In Favour of an Independent Royal Space Fleet

Abstract

This article takes the reader on a journey from the foundation of the world’s first independent air service to the contemporary operating environment, as space is recognised as a unique strategic domain. Using the Smuts Report, and a framework of culture, concepts and capabilities, Clifford Fletcher-Jones shows how the conditions that led to the requirement for an independent air force are present today–thus requiring an independent space service. The research grounds the argument for an independent space service in space power theory before articulating a set of recommendations to the British government to enable the UK to achieve its ‘Galactic Britain’ ambition.◼

Notes

1 HM Government, ‘National Space Strategy’, 27 September 2021, <https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/national-space-strategy>, accessed 15 January 2023.

2 Ibid., p. 2.

3 RAF, ‘UK Space Command’, <https://www.raf.mod.uk/what-we-do/uk-space-command/>, accessed 16 January 2023.

4 London Economics, ‘The Economic Impact on the UK of a Disruption to GNSS’, October 2023, <https://data.parliament.uk/DepositedPapers/Files/DEP2023-0807/impact.pdf>, accessed 8 May 2024. For more information on critical national infrastructure, see National Protective Security Authority, ‘Critical National Infrastructure’, updated 25 April 2023, <https://www.npsa.gov.uk/critical-national-infrastructure-0>, accessed 28 January 2024.

5 Jan Christian Smuts, ‘Second Report of the Prime Minister’s Committee on Air Organisation and Home Defence against Air Raids (The Smuts Report)’, Warwick Digital Collections, 17 August 1917, <https://cdm21047.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/tav/id/3433>, accessed 13 March 2023.

6 Ibid., p. 2.

7 MoD, ‘Army Doctrine Primer’, May 2011, <https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/33693/20110519ADP_Army_Doctrine_Primerpdf.pdf>, accessed 17 September 2022.

8 Ibid., p. 1-3.

9 Charles Harvard Gibbs-Smith, Aviation: A Historical Survey from its Origins to the End of the Second World War, 2^nd edition (London: Science Museum, 1985), p. 207.

10 H A Jones, The War in the Air: Volume 2 (London: Hamish Hamilton, 1969), p. 135.

11 Tony Mason, Air Power: A Centennial Appraisal (London: Brassey’s, 1995), p. 25.

12 Hubert Raymond Allen, The Legacy of Lord Trenchard (London: Cassell, 1972), p. 17.

13 Colin S Gray, Modern Strategy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), p. 230.

14 Smuts, ‘The Smuts Report’, pp. 4–5.

15 RFC and RNAS were military organisations in the UK during the First World War; RFC was the air arm of the British Army from 1912 to 1918. It was the predecessor to the Royal Air Force (RAF), which was formed by merging the RFC with the RNAS in 1918. RNAS was the air arm of the Royal Navy from 1914 to 1918. Like the RFC, the RNAS was also merged into the newly-formed RAF in 1918. See National Army Museum, ‘Royal Flying Corps’, <https://www.nam.ac.uk/explore/royal-flying-corps>, accessed 2 February 2023.

16 Smuts, ‘The Smuts Report’, p. 2.

17 Ibid., p. 3.

18 For more information on the genesis of independent air power, see Malcolm Cooper, The Birth of Independent Air Power (London: Allen & Unwin, 1986).

19 MoD and Ben Wallace, ‘Defence Secretary’s Speech at the Defence Space Conference 2020’, Speech given at Space Conference, 18 November 2020, <https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/defence-secretarys-speech-at-space-conference>, accessed 8 November 2023; Daniel Boffey, ‘Nato Leader Identifies Space as the Next “Operational Domain”‘, The Guardian, 20 November 2019.

20 This comment is adapted from Peter Drucker’s famous quote: ‘culture eats strategy for breakfast’. See Jacob M Engel, ‘Why Does Culture “Eat Strategy For Breakfast”?’, Forbes, 20 November 2018, <https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbescoachescouncil/2018/11/20/why-does-culture-eat-strategy-for-breakfast/>, accessed 18 January 2023. On Drucker’s works, see list of articles in Peter F Drucker, ‘Don’t Change Corporate Culture–Use It!’, Wall Street Journal, 28 March 1991, <https://drucker.institute/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/Drucker-1991-Dont-Change-Corporate-Culture-Use-It.pdf>, accessed 8 May 2024.

