As Space Force leaders push for more orbital warfighting capabilities and even potential moon operations, senators want to make sure they have enough space-focused military lawyers for future conflicts.
The Defense Department would be required to assess its “space law requirements” to face rising threats and examine “options for establishing a dedicated legal organization within the Air Force, Space Force, or Space Command,” under the Senate Armed Service Committee’s version of the National Defense Authorization Act, released last month.
“The committee recognizes that operational demands in the space domain have grown, including reliance on commercial integration, allied and partner cooperation, and dual-use
technologies,” says the SASC’s NDAA report. “The committee is concerned that current legal, policy, and institutional structures within the Department of Defense may not have kept pace with the complexity of space operations.”
The newest military service branch is aiming to increase its budget, double its troop strength, and boost its role in operations such as those in Venezuela and the war in Iran. Advocates for the Space Force talk about extending its reach to the Moon’s orbit—and maybe even putting troops on the lunar surface.
Senators said that lawyers well-versed in outer space will be needed for those complex missions.
“The U.S. Space Force lacks its own legal corps, formalized training pipeline, or enduring mechanism to develop a specialized space law expertise,” the SASC reporting language reads. “The growing complexity of international space law, civil-military partnerships, commercial integration, dual-use technologies, and industrial base considerations require enhanced, domain-specific legal capacity.”
It’s time to reconvene the JAG-related discussions that fizzled out as the Space Force was being formed, said Aaron Brynildson, a University of Mississippi law professor and retired Air Force judge advocate general. Currently, the service shares uniformed lawyers with the Air Force. Now, he sees creating a space-specific JAG corps as essential for future operations.
“Space is going to be the most important domain in the 20 years, and it's the one domain where I think U.S. dominance isn't guaranteed,” Brynildson said. “If you're going to grow the Space Force from 6,500 people to 20,000 in the couple of decades, you need to treat it like a real branch, and part of that is having their own JAGs advise on domain-specific space warfare.”
In April, the Space Force identified legal maneuvering from China and Russia as a major concern for space operations.
“China and Russia have long used international and domestic legal frameworks and regulatory mechanisms to degrade their opponents’ capabilities, weaken opposing coalitions, and obtain international sympathy and support from third parties,” reads the ambitious “Future Operating Environment 2040” document, which examined growing space threats. “With international space law having remained essentially unchanged since the 1960s and 1970s, when the four foundational United Nations treaties were established, lawfare presents an asymmetric approach to restricting U.S. freedom of action in the space domain.”
The SASC NDAA calls for the chief of space operations, the Air Force secretary, the head of Space Command, and the Defense Legal Services Agency to examine “current and projected requirements for space law expertise” and to submit a report to the Senate and House Armed Services Committees by Dec. 1
Lawmakers want to know how many legal personnel currently support space operations, any gaps in legal readiness related to international space law, options for establishing a dedicated space legal organization, the requirements for advanced domain-specific legal education, and opportunities for academic and research partnerships relevant to “national security space operations.”
