Defense Secretary Robert Gates told the House Armed Services Committee Feb. 7 that he “has a problem” with elevating the National Guard Bureau chief to a seat on the Joint Chiefs of Staff because of “unity of command issues.” He is, however, “very open to the possibility” of giving the NGB chief a fourth star. The Commission on the National Guard and Reserves expects to make its report to Congress on this issue by March 1.
The Space Force is playing midwife to a new ecosystem of commercial satellite constellations providing alternatives to the service’s own Global Positioning Service from much closer to the Earth, making their signals more accurate and harder to jam.