Space Farce

So, first of all -- I thought everyone was joking about this. 
Okay. Not. 
No joke.
Secondly -- how did Putin approve of this? How would this serve the Russian Federation's interests?
And again, last paragraph -- right there in the article. 
Here's the exciting thing about the incredibly overpriced and behind-schedule F35 fighter. It can't dogfight. It can't fly faster than Chinese or Russian fighters. It is super-duper over budget.
But what's one thing it CAN do?
Pass undetected through Russian Federation airspace. In and out.
You might recall that one of the first things Trump wanted to do when he came in was to cancel the F-35 program. But then Republicans, whose districts had defense contractors, revolted. So the program didn't get cancelled.
Now, the US has known since the 80's and the "Billion Dollar Spy" (a Soviet national who was executed by the KGB for giving secrets to the US government) quite a bit about Soviet air defense capabilities. For a variety of reasons, including geography and the fact they don't have an economy because of the Magnitsky Act, Russia's modern defense system still ain't all that. And the US knows plenty about it, and how to build airplanes that can avoid it.
Putin knows this. Trump knows this. 

So why Space Force? Well you see, it will help take apart the US military's ability to keep the Russian Federation from any (more) funny business in countries which punched out of the Soviet Union just as soon as they could. So how do you weaken the military under a smokescreen of not weakening it?
Space Force.
Space Force will necessarily require cannibalizing the other branches of the armed forces. And it'll start with the Air Force, which will likely be getting the most F35's (and will certainly have the F35's the Russian Federation is most worried about.) The more chaos is sown in the Air Force, the less able it will be to do anything if (say) Russia decides that it's time to force the issue on Ukraine.
So sure, this has little to do with what Putin can do to US sovereignty. This issue here is the Baltic states and Ukraine. Although Trump has done his darndest to dismantle NATO at the behest of Putin, he hasn't been able to damage it as directly as he'd hoped (and as Putin had hoped). "Space Force" is the next best thing -- take apart military capabilities that might affect Putin's aspirations to grow the Russian economy by expanding back into the Baltics and Ukraine.