the SAASS, or School Of Advanced Air And Space Studies.  Officers attending that school are generally considered, in Air Force jargon, “fast burners,” apparently competent people likely to quickly climb the rank ladder.  Theoretically, they’re the best and brightest, the kind of war fighters we need.

Whether this school will be a model may or may not be a good thing.  Considering this book banning, one might suspect the leadership of the school, perhaps of the Air Force, has bought into the “Global Commons” narrative, the idea that America is the cause of all problems in the world, and exploitation of space must be done for the common, international good, with the permission of the UN (I’ll have an article up in the near future on the idiocy of relying no that organization for anything).  We’d like to give the world a Coke and sing Kumbaya, or perhaps “All we are saying, is give peace a chance.”  If this is so, and banning a pivotal book like Space Wars suggests it may well be, our Air Force, and a new Space Force, is being run by the internationalist special snowflakes, by their very nature incompatible with their oaths to defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic.  For such people, America is the enemy, and we must embrace the wisdom of foreigners, all of whom are more moral and righteous than Americans.

No doubt there are officers involved, not only in leadership and teaching roles, but students, who understand America is the most important force for world peace, in many respects, the only truly effective source.  Without our technology, preparations, and will to preserve not only America but global peace, civilization will flashback millennia in an instance.  But if I’m right, during the globalist Age of Obama, those officers have been ruthlessly hunted down, driven out, and replaced by people for whom climbing the rank ladder is everything.  These are not the people that will debate or question, that will risk anything to save American lives when higher-ranking officers might disagree.  There may be no more John R. Boyds in the US Air Force, and therefore, none in the Space Force.

Keep in mind, gentle readers, Counter Space was never on the reading list, though I’m sure many officers did read that book as well, because it is absolutely necessary reading, and with the establishment of a Space Force, must be mandatory reading.  Both works are that unique, that important to our future.

Are globalists using contemporary micro aggression, politically correct flak, as subterfuge to shoot down the truth that if America is to survive, we can’t submit to globalist thinking?  Cry “misogyny,” and every truth and insight about the only way forward may be wiped away without the hard work of engaging the real issues and lessons?  That has been the way of things in the Obama era military, where our military was turned almost entirely into a deranged laboratory for social experimentation, fighting global warming and micro aggressions.  Obama couldn’t even slow ISIS down in eight years.  President Trump unleashed our warriors who all but killed it in a few months.  Political correctness v. war fighters.  Our enemies, particularly those working hard to seize the high ground of space, have no globalist delusions.

One of the continuing themes of both books is the vital importance of war gaming. It is in high tech war gaming that our military identifies and challenges hidebound assumptions and faulty doctrine.  Without it, our intelligence efforts fail, and we enter a dangerous and hostile world blinded by Marxist ideology.

I asked Bill Scott to explain the effects of the book ban on military readiness:

Air Force officers and senior enlisted troops won’t have the benefit of understanding how vital the U.S. space infrastructure is to both national and economic security. Generations of senior space officers, in particular, won’t fully grasp that the loss of satellites literally regresses America’s warfighting capabilities to the Vietnam era. No overhead imagery, no fine-detail weather information, no long-haul communications or “reach back” links to sophisticated resources in the CONUS. And, of course, no remotely piloted aircraft ops on a battlefield, controlled from Creech AFB, NV.

And to what end is the ‘ban’? Satisfying the overdeveloped sensitivities of a very few female officers, who chose to be offended by unknown passages cherry-picked from a book written in 2006? So, after being there for ~10 years, PC’ness-run-amock removes a work of FICTION from the USAF chief-of-staff’s professional reading list. Did the chief ever read the book? Did he read the ‘offensive’, ‘cringe-worthy’ sections in context? Did those passages reflect the authors’ views, or were they intended to illustrate bad-guys’ nastiness? Fiction-writers have to create characters that reflect the best and worst of humanity, and some will never meet today’s ‘cringe-worthy’ PC standards.

Frankly, we’re still baffled, and haven’t heard what passages were tagged. Fortunately, the retired two-star female general, who was the model for ‘Viking’ in Counterspace (with her permission), called and assured me that there was absolutely nothing ‘misogynous”’in either book. In fact, ‘Viking’ loved both, and has been an enthusiastic advocate. She and her staff invited me to speak to their students at the National Security Space Institute.

Gen. Bob Kehler asked coauthor Mike Coumatos and me to give a PPT briefing on the two books at a Commander’s ‘Brown Bag Lunch’, when he was AF Space Command CC. Later, when he headed Strategic Command, Bob recommended that the USAF chief scientist have me on a future-gazing panel in Omaha (Strategic Space Conference). If there was anything remotely misogynous in either of our books, do you think Bob would have risked being hammered for supporting the books and their authors to that degree?

No, something changed drastically over the past 10 years—attitudes of female officers; a pervasive globalist view, which considers all worldly ills America’s fault, and absolutely no tolerance (in some Pentagon circles) for negative portrayals of Islam. Some who swallowed Obama’s globalist narrative are now ‘offended’ by about anything you can imagine. Sanity has been purged from our once-rational Air Force. And America’s true warriors—active duty, retired and ‘former’–are disgusted.

Scott, a former USAF officer, graduate of the Air Force Test Pilot School, and aerospace journalist is more than credible.  It appears that President Trump has a great deal more work to do in our Air Force to drain the progressive swamp, and to undo the social engineering damage insanity imposed on our military during the Obama Administration.  He would be wise to begin, immediately, at the Air Force Academy, as I explained in November of 2017 in Air Force Academy Virtue Signaling.  I concluded that sordid tale with this:

Our general officers should be focusing on the mission of defending the nation, not self-aggrandizing virtue signaling. Our service academies should be producing leaders; they should be producing warriors. With any luck, President Trump will drain this particular swamp and install a man–or woman–willing to do just that. Graffiti can be easily erased. The lives of our servicemen and women, led by unqualified, perpetually aggrieved incompetents, can also be all too easily erased.

Obviously, at least some of our Air Force Academy graduates have been convinced political correctness–their own tender, easily bruised feelings–outweighs military honor, duty and readiness.  Standing up an entirely new service branch provides a real opportunity to excise that kind of self-defeating madness.  Mr. Trump had better drain that swamp fast.  I doubt the Chinese and Russians listen to special snowflakes.  More likely, they imprison and/or shoot them. I don’t advocate that, of course, but our Commander in Chief needs to demand our military leaders cowboy up, and demand the same of every member of our military.  They exist to deter, and if necessary, kill the enemies of the United States and liberty as quickly as possible with overwhelming violence. Deviating from the mission in the slightest degree will only guarantee war, prolong any conflict, and produce far more American casualties.

credit: youtube

Our enemies have surely learned from our movies.  They’ll nuke us from orbit; it’s the only way to be sure.  Space Wars and Counter Space point the way to deterrence, and if necessary, victory.