The Space Force Isn’t a Military Service

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.