A Political History of the United States Space Force: The Role of National Security Concerns, Bureaucratic Politics, and Policy Entrepreneurs

Abstract

The creation of the United States Space Force in December 2019 marked the first establishment of a new U.S. military service in more than seventy years and a significant shift in American political-military doctrine. This dissertation investigates why this organizational innovation occurred when it did, and not in prior decades, by tracing the political and institutional processes that produced the Space Force and shaped its form. The study applies three explanatory approaches. First, it considers relative gains and external security concerns, especially the rise of Chinese space capabilities. Second, it evaluates bureaucratic politics and organizational interests within the Department of Defense, Congress, and the executive branch. Third, it examines the agency of policy entrepreneurs who framed the problem, built coalitions, and advanced reform proposals. The research design employs process tracing across 26 years (1993–2019) and four administrations (Clinton, Bush, Obama, and Trump), integrating Congressional testimony, archival records, media accounts, and over sixty interviews with White House, Congressional, and defense officials. The findings indicate that no single explanation is sufficient. Structural concerns about declining U.S. space advantage created background pressure, but the organizational form remained contested. Bureaucratic politics generated strong resistance, particularly from Air Force leadership, while Congressional actors pressed for reform. Above all, a network of policy entrepreneurs—Air University (AU) faculty, former defense officials, Congressional staffers, and White House staff—proved indispensable. Through agenda-setting, narrative framing, and exploitation of political openings, they sustained advocacy across decades of failed attempts and ultimately coupled a viable reform proposal to external threat perceptions and presidential political agendas, enabling a legislative outcome. The payoff of this analysis is empirical and theoretical. Empirically, it offers the first detailed political history of the Space Force’s creation and clarifies the interplay of pressures, interests, and agency that produced the outcome. Theoretically, it refines understanding of military innovation and policy change: not as the straightforward product of threats or rational design, but as the contingent result of interaction between structural pressures, bureaucratic dynamics, and entrepreneurial action. The findings inform international relations, public policy, and civil-military studies, and suggest how future reforms in emerging domains may be enabled or obstructed. Keywords: Public Policy, Space, Spacepower, Policy Entrepreneurs, Relative Gains, Bureaucratic Politics, Civil-Military Relations, Space Force, Military Innovation