Buckley Space Force Base will play a crucial role in the nation’s defense far into the future if the lawmakers who represent the Aurora base in Washington have anything to say about it.

U.S. Sens. Michael Bennet and John Hickenlooper, both Colorado Democrats, on Friday joined U.S. Rep. Jason Crow, the Aurora Democrat who represents the communities surrounding the base, for a meeting of the Future of Buckley Task Force, a group assembled by Crow that includes military officers, local officials and community leaders.

“There’s a lot of consolidated assets here,” Hickenlooper told reporters outside the base’s old visitors center, gesturing at a cluster of the giant golf-ball shaped radomes that house telemetry and communications equipment.

“We’ve got intelligence capabilities here, we’ve got all kinds of cyber defenses based here. It’s become a very important place to protect. And as the world becomes a smaller place, this is the best place to protect (from) an attack on the homeland from the north. Russia has already demonstrated that they can come over the pole. China is certainly capable of that, and we have to be ready, and if we close down the wing here, we lose a certain amount of readiness.”

The lawmakers have been lobbying the Pentagon to upgrade the Air National Guard’s aging 140th Wing, which boasts some of the oldest F-16s in the Air Force.

“We protect the entire Western United States out of this base, and there are F-16s ready to go on the tarmac that could launch within minutes to do that,” Crow said. “The National Defense Strategy of the United States states very clearly that the No. 1 priority of the NDS is protection of the homeland, and that mission is performed by the Air National Guard.”

Noting that Buckley is tasked with also protecting two major Air Force commands – U.S. Northern Command, including NORAD, and Space Command, both headquartered in Colorado Springs – Crow added: “So what that means is if the Air Force is to divest or not replace the aircraft here, they would have to rotate in airframes and aircraft from other states, which costs a lot more than actually maintaining what’s already here. So it doesn’t even make sense financially.”

Bennet said the Pentagon’s culture can make it difficult to make the case.

“What happens sometimes when you’re dealing with an enterprise is big as the Department of Defense may come as a surprise, but decisions are made in 10-minute increments rather than looking down the road about what this is going to look like. 25 years from now and 30 years from now,” he said. “The threat that Russia poses, the threat that China is going to pose for the next 30 years means that we have to have the strongest, most integrated fighting force we can have, and the Air National Guard’s got to be a big part of that.”

Added Bennet: “We need to make the case about why this location at this altitude, this close to these mountains where these guys can fly missions that nobody can fly anywhere else, really, in the entire country – why this needs to remain a keystone in terms of the national footprint for the Air National Guard and why Buckley itself should be a priority.”

Among the topics the task force discussed, Crow said, are military recruitment challenges and plans by Xcel Energy and the City of Aurora to help meet the base’s enormous and growing energy needs by building additional infrastructure. The task force is expected to meet monthly, Crow’s office said.

The lawmakers said that Colorado’s success keeping Space Command in the state can serve as a model – on a smaller scale – for efforts to ensure Buckley’s long-term viability.

“Buckley (Space) Force Base fell short in terms of its application for Space Command,” Bennet said, “and yet, the citizens of Aurora rode into the breach when we were having that fight. And people understood, and this was something that all of Colorado agreed with, that we wanted to make sure that the administration in Washington understood, which was that this is an amazing place to host some of the most important missions that this nation has for our national defense, and when it comes to Buckley Space Force Base for intelligence as well – vitally, vitally important. And to have voices from Aurora in that discussion, in that conversation, that advocacy, I think, made a huge difference.”

He said that the Buckley task force faces a similar mission.

“We’re not facing anything like we were facing with Space Command when it comes to Buckley, thank goodness,” Bennet said, “but it’s important for us to be ahead of all of this, to be thinking about this, to make sure that people back in Washington and (the Department of Defense) understand the vital nature of the missions that are carried out here, and also the way in which Colorado supports those missions and supports our men and women in uniform, as well as the many civilians throughout the state.”

Hickenlooper made a plea for treating Buckley as a unifying factor, the same as the bipartisan effort to keep Space Command in the state brought typically adversarial parties together.

“It really did unify the whole state,” he said. “One of the challenges we face in this country right now is we’re so divided. And places like Buckley have a real potential to bring us back together and show us it’s not Republicans vs Democrats – we’re Americans. We’re facing serious aggression from countries like Russia. China’s clearly becoming more aggressive every year. We need to be prepared, and we can’t do that when we’re fighting and squabbling with each other.”