Episode XXXVII: The Ancient One’s Choice
The Dixie Star Empire has, for now, usurped the Rocky Mountain Galactic Federation. But the conflict is not about taxation of trade routes, or control of spice, or mining of dilithium crystals. No, the hostilities concern a matter far more important — thousands of government jobs. The Potomac Space Dominion’s Ancient One must now make the final decision….
In 2019, site-selection consultant John Boyd called it “the most coveted economic development project out there today.”
A state-of-the-art factory? A sprawling logistics hub? An R&D campus?
None of the above. The headquarters of United States Space Command (USSPACECOM).
First, some terminology clarification. USSPACECOM is not the United States Space Force, a new branch of the military “that organizes, trains, and equips … forces in order to protect U.S. and allied interests in space.” It is a unified combatant command, a joint-warfare organization reactivated by President Trump at the end of 2018 and provisionally housed at Colorado’s Peterson Air Force Base. The command “conducts operations in, from, and to space to deter conflict, and if necessary, defeat aggression, deliver space combat power … and defend U.S. vital interests with allies and partners.”
USSPACECOM needs a permanent home, and in the spring of 2019, a leaked memo revealed that six military facilities — four in Colorado, “which already has a substantial Air Force and military presence” — were the finalists. But what was best for the command wasn’t best for reelection, and “lawmakers … engaged in frequent lobbying … to select a location in their state, including states that were not on the short list, such as Florida or Louisiana.” Little wonder. Boyd estimated that in addition to “1,500 highly paid workers” and “$1 billion in construction costs,” the HQ’s “economic benefit to the selected region will be enormous when factoring in new tax revenue and the bump it will give the housing and retail markets.”
Since bureaucrats play politics as well as elected officials, early in 2020, the Air Force’s secretary informed fedpols “that the process to select a permanent headquarters for U.S. Space Command will be re-opened … to give state and local leaders a fresh opportunity to make their pitches.” And pitch they did — dozens of locales followed “the process outlined … to the nation’s governors which includes a nomination form and screening and evaluation criteria,” producing snazzy marketing materials and crafting all manner of subsidized goodies.
Few noticed, but the face-off opened a new front in an old battle. “There is no precedent for a presidential administration stoking the ‘economic war among the states,’” noted Good Jobs First’s Greg LeRoy. “Historically the federal government has been laissez-faire.”
Troubling at the start, the donnybrook has proved to be interminable. When Alabama’s Redstone Arsenal won the competition in January 2021, did all the defeated contestants congratulate the victor and move on? Of course not. The whining was epic. The Centennial State’s sourpusses were the most miffed of all. “Colorado’s governor and lieutenant governor, both Democrats, and Congressman Doug Lamborn, a Republican, all called the move politically-motivated [sic], with Lamborn going so far as to call the decision ‘horrendous.’” The Government Accountability Office was ordered to scrutinize the verdict. So was the Pentagon’s inspector general.
Neither investigation yielded much in the way of illegality or impropriety regarding the Alabama pick, but the GAO and IG reports changed nothing. Colorado’s politicians remained enraged, and since a Democrat is now in the White House, the blue-and-getting-bluer state has reason for hope. In January, “Sen. Michael Bennet, D-Colo., said he’s threatening to delay … Pentagon nominees because Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin refuses to meet with him over the Trump administration’s decision to move U.S. Space Command from its current location in Colorado Springs to Huntsville, Alabama.” The solon got his sit-down, immediately, and last week, took to the Senate floor to repeat his monotonous claim that “politics made the decision about moving Space Command to Alabama, not the national security interests of the United States.”
Nearly a year ago, an exasperated Gen. James Dickinson, USSPACECOM’s big kahuna, told Congress that he had “to have a decision” on headquarters, because he needed to “do the appropriate planning and make sure I’ve got the right types of people in the organization.” Leave it to a military man to make the public interest his priority. Sadly, the general appears to be woefully ignorant of how The Swamp operates. National security means something in his world. On Capitol Hill, it’s just a tool employed in the service of ambition and greed.