"Space Force"; Just like Trump University, But With a Cooler Logo

David Graham has a new piece in the Atlantic explaining why President Trump's Space Force project is pure "Trumpian" nonsense; lot's of bluster with no substance.

David Graham, The Atlantic: "Trump first announced the Space Force, which he says will be a sixth, co-equal branch of the military, in June, when he signed a space-policy directive. But that directive didn’t even mention the Space Force, nor was it totally clear how it would work. As my colleague Marina Koren has reported, many top commanders in the military (including Secretary of Defense James Mattis) opposed the plan, arguing that the Pentagon already had the right infrastructure in place to achieve what Trump wanted: the ability to defend American interests in space. There’s even an existing Air Force Space Command".....

The Air Force Space Command has existed since 1982, with its headquarters at Peterson Air Force Base, Colo. You can read more about it here.

..."Such salesmanship is not new for Trump. The branding of the Space Force resembles nothing so much as Trump University. In that program, Trump gussied up a series of drab, clichéd get-rich-quick real-estate seminars by giving it the name and crest of a full-fledged university and promising “handpicked” instructors. It was not a university, nor were the instructors handpicked. In depositions about the project, Trump proved far removed from any of the actual operations, repeatedly saying lieutenants had dealt with this or that matter." ...

..."But the Space Force is the purest expression of the branding maneuver, given the mismatch between the hype (“Mars Awaits”) and the reality (“It is imperative that the United States adapts its policies, doctrine, and capabilities to protect our interests,” as the new report put it). Anyone tempted to get excited about the Space Force would be well advised to keep the Trump University precedent in mind. The seminars were a short-term success: Thousands of people signed up, creating a new revenue stream for Trump. But they eventually wised up that they weren’t buying real-estate secrets so much as a bill of goods, and some of them sued him, resulting in a $25 million settlement. Eventually, misleading branding schemes have a tendency to fall back down to Earth."

Its a wonderful piece which you can read in its entirety here.

#Trump #news #SpaceForce