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Air Force Plans To Hire General To Prepare For Wars In Space

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The Air Force plans to hire a three-star general to prepare the service for future battles in space.

Military officials view space as the next battlefield, and the Air Force is building a network of new operations centers and creating new positions to ensure the U.S. is ready to fight in the “contested environment” of space, Gen. David L. Goldfein, Air Force chief of staff, said in a statement Tuesday.

The Air Force will create a deputy chief of staff for space, to be filled by a three-star general, who “will increase decision making speed and help ensure freedom from attack and freedom to maneuver,” Goldfein said.

“Just like we have a deputy chief of staff for operations, and a deputy chief of staff for intel, we’re going to have a deputy chief of staff for space,” Gen. John Raymond, head of the Air Force Space Command said during a speech Tuesday. “He or she will work at the Pentagon, it will be a three-star general, and they’ll come to work every day focused on this, making sure that we can organize, train and equip our forces to meet the challenges in this domain.”

The Air Force has yet to name the new deputy chief of staff for space, or “A11,” but hopes whoever fills the position will improve the service’s ability to purchase and deploy new technology. (RELATED: Air Force’s Mysterious Space Plane Just Spent 600 Days In Orbit)

“The time has come to adapt our organization and management structure to reflect the reality that space is a joint warfighting domain,” Goldfein said.

The military views both civilian and defense satellites as critical assets that need to be protected from attack. Officials are concerned that China and Russia could develop technology to shoot satellites out of orbit, either to cripple military intelligence or destroy commercial technology. (RELATED: Top General Says US ‘Must Be Prepared For Any Chinese Aggression In Space’)

While both those nations have promised they are developing technology only for peaceful purposes, “In the not-too-distant future, they will be able to use that capability to threaten every spacecraft we have in space,” Air Force Gen. John E. Hyten, head of Strategic Command, said at a conference in January.

“We have to prevent that, and the best way to prevent war is to be prepared for war. So the United States is going to do that, and we’re going to make sure that everybody knows we’re prepared for war.”

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