China’s military advancements justify the Space Force’s $71 billion budget request, the White House nominee to lead the service said during a short and uncontentious Senate confirmation hearing on Thursday.
“I would say that the $71.1 billion that the president has asked for is exactly what we need,” said Lt. Gen. Douglas Schiess, who currently serves as the deputy chief of space operations for operations at the Pentagon. He told the Senate Armed Services Committee that it was “needed because of the threat from China and Russia, and the capabilities that the joint forces needs.”
The Space Force’s budget request was thrown into uncertainty earlier this week when House leaders said they would not fully comply with the Trump administration’s proposal to provide much of the money through reconciliation—a partisan-controlled budget maneuver rarely used for defense spending before last year. Under the proposal, reconciliation would have funded some of the service’s most ambitious programs, including the Space Data Network and Golden Dome.
On Thursday, Senate Armed Service Committee Chairman Roger Wicker, R-Miss., told Schiess that his service is underfunded at the moment, but said that it would be adequately resourced if the House and Senate passed the Trump administration’s budget request. The three-star general agreed.
The White House tapped Schiess in April to serve as the next chief of space operations, Defense One first reported. The three-star officer would replace Gen. Chance Saltzman, who announced in London this week that he will retire next month.
Schiess said in written testimony to the Committee that the services budget, people, and platforms need to grow to support major joint operations. The military’s space forces have been praised as the “first movers” during the war in Iran and crucial to the administration’s operation in Venezuela.
“The most significant challenge is balancing urgent readiness for a contested space domain today with the modernization required to win tomorrow,” Schiess wrote. “Our adversaries are fielding counterspace capabilities at a rapidly increasing pace that are designed to hold U.S. and allied satellites at risk, while also building space-enabled kill chains to threaten our Joint Force.”
If confirmed, Schiess said in written testimony that his first year would focus on improving combat readiness, prioritizing operational testing, building up space launch infrastructure, and expanding facilities.
The service has budgeted upwards of 100 national security space launches over the next five years, and a recent service planning document estimates its two main launch bases will send as many as 3,000 commercial and military rockets into the skies each year by 2036.
Schiess said in his written statements that “the most pressing issue” he wants to address is “scaling to meet the unprecedented increase in launch tempo, as well as the exponential growth in commercial missions” including the use of super-heavylift rockets to “unlock new possibilities for the Space Force.
Schiess added in written and verbal testimony that he “would have no hesitation” in providing his best military advice “even when that advice differs from the views of the Chairman, other members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Secretary of War, President, or other leaders.”
This basic requirement of the job has come under pressure during the second Trump administration. The Pentagon’s political leaders “have created a command climate that penalizes the honest evaluations of the military about issues on which the military is expert and the civilians are not,” AEI’s Kori Schake, an expert on civil-military relations, told The Atlantic recently. “That’s very dangerous,” she said. “That’s how you lose wars.”
Only six Senators asked Schiess questions during the roughly 40-minute hearing. Sen. Angus King, I-Maine, told the general that bodes well for his likely confirmation.
“The fact that we didn’t have a large turnout is an indication, I believe, of the committee’s confidence in you,” King said.
Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., added “being non-controversial is not a bad thing.”
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