Last week, there was plenty of mocking, especially from the left, over the president’s call for a space force to become the sixth branch of our military.

There’s little chance of reasoning with Never Trumpers or the majority of Democrats who oppose anything that the president endorses, so it wasn’t surprising to hear liberals comparing a space force to something you would find at a “Star Wars” convention.

There is, however, something serious about the plan, especially if you consider it important to protect America’s satellites and cyber capabilities.

This is not a new idea. Eighteen years ago, a Chinese military thinker named Wang Chen published an article: “The US Military’s ‘Soft Ribs,’ a strategic weakness. For countries that can never win a war with the United States by using the method of tanks and planes, he explained that attacking the U.S. space system may be “an irresistible and most tempting choice.”

In “The Art of War,” one of the oldest books on military strategy in history, the ancient Chinese philosopher, scholar and general Sun Tzu advises taking the high ground and letting the enemy attack from below.

Today, that high ground includes satellites. If they get knocked out, everything stops and we’re suddenly in Armageddon.

A short burst of electromagnetic energy or pulse known as an EMP can be generated from natural sources such as lightning or solar storms interacting with the earth’s atmosphere, ionosphere and magnetic field.

In our space age environment, it can also be artificially created using a nuclear weapon or a variety of non-nuclear devices.

P.W. Singer, author of Cybersecurity and Cyberwar, explained that no one would likely hear the first shots in a war between the U.S. and China or Russia if the enemy detonates a bomb high in space.

The Chinese and Russians have had secret space war plans for years. Ten years ago, the Chinese blew up one of their own satellites to prove that they have killer satellite technology. Just last March, Vladimir Putin said that the Russians had a weapon called the hypersonic drive weapon, one which we don’t have.

EMP impacts have their own history. In 1859, an EMP caused telegraph lines to melt in Europe and North America. Another occurred in Canada in 1989, knocking out Quebec’s electric transmission system.

Five years ago, the world barely escaped a massive electromagnetic pulse so big that it could have knocked out power, cars and iPhones throughout the United States. The coronal mass ejection crossed the orbit of the Earth and basically just missed us.

Military experts call the EMP a great equalizer since it would allow a small state such as North Korea to paralyze our technology and power grid. One expert said that detonating a magnetic pulse weapon would be like throwing sand into your enemies eyes; even though you have all the firepower, you are blind.

Michio Kaku, CUNY physics professor, theoretical physicist and author of the best-selling book “The Future of Humanity,” has been warning about the need to harden this country’s electrical grid to protect against electromagnetic storms from our sun. He said such a solar flare like the one that hit the U.S. in 1859 would devastate civilization.

Trump’s call for a space force needs to be taken seriously. Orbiting space stations that provide surveillance and reconnaissance could be our ultimate “eye in the sky.”

“It is not enough to merely have an American presence in space, we must have American dominance in space,” Trump said at a meeting of the National Space Council in June. Showing his business side, he stated it would be “great not only in terms of jobs and everything else, it’s great for the psyche of our country.”

The psyche is a big deal.

Should the power grids go down, a Dark Ages scenario looms … and the outcome would be unimaginable.

By Jim Zbick | tneditor@tnonline.com