The creation of the Space Force in 2019 cracked the door open for wider discussions about China’s and Russia’s militarization of space, and since his appointment as Chief of Space Operations in 2023, Gen. B. Chance Saltzman has shifted the conversation about establishing the structures and processes of a Space Force to the operational employment of space as a competitive, contested domain in which the United States must deter rivals from threatening U.S. advantages in space.