WASHINGTON — U.S. Army Gen. James Dickinson handed over the reins of U.S. Space Command to U.S. Space Force Gen. Stephen Whiting Jan. 10 at a change-of-command ceremony at Peterson Space Force Base outside Colorado Springs.
Whiting was nominated back in July to take over as head of U.S. Space Command and was cleared by the Senate Armed Services Committee following a July 26 confirmation hearing. But his confirmation was held up for months along with hundreds of other military promotions by Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala) to protest the Pentagon’s policy of reimbursing troops who travel to seek abortions.
Whiting’s deputy commander is U.S. Army Lt. Gen. Thomas James.
U.S. Space Command is a unified combatant command of the Department of Defense, responsible for military operations in outer space. Its main tasks are to monitor space activities and threats, support other military units with space capabilities like communications and surveillance, respond to crises involving space, deter aggression and defeat enemies if needed.
In remarks at the ceremony, Deputy Defense Secretary Kathleen Hicks highlighted the importance of the command as “space is integral to military operations, and our competitors know it. They realize how much the American way of life and the American ways of war depend on space power, and they want to undermine our advantage.”
Hicks mentioned China as the United States’ most concerning rival that is “rapidly expanding its space and counter space capabilities and integrating them into a broader strategy to challenge our joint force and undermine U.S. interests.” She said both Russia and China are “evolving their military doctrines to extend into space. They’re both deploying capabilities that can target GPS and other vital space based systems.”
Whiting was previously commander of the Space Force’s…
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