Former President Donald Trump has vowed to create a Space National Guard if reelected to the Oval Office in November, a policy position that has become highly politicized this year and is opposed by the Air Force , Space Force and the current White House administration.
At an event hosted in Michigan on Monday by the National Guard Association of the United States -- a lobbying arm supporting the reserve service's goals and objectives -- Trump, the Republican nominee in the current presidential race, promised to back and support legislation for a "Space Force National Guard," a major policy project supported by the group, and was met with applause from the crowd.
"The time has come to create a Space National Guard as the primary combat reserve of the U.S. Space Force," Trump said. "As president, I will sign historic legislation creating a Space National Guard."
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Trump's endorsement of a Space National Guard comes as the issue hit a boiling point this year after the Space Force decided to go in a different direction.
The Space Force has not opted for a National Guard model, like the Army and Air Force, to maintain a reserve force and instead had legislation signed into the law in the 2024 National Defense Authorization Act allowing the creation of a part-time, active-duty service model -- a brand-new idea.
But every governor in the country and bipartisan groups of lawmakers have opposed a Department of the Air Force proposal to transfer several hundred airmen who are part of Air National Guard units with space-related missions into the active-duty Space Force.
The National Guard Association of the United States, or NGAUS, and various lawmakers, namely Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., and the late Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., made numerous pushes in the past to get the Space National Guard model through the cogs of Congress.
Trump told the NGAUS crowd during his remarks in Michigan that Rubio is "very much a fan of yours" and said the senator "loves this" idea of creating a Space National Guard.
Those past legislative pushes have been opposed by the White House Office of Management and Budget, which issued a statement in 2021 saying it was "strongly opposed" to a Space Guard component, estimating it would significantly increase costs.
The National Guard Bureau has previously said that there are approximately 14 units across seven states consisting of around 1,000 personnel that take on space missions in the Air National Guard, and it has questioned the cost claims.
In April, Military.com reported that the Air Force floated a legislative proposal to Congress to transfer some of those Air National Guard units with space missions into the active-duty Space Force by asking for exceptions from section 104 of Title 32, as well as section 18238 of Title 10 of the U.S. Code, which requires state governors to sign off on such a move.
The proposal, which could strip governors' ability to stop the transfer, brought condemnation from every governor in the U.S. In a letter, they claimed the move "undermines long-standing partnerships, precedence, military readiness and operational efficacy."
That proposal is currently being ironed out between the Republican-controlled House and the Democrat-controlled Senate as they work on the NDAA, the annual must-pass defense policy bill. The House version would make governors sign off on such a move, and the Senate version would allow it to go through but would limit the Guard units that could be transferred to the Space Force to six states and roughly 600 people.
Todd Harrison, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute who focuses on space policy, told Military.com in an interview Monday that the Space Force's part-time service model is innovative, and that a National Guard model doesn't make sense for a service whose domain is focused outside of the Earth's atmosphere and well outside of state borders.
"It's not practical. ... You're going to create a separate branch for that few people," Harrison said. "I guess, more importantly, the Space Force has a better idea for how to incorporate reservists and Guard members into a single Space Force that has part-time and full-time people. I think what they've come up with is the way of the future."
In the waning days of Trump's presidency, he oversaw the creation of the current Space Force by signing the 2020 National Defense Authorization Act, an idea he had long mentioned at political rallies.
Harrison told Military.com that, as the issue of a Space National Guard becomes politicized, it's understandable that Trump would weigh in on the issue, especially because the creation of it would lead to members of Congress and governors wanting that reserve component to have some foothold in their districts and states.
"It's a bad idea all around, but I understand it's good populist politics and that's why you see so many governors and so many members of Congress jumping on the idea, because they know it's gonna make people happy in their state," Harrison added.
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