ONE SMALL STEP FOR SPACE FORCE: There’s no disagreement at the Pentagon about the need to focus more on space as a warfighting domain, and that the current organizational structure is inadequate to meet the challenges increasingly posed by Russia and China. The debate is over how much new bureaucracy is needed to accomplish that mission. Does it require a whole new military service, a Space Force, as envisioned by President Trump? Or a more modest Space Corps as part of the Air Force, as advocated by some in Congress? Or has the Pentagon come up with a “Goldilocks” option in the form of a new combatant command with its own four-star commander, just like Joint Special Operations Command, or Cyber Command, which was just elevated to a unified combatant command last year?

SOC IT TO ME: On Tuesday Defense One published a sneak peak at a 14-page draft plan drawn up under the leadership of Deputy Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan that proposes creating a Space Operations Command by the end of this year. Like the special ops and cyber commands, it would draw expertise from all the services. “Initially, the Pentagon will recommend that the head of Air Force Space Command also serve as the commander of U.S. Space Command. Space liaisons will be installed in the geographic combatant commands, starting with U.S. European Command,” Defense One quoted the draft document as saying.