During a brief, non‑contentious Senate confirmation hearing on Thursday, the nominee to lead the U.S. Space Force argued that recent Chinese military advances justify the service’s $71 billion budget request.
Lt. Gen. Douglas Schiess, the current deputy chief of space operations for operations at the Pentagon, told the Senate Armed Services Committee, “I would say that the $71.1 billion the president has requested is exactly what we need.” He added that the funding is essential to counter threats from China and Russia and to meet the joint forces’ capability requirements.
Earlier this week, the Space Force’s budget faced new uncertainty when House leaders indicated they would not fully support the Trump administration’s plan to fund much of the request through reconciliation—a rare, partisan‑controlled budget process for defense spending. Under that plan, reconciliation would have financed key programs such as the Space Data Network and Golden Dome.
Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Roger Wicker (R‑Miss.) told Schiess that the service is currently underfunded but would be adequately resourced if Congress enacted the Trump administration’s budget request. The three‑star general concurred.
The White House announced in April that Schiess would become the next chief of space operations, a move first reported by Defense One. He will succeed Gen. Chance Saltzman, who announced his retirement next month during a recent ceremony in London.
In written testimony, Schiess emphasized that the service’s budget, personnel, and platforms must expand to support major joint operations. He noted that U.S. space forces have been hailed as “first movers” in recent conflicts, including the Iran war and critical operations in Venezuela.
The most pressing challenge, Schiess wrote, is “balancing urgent readiness for a contested space environment today with the modernization needed to prevail tomorrow.” He warned that adversaries are rapidly deploying counterspace capabilities designed to jeopardize U.S. and allied satellites, and are constructing space‑enabled kill chains that threaten the Joint Force.
Should he be confirmed, Schiess outlined that his first year would center on enhancing combat readiness, advancing operational testing, expanding launch infrastructure, and enlarging facilities.
The Space Force has planned more than 100 national security space launches over the next five years, and a recent service planning document forecasts that its two primary launch bases will conduct up to 3,000 commercial and military launches annually by 2036.
Schiess identified his top priority as “scaling to meet the unprecedented rise in launch tempo and the exponential growth of commercial missions,” noting that super‑heavylift rockets will “unlock new possibilities for the Space Force.”
Schiess affirmed in both written and oral testimony that he “would have no hesitation” in offering his best military advice, even when it diverges from the opinions of the Chairman, other Joint Chiefs members, the Secretary of War, the President, or other leaders.
This fundamental duty has faced strain during the second Trump administration, according to Kori Schake of AEI, an expert on civil‑military relations. She told The Atlantic that Pentagon political leaders “have created a command climate that penalizes honest military assessments on topics where the military is expert and civilians are not,” warning, “That’s very dangerous. That’s how you lose wars.”
Only six senators questioned Schiess during the roughly 40‑minute hearing, indicating a largely smooth process. Senator Angus King (I‑Maine) told the nominee that the low number of questions suggests the committee’s confidence, which bodes well for his confirmation.
King remarked, “The fact that we didn’t have a large turnout is an indication, I believe, of the committee’s confidence in you.”
Senator Richard Blumenthal (D‑Conn.) added, “Being non‑controversial is not a bad thing.”
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The most difficult entity for Washington to manage is not the long-standing enemy it has faced for decades, but the ally it continues to arm.A Recurring PatternThe New York Times reports that previous Israeli strikes during the conflict claimed the lives of Ali Larijani, former secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, and Kamal Kharazi, a former foreign minister and advisor to the supreme leader. Both were pragmatic figures intended to be central to the talks. The current negotiation channel is led by Araghchi and Ghalibaf in large part because the alternative leaders were killed.Ghalibaf has reportedly survived two Israeli assassination attempts: one during the 12-day war in June 2025, and another during a recent strike on a bunker where senior officials were meeting.When the Spoiler is an AllyIn conflict-resolution theory, “spoilers” are actors who view peace processes as threats and act to dismantle them. Political scientist Stephen Stedman notes that external spoilers are the most dangerous, as they face no consequences when talks fail. These actors typically strike when a process is nearing a breakthrough or during highly symbolic moments that can turn an incident into a full-scale rupture.Current conditions provided a textbook environment for such spoiling. The US-Iran track had recently achieved an interim agreement to halt hostilities and reopen the Strait of Hormuz. Simultaneously, Iran was observing days of public mourning for the late Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. This period of high symbolic exposure coincided with Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz declaring Iran’s new supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, a target, while Araghchi demanded that Washington restrain Israel. The tension was so high that Mojtaba Khamenei avoided his father’s public funeral ceremonies.Standard methods for managing spoilers—such as coercion or inducement—are designed for adversaries. They fail when the suspected spoiler is the very ally central to a superpower’s regional strategy. Coercing Israel is politically unfeasible in Washington, and “inducing” it is unnecessary given the existing level of support. Furthermore, the Israeli government views these diplomatic concessions as a strategic failure that facilitates regime change and releases funds to Tehran.Israeli reporting, including an investigation by Ynet, suggests internal pressures within Israel contribute to this stance. The Netanyahu administration has been accused of pressuring intelligence services to provide inflated assessments of military achievements. Consequently, a durable peace agreement is seen as narratively dangerous to the Israeli government, as every month the peace holds, it serves as an audit of the promised military victories.Iran’s internal dynamics also contribute to the volatility. Even after the recent memorandum, continued strikes on Gulf targets and threats from the IRGC to abandon the talks created a dual-sided pressure. The process is being squeezed by an allied spoiler on one side and factional spoilers within the Iranian government on the other.In alliance theory, this is known as “entrapment”: a patron being dragged by a client into outcomes the patron does not desire. While the standard model involves an ally dragging a patron into war, this case is the inverse: a client working to pull its patron out of a peace agreement. This occurs because an ally with significant domestic political weight can resist a patron that cannot afford to let them defect.When the spoiler is an ally, diplomacy shifts from conflict management to alliance management, with limited success. Washington has moved from private requests to public rebukes, including comments from Vice President JD Vance. The progression from private warnings to public leaks suggests that standard diplomatic channels are insufficient to control a partner. This concede that a superpower may lack control over its primary partner, necessitating a new strategy: stabilization through third parties to protect the process itself.Prioritizing Stabilization Over ProgressUS officials have acknowledged that during serious negotiations, the logic of targeting negotiators changes: killing them would effectively end the possibility of a deal. Donald Trump has echoed this, noting that striking Iranian leaders would leave him with “nobody to negotiate with.”The periods between negotiating rounds are the most vulnerable times for any peace process. The recent funeral and July 4th celebrations pushed political rhetoric to its limit just as the diplomatic channel was most exposed.In such volatile phases, the goal should shift from making progress to achieving stabilization—freezing the situation through intermediaries until the symbolic danger passes. While a pause in talks was agreed upon for the funeral, it failed to stop broader hostilities, as US strikes resumed and Iran responded with attacks on US facilities.However, third-party mediation is proving effective. To prevent attacks on their delegation, Iran sought guarantees through Pakistani and Qatari intermediaries. In one instance, Pakistani fighter jets provided escorts for Iranian planes. When threats forced an emergency landing, the delegation had to travel by land to continue talks in Doha and Switzerland. Third parties are absorbing the risks that the primary actors cannot, acting as buffers to vouch for safety when the main powers cannot.The ultimate success of the current memorandum will be judged by developments regarding Hormuz, nuclear centrifuges, and sanctions. For now, the achievement is much smaller: despite the tension and strikes, the feared Israeli assassination operation did not occur, the negotiators survived, and the diplomatic channel remains open. This is a hard-won success achieved not by managing an enemy, but by managing a friend.
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