21 MoD, Defence Space Strategy: Operationalising the Space Domain (London: The Stationery Office, February 2022), <https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/defence-space-strategy-operationalising-the-space-domain/defence-space-strategy-operationalising-the-space-domain>, accessed 20 January 2023.

22 MoD, ‘UK Space Power’, JDP 0-40, September 2022, p. 34, <https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/uk-space-power-jdp-0-40>, accessed 20 January 2023; Andrew Chuter, ‘British Military Plans to Spend Big on Space, but Some Wonder if It’s Enough’, Defense News, 1 February 2022, <https://www.defensenews.com/global/europe/2022/02/01/british-military-plans-to-spend-big-on-space-but-some-wonder-if-its-enough/>, accessed 2 March 2023.

23 Chuter, ‘British Military Plans to Spend Big on Space, but Some Wonder if It’s Enough’.

24 Innovate UK, ‘The Economic Impact on the UK of a Disruption to GNSS’.

25 HM Government, Integrated Review Refresh: Responding to a More Contested and Volatile World, CP 811 (London: The Stationery Office, 2023), p. 34.

26 Ibid., p. 34.

27 UK Space Command, ‘Space Capability Management Plan’, October 2022, <https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/space-capability-management-plan>, accessed 5 February 2023.

28 Ministry of Defence, Defence Space Strategy, p. 7.

29 Ibid., p. 32; UK Space Command, ‘Space Capability Management Plan’, p. 7.

30 MoD, ‘Future Operating Environment 2035’, FOE 35, 14 December 2015, <https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/future-operating-environment-2035>, accessed 14 July 2022.

31 Ibid., p. 35.

32 MoD, Defence Space Strategy, p. 7.

33 See Donald Cox and Michael Stoiko, Spacepower: What It Means to You (Philadelphia, PA: John C Winston Company, 1958); Everett Carl Dolman, Astropolitik: Classical Geopolitics in the Space Age (Abingdon: Routledge, 2002); Everett Carl Dolman, ‘Victory Through Space Power’, Strategic Studies Quarterly (Summer 2020), pp. 3–15; John J Klein, Understanding Space Strategy: The Art of War in Space (Abingdon: Routledge, 2019); Jean-Luc Lefebvre, Space Strategy (London: Wiley-ISTE, 2017).

34 Lefebvre, Space Strategy, p. xxviii.

35 Cox and Stoiko, Spacepower: What It Means to You, p. 5.

36 Ibid., p. 15.

37 HM Government, Integrated Review Refresh, p. 28.

38 Dolman, Astropolitik.

39 Jerry Pournelle and Stefan Possony, The Strategy of Technology: Winning the Decisive War (Cambridge: University Press of Cambridge, 1970), pp. 1–95.

40 Dolman, Astropolitik, pp. 7–8. In Mackinder’s paper, ‘The Geographical Pivot of History’, he asserted whoever controlled Eastern Europe–the heartland–would control the world. His concept was that whoever gained control of Eastern Europe, controlled the heartland–also known as the pivot area–and whoever controlled the heartland, could gain control of the world island (Africa and Eurasia). See, Halford John Mackinder, ‘The Geographical Pivot of History’, The Geographical Journal (Vol. 23, No. 4, April 1904), pp. 421–37.

41 John Klein, Space Warfare, Strategy, Principles, and Policy (London: Routledge, 2006), p. 51.

42 Ibid. p. 51.

43 MoD, ‘Army Doctrine Primer’.

44 HM Government, Global Britain in a Competitive Age: The Integrated Review of Security, Defence, Development and Foreign Policy (London: The Stationery Office, 2021).

45 For more on the T10/T50 debate see Robert Chesney, ‘Military-Intelligence Convergence and the Law of the Title 10/Title 50 Debate’, Journal of National Security Law and Policy (Vol. 5, 2012), p. 539, University of Texas Law, Public Law Research Paper No. 212, https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1945392.

46 The OODA loop is a concept developed by US Air Force Colonel John Boyd. See OODA Loop, ‘The OODA Loop Explained: The Real Story about the Ultimate Model for Decision-making in Competitive Environments’, <https://www.oodaloop.com/the-ooda-loop-explained-the-real-story-about-the-ultimate-model-for-decision-making-in-competitive-environments/>, accessed 10 March 2023.

