OPINION:
In disregard of basic military strategy and national security, President Biden overturned a major Air Force basing decision this week. Just as he did in Afghanistan by picking a withdrawal date based on public relations rather than his top generals’ best military advice, the president’s wrongheaded political calculations will once again leave our military in chaos.
For more than two years, the administration has slow-rolled the headquarters decision for the U.S. Space Command, or SPACECOM, one of America’s 11 unified combatant commands in the Department of Defense.
Our combatant commands play a vital role in the defense of the nation, and SPACECOM’s mission is to defend the highest of high ground.
After all, a war with China would likely start in space.
Imagine that major gas pipeline fueling the Northeast seizes up, forcing Pentagon employees to work from home. E-commerce freezes for a week, causing gridlock and a stock-market slide. America’s aging GPS satellite constellation is corrupted, blinding both ordinary civilians and our military’s ability to navigate on land and sea.
These are just a few actions a technologically sophisticated nation could take to blindside the U.S. There are thousands more.
Since so much of our modern society relies on space, Congress and then-President Donald Trump created the U.S. Space Force and reconstituted the U.S. Space Command in August 2019.
Moving out smartly, in 2020, the Air Force conducted an extensive basing-decision process, evaluating where to put SPACECOM’s headquarters. The Air Force looked at 66 communities in 26 states, narrowing it down to six finalists. The top three were (1) Redstone Arsenal, Alabama, (2) Offutt Air Force Base, Nebraska and (3) Port San Antonio.
After the 2020 election, two finalists were taken to the White House: Redstone Arsenal and Peterson Air Force Base in Colorado Springs, Colorado.
This was odd. How did a base that wasn’t in the top three make it to the president’s desk?
Chalk that up to sibling rivalry. Colorado Springs is beloved by many Air Force officers as the home of the Air Force Academy. Redstone Arsenal is Army. No blue suiter wants to be on an Army base.
Those briefing the president pointed out that Peterson is already home to the Northern Command and NORAD. Locating yet another combatant command in the same geographic footprint made little strategic sense. Don’t put all your generals in one basket.
Following that logic and confirming its No. 1 status, Mr. Trump picked Redstone Arsenal on Jan. 13, 2021.
Colorado’s congressional delegation immediately called foul, claiming that the decision was political. This made little sense, as the political move would have been to name the base location before the 2020 election, not afterward.
And why pick ruby-red Alabama? A calculating politician counting up votes would have sooner chosen Colorado or Florida, two purple states with 10 and 30 electoral votes, respectively.
But at the Colorado delegation’s demands, not one but two watchdog reports ensued.
A wasted year of investigation revealed zilch. In 2022, the Department of Defense Office of Inspector General found the selection of Redstone “complied with law and policy, and was reasonable in identifying Huntsville as the preferred permanent location.”
The General Accountability Office’s report likewise declared Redstone Arsenal “the location with the most advantages in the final decision matrix.” What the GAO found fishy was the eleventh-hour elevation of Peterson.
Democrats then tried another stalling tactic. Sen. Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire attempted to require yet another evaluation of Redstone in June 2022, but was shot down in a bipartisan vote orchestrated by Alabama’s senior senator, Tommy Tuberville.
Out of options, the Biden administration then seized on a flimsy new reason to delay the base.
“This is all about abortion politics,” an anonymous official told NBC News.
A chorus of Democrats chimed in, agreeing that abortion should play a role in strategic military-basing decisions. This past March, Colorado’s Michael Bennett and 36 other Senate Democrats urged the Pentagon to “take into consideration the consequence of locating new installations and missions in states that would adversely impact the reproductive rights of those required to work there.”
The clear message: Punish pro-life states at the expense of military readiness.
Injecting the Defense Department with more domestic hot-button issues is sure to run afoul of congressional Republicans. Expect Rep. Mike Rogers of Alabama, the powerful chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, to zero out the Space Command’s headquarters budget and raise investigations of his own.
This might delay SPACECOM’s headquarters for a year or more.
The administration’s bare-knuckle move also ensures that Mr. Tuberville’s hold on generals and admirals will likely continue through the 2024 election campaign. That’s probably just what the Biden administration wants: a general election fight over abortion.
They saw it as a winning issue in the midterms and hope the same magic might help the frail and fumbling president win reelection.
So sadly, yes, the SPACECOM fight is all about politics. Meanwhile, our enemies are at the space gate.
• Morgan Murphy is a former Department of Defense press secretary and national security adviser.
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