Chief of Staff Gen. David Goldfein told Congress Wednesday he is opposed to the formation of a separate space force. “Any move that actually ends up separating space as opposed to integrating space, I would argue is a move in the wrong direction,” he told the Senate Armed Services strategic forces subcommittee. Though he did say, “We probably ought to keep that dialogue open,” leaving open the possibility down the road. Goldfein said a space corps is a bad idea “at this time in our history” because the Air Force is in the midst of “a strategic shift” from seeing space as “a benign environment” to treating it as “a warfighting domain.” Goldfein said, “to get focused on a large organizational change would actually slow us down” while this concept of operations transition is ongoing.
Pentagon officials overseeing homeland counter-drone strategy told lawmakers that even with preliminary moves to bolster U.S. base defenses, the military still lacks the capability to comprehensively identify, track, and engage hostile drones like those that breached the airspace of Langley Air Force Base in Virginia for 17 days in December…