Why is this year’s budget request cutting the Space Force?

The Department of Defense has rolled out its 2025 budget request, and someone’s asking for a cut.

The Defense Department’s $825 billion request was a top-line increase of 1 percent over 2024 and the top line of every military branch increased, except for one. The Air Force budget and intelligence pass-through both grew 2 percent; the Navy, Marine Corps and Defense Wide Agency budgets grew 1 percent, while the Army saw minimal 0.2 percent growth. 

But the request for the Space Force was a 2 percent decrease.

Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall and Space Force Chief General Chance Saltzman put on a brave face to justify and support the Space Force request. There is no question their comments have been accurate and honest — much progress has been made in past Space Force budgets, and this year’s submission has prioritized the right investments. What they could not say was that so much more must be done and could be done with additional funds.

The department’s Joint Warfighting Concept, the result of a five-year effort to define what U.S. forces must do to fight and win in the future, is heavily dependent on space capabilities that do not exist today. Our military forces will need to surveil the battlefield, find opposing forces and target them, all while protecting themselves from attack. 

This will have to be done across tens of thousands of square miles of land, air and sea space against hundreds of possible targets simultaneously. The approach will fail unless we can observe and understand what is happening across a vast area in real time, and our forces and their commanders can connect with certainty while preventing the enemy from doing the same.  This cannot be done at the speed, range and scale required except through space.

Alarmingly, China’s military is rapidly fielding forces that will be able to fight in a manner similar to this future concept. Saltzman recently noted that the People’s Liberation Army has 480 intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance satellites in orbit today, and is using them as the basis for just such a space-based network, to find, track and target U.S. forces. They are fielding weapons to destroy our satellites in war as well.  China’s goal is to outpace us in space. A reduced Space Force budget helps them toward that goal.

To be fair, there are arguments for flatlining this year’s Space Force budget. Space Force has nearly doubled its budget since it was created in 2019, and it is the only military branch with double digit increases as a percentage of its budget in every year since. The service’s progress has been good. It seems to be managing growth effectively, performing well in building the new mission systems that are needed, but it is not unreasonable to pause briefly to be certain of that assessment.

Further, the resources required to address the crises in Ukraine and the Middle East have demonstrated that our current munitions stocks are woefully inadequate and need to be replenished. A space-based kill-web will be of little value without an adequate supply of weapons to use it.   

So a little grace for Washington budgeteers is warranted — but very little grace. Congress actually reduced the 2024 Space Force budget request by $1.2 billion; the ball is now in its court for 2025. A 1 percent increase in the Space Force budget would be consistent with the overall defense budget and would sent the right message. The nearly $900 million difference between the 2 percent reduction request and a nominal 1 percent increase could be used to great effect in any number of ways. 

Both the Space Force and U.S. Space Command submitted unfunded priority lists that exceed $1 billion. Many items on these lists are classified, but the unclassified list includes requests to fund space communications and data relay services from commercial companies, increase the resilience of ground systems and experiment with new technologies needed for the future fight.

In addition, both the DoD and the Space Force recently released commercial space strategies. Combatant commanders urgently need space-based sensing and communications services for daily operations, exercises and training. These services are readily available in the commercial space sector today. Especially when used together with allies and theater security cooperation partners, these would increase the effectiveness of those daily activities and significantly improve their use in future combat operations.

As Congress is considering what it will do with the 2025 defense budget, the Pentagon has already begun the process of building its 2026 budget. The Space Force budget will probably have to double again in the next five years to effectively implement the Joint Warfighting Concept, protect U.S. interests and freedom of action in space, and begin to address the challenges coming in lunar space.  The question, of course, is whether the Space Force’s 2026 request will reflect that need.

Is this year’s dip in the Space Force budget a brief pause before the department begins the next phase of space investment necessary to fight and win in the future? Or is it a signal that we are incapable of prioritizing investments vital to the nation’s defense? 

Is this a blip or a bellwether? The answer will have grave implications for the nation and the Armed Forces.

D.T. Thompson is a senior adviser for Elara Nova and former vice chief of space operations for the United States Space Force. His views are not necessarily those of any organization or government agency.