A Space Force spokesperson echoed these sentiments in a statement Friday.
The spokesperson said the command’s mission “is to generate, present, sustain, and improve combat-ready intelligence, cyber, and space forces, while partnering across the US government, allies, and commercial agencies to project combat power in, from, and to space.”
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said Trump’s decision to bring back the Department of War name signaled a “vibe shift” to “restore a warrior ethos” among US military forces, repeating a familiar talking point since he took the top job at the Pentagon in January.
While it’s unclear how long the Department of War rebrand will last, the Space Force’s Combat Forces Command might stick around.
Officials in the first Trump administration were among the first in government to describe space as a “war-fighting domain” akin to land, air, sea, and cyberspace. However, the language only escalated during the Biden administration, which also continued to boost the Space Force’s budget.
Frank Kendall, who served as secretary of the Air Force under Biden, said in January that space will be a “decisive theater” in modern warfare.
And last year, several Space Force generals began talking openly about deploying offensive weapons in space, something that was anathema just a few years ago, at least for discussion in public forums. Gen. Chance Saltzman, the Space Force’s top general, said last December the service’s job was to provide the president with “offensive and defense options” for combat in space.
“In 2014, we had senior leaders start to talk about space and war in the same sentence,” Saltzman said. “They got kind of berated by the senior leadership. So this is still a relatively new condition when we’re talking about war-fighting in space.”
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