Project 2025 Tracker / What’s done, what’s next

4. Department of Defense · Notable

End the study phase and issue guidance to field offensive space capabilities

Partially done

118 4. Department of Defense

“End the current study phase of concept development and issue necessary guidance for the development and fielding of offensive capabilities.”

What has happened

  1. Partially done

    Executive Order 14369 sec. 3(d) is the guidance step the Quote asks for, in the sense that it orders implementation rather than another study: within 180 days the National Security Adviser, with the Secretary of War and the Director of National Intelligence, must "implement a space security strategy" addressing threats through cislunar space and "implement a plan for a responsive and adaptive national security space architecture". The FY2026 NDAA sec. 1603 converts space warfighting and control from a concept into a statutory acquisition duty (10 U.S.C. 2275d). Neither text uses the word offensive, and no allowlisted source records the strategy or plan being issued - the 180-day deadline fell on 2026-06-16 and nothing appeared on an allowlisted host.

Research log

What was searched, and what didn’t count as evidence

Research notes

The 180-day deliverables under EO 14369 sec. 3(d) are the thing to check next: they are classified or hosted on war.gov/spaceforce.mil, both of which refused our requests. If the space security strategy is published, #230, #231, #235 and #236 all move together.

  • Partial and not attempted: the NDAA’s statutory acquisition duty is in force, which is more than a directive awaiting action.
  • The EO 14369 §3(d) deliverables could not be found on any allowlisted site (2026-09-03). Executive Order 14369, Ensuring American Space Superiority, signed 2025-12-18, required a space security strategy and a national security space architecture plan by 2026-06-16. www.spaceforce.mil is readable — the bare spaceforce.mil address does not resolve, which an earlier search had recorded as a refusal — so this negative is now measured rather than assumed. What was read: the service’s policy-document index on spaceforce.mil, which lists the DAF Executive Order Implementation set (Objective Force 2040, Future Operating Environment 2040, the Comprehensive Strategy for the Space Force and others) and no space security strategy and no national security space architecture plan; and the complete USSF newsroom feed, 500 items spanning 2024-07-30 to 2026-09-01, which carries no article announcing either document — the nearest hits are a Vandenberg installation strategic plan (2026-01-23), DAF data and AI strategies (2026-04-22), a Warfighting Acquisition Strategy (2026-02-26) and a command-alignment story (2026-06-09), none of them the ask’s object. How far the negative reaches: USSF’s own publication channels and policy index. It does not reach OSD, the NSC, or any classified annex. Space Warfighting: A Framework for Planners was also sought and not located — it is not announced in the 500-item newsroom sweep, is not on the policy page, and two guessed addresses for it, one on spaceforce.mil (https://www.spaceforce.mil/Portals/2/Space%20Warfighting%20-%20A%20Framework%20for%20Planners_A4.pdf) and one on media.defense.gov, both returned “not found”.
  • The 2026 National Defense Strategy, read in full on the same day, carries nothing here either: “space” appears twice, in threat-listing clauses, and “Space Force”, “counterspace” and “orbit” zero times. The strategy that would ordinarily carry a space declaratory policy does not.
Action
issue
Object
guidance for offensive space capabilities
ID
236