47 HM Government, Integrated Review Refresh, p. 28.

48 MBDA, ‘MBDA Working on New Spear-EW Electronic Warfare Weapon’, press release, 11 September 2019, <https://www.mbda-systems.com/press-releases/17630/>, accessed 10 March 2023; Northrop Grumman Newsroom, ‘Northrop Grumman and Intelsat Make History with Docking of Second Mission Extension Vehicle to Extend Life of Satellite’, 12 April 2021, <https://news.northropgrumman.com/news/releases/northrop-grumman-and-intelsat-make-history-with-docking-of-second-mission-extension-vehicle-to-extend-life-of-satellite>, accessed 14 March 2023.

49 Cheryl Pellerin, ‘Stratcom, DOD Sign Space Operations Agreement with Allies’, US Department of Defense News, 23 September 2013, <https://www.defense.gov/News/News-Stories/Article/Article/603303/stratcom-dod-sign-space-operations-agreement-with-allies/>, accessed 8 May 2024; Royal Air Force, ‘Defence Secretary Outlines Future Space Programme’, 18 July 2019, <https://www.raf.mod.uk/news/articles/defence-secretary-outlines-future-space-programme/>, accessed 8 May 2024.

50 Juliana Suess, ‘The UK Defence Space Strategy’, RUSI Commentary, 11 February 2022; for more on the Five Eyes intelligence community, see Anthony R Wells, Between Five Eyes: 50 Years of Intelligence Sharing (Oxford: Casemate, 2020).

51 MoD, Defence Space Strategy, p. 9.

52 US DoD, ‘Stratcom, DOD Sign Space Operations Agreement with Allies’, 23 September 2014, <https://www.defense.gov/News/News-Stories/Article/Article/603303/stratcom-dod-sign-space-operations-agreement-with-allies/>, accessed 19 January 2023.

53 Ibid.

54 US Space Force, ‘Spacepower: Doctrine for Space Forces’, Space Capstone Publication, June 2020, p. 10.

55 Classical deterrence theory was developed in the 1950s and 1960s by a group of ‘first wave’ deterrence theorists including Bernard Brodie, Thomas Schelling and Glenn Snyder, who developed the idea that components of deterrence include credibility, capability and communication. See Bernard Brodie, ‘The Anatomy of Deterrence’, in Strategy in the Missile Age (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1959), pp. 264–304; Thomas Schelling, Arms and Influence (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1966); Glenn Herald Snyder, Deterrence and Defense (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1961).

56 UN General Assembly Resolution 75/36, 16 December 2020, A/Res/75/36, <https://documents.un.org/doc/undoc/gen/n20/354/39/pdf/n2035439.pdf?token=0342nkFHHEzvEYS1fK&fe=true>, accessed 8 November 2022.

57 National Protective Security Authority, ‘Critical National Infrastructure’.

58 Everett C Dolman, ‘Space Is a Warfighting Domain’, Aether: A Journal of Strategy and Airpower (Vol. 1, No. 1, Spring 2022), p. 86.

59 Brodie, ‘The Anatomy of Deterrence’, in Strategy in the Missile Age, pp. 264–304; Schelling, Arms and Influence; Snyder, Deterrence and Defense.

60 Colin S Gray and John B Sheldon, ‘Space Power and the Revolution in Military Affairs: A Glass Half Full?’, Airpower Journal (Vol. 13, No. 3, Fall 1999), p. 36.

61 HM Government, ‘National Space Strategy’, p. 2.

62 M V ‘Coyote’ Smith, ‘America Needs a Space Corps’, The Space Review, 13 March 2017, <https://www.thespacereview.com/article/3193/1>, accessed 2 February 2024.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Clifford Fletcher-Jones

Clifford Fletcher-Jones is a retired Royal Air Force wing commander who has over 14 years of experience in military space operations and has been mission-qualified in 10 operational space roles. He has served as the 92 Squadron Space Tactics Officer, the Air and Space Warfare School’s leading Instructor on the UK’s Qualified Space Instructor’s Course and was the first UK national to serve as Deputy Director Space Forces, US European Command. During his time as HQ UK Space Command’s Assistant Chief of Staff, he advanced the Ministry of Defence’s Strategic Effects Management Process to include space domain operations. He has been the Chief of the Air Staff Portal Research Fellow at King’s College, London, where he developed an anthrocosmological space power theory, and a US Space Force Shriever Space Scholar at the Air University, US. He holds three Master’s degrees and is a Visiting Fellow at the Institute of Advanced Studies, a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, and a Chartered Fellow of the Chartered Management Institute. He has lectured internationally on spacepower, space warfare and strategy.