Episode 44: Air Force Engages Industry for New Air Mobility Solutions

The Elara Edge

Host: Scott King (SK) 

SME: Gen (Ret) Jackie Van Ovost, Senior Principal Advisor at Elara Nova (JVO) 

Lt Gen (Ret) Rick Moore, Executive Partner at Elara Nova (RM)  

Lt Gen (Ret) Ty Thomas, Executive Partner at Elara Nova (TT) 

00:02 – 01:27 

For over 75 years, the United States Air Force has been able to deploy and sustain forces at a time and place of its choosing, but a series of converging challenges have undermined that ability. Key mobility platforms like the C-5 and C-17 are aging, parts are harder to come by and the long legs required to cover the Pacific theater consume flight hours faster, shortening the time between maintenance cycles. Meanwhile, integrating new capabilities to outpace an accelerating threat demands additional downtime the fleet can ill afford. 

In response, the Air Force has initiated two efforts set against ambitious timelines. In June, the Air Force published a Request for Information to acquire a Next-Generation Airlift (or NGAL) platform to replace both the C-5 and C-17. At the same time, the Air Force is putting funds toward a new research and development program, Large Aircraft Survivability Systems (or LASS) to equip airlifters and aerial refuelers with their own defensive weapon systems. 

Welcome to The Elara Edge! We have three guests today, here to discuss these efforts to revitalize and modernize the Air Force’s mobility fleet. First, we have retired General Jackie Van Ovost, a Senior Principal Advisor at Elara Nova and the former Commander of Air Force Mobility Command and U.S. Transportation Command. 

Ma’am, welcome to the show!

01:27 – 01:29  

(JVO): Thanks. Great to be here. 

01:29 – 01:41 

(SK): Also joining us is retired Lieutenant General Rick Moore. Now an Executive Partner at Elara Nova, General Moore retired as the Deputy Chief of Staff for Plans and Programs at U.S. Air Force Headquarters.  

Sir, welcome to the show! 

01:42 – 01:43 

(RM): Thanks, Scott. Appreciate the invite.  

01:44 – 01:59 

(SK): And then we have retired Lieutenant General Jon “Ty” Thomas. General Thomas is also an Executive Partner at Elara Nova, and previously served as the Deputy Commander of Air Mobility Command and Pacific Air Forces.  

Sir, thanks for taking the time to join us today! 

02:00 – 02:01 

(TT): Happy to be here, Scott.  

02:02 – 02:22 

(SK): Let’s start today’s discussion with the Air Force’s RFI for a Next Generation Airlift platform, or NGAL. The primary mobility platforms the Air Force uses for its airlift mission is currently the C-5 and C-17.  

But what is the current status of those airlifters? And how has the threat landscape evolved to prompt the Air Force to put forward this RFI?

02:23 – 03:37 

(RM): Yeah. So the C-5M fleet is a little bit challenged these days. The mission capable rate is in the high 30s. Right now, it’s about 37%. Without giving a specific number, the plans call for something dramatically higher than that, which means that the amount of C-5 capability and capacity that TRANSCOM counts on – it’s not there. 

The C-17 fleet is faring a pretty good bit better. The C-17 MC rate is in the mid 70s. Right now it’s about 75%. That’s down about 7% from pre-COVID. And the C-17 MC rate seems to kind of be drifting down by about 1% a year. As the fleet ages, more parts get obsolete, it becomes more difficult to keep the supply chain intact as just technology leaves the C-17 behind. 

So the plan from Air Mobility Command that you see in the Request for Information is for a single airplane to replace both of those. The C-5 replacements will start in about 2050, and the C-17 replacements should finish by about 2075. The plan is to have Next Gen Airlifter ready to fly by 2038, and initial operational capability by 2041. 

That is quite far away if you consider that the C-5 now are languishing in the high 30s for mission capable rate. 

03:38 – 04:57 

(JVO): When we think about our ability to maneuver anywhere in the world and sustain operations for the joint force, the first thing you think about is air mobility. 

Now, we have a lot of great other modal capabilities with sea and land. But I tell you, when I think about our most consequential theater in the Pacific, it is an air and sea fight. And we do not have the capabilities for airfields and road networks and even sea networks, if you will, and river networks that we had even in Europe. 

So we cannot execute our national strategy without this capability. So it is critical that we spend the time to analyze what is the real requirement of the transformed force for maneuver and sustainment, and how are we going to supply that?

There are some great movement trying to get some funding for parts and sustainment to resurrect these airplanes and get them higher. But the bottom line is: this is the consequence of an aging fleet, the consequence of not recapping early and the consequence of old technology. 

We’ll have an opportunity to talk about software and software defined and agile updates. But when we look at the declining MC rates, it is way too far out there. We just do not have a coherent strategy to get us, even if we can meet these accelerated timelines for the Next Generation Airlift.  

04:58 – 05:35 

(RM): Yeah and Scott you asked about how the threat landscape has evolved and how that impacts the air mobility fleet. We’ve been at war in the desert for 35 years now. We have not yet had to contend with contested lines of logistics. We’ve been able to move everything to and through Europe and on to the Middle East without our supply lines being contested. 

That will almost assuredly not be the case in the event we find ourselves in conflict in the Pacific. The air mobility fleet that we have today is designed to protect itself from some threats, but its ability to to handle itself with truly contested supply supply lines – it’s just not there. 

05:36 – 05:53 

(TT): Scott, the one thought that I would add that comes to mind is so we remember our 21st chief of staff who used to talk about mobility as like oxygen. When you’re breathing, it’s there and you never even think about it until you don’t have it and then that’s all you think about. That’s what mobility is for and what it does.  

05:54 – 06:01 

(SK): And so how will the NGAL, as a single platform, be a solution for replacing both the C-5 and C-17? 

06:02 – 07:00 

(RM): I think you’re going to find that a single platform to replace the C-17 and the C-5 is likely to look a lot more like a C-17 than a C-5. And if you consider the distances that we have to operate over in the Pacific, the RFI called for just a marginal increase in range over the C-17. Then I think when you start looking at numbers: 274 airplanes is about what the RFI envisions to replace an equal-sized fleet, 222 C-17s and 52 C-5s. 

I think you’re going to be challenged with an airplane with a similar cargo box to the C-17. Marginally more range to equal what we have in the two fleets today. The one thing that is the equalizer is the mission capable rate of the C-5. If you can have an airplane with a high mission capable rate, you can probably be okay there. 

But the Pacific is a remarkably challenging environment to operate in. There are a few alternates. The legs are really, really long and the requirement for lift is really high.

07:01 – 08:19 

(JVO): Can I add that US TRANSCOM does something called a Mobility Capability Requirement Study (MCRS), and that is being refreshed right now. And some of these requirements from the RFI look a lot like MCRS-16 in 2016. 

You’re at 160,000 pounds, which is roughly when you think about maxing out a pallet at 10,000 pounds. You know, it’s 16 pounds pallets. C-17 has 18 and that 2500 nautical mile unrefueled range. And as we refresh the MCRS, we have to have a better understanding of what the joint force is going to be using. The entire joint force is transforming to do distributed operations. 

So the 160,000 and the double-wide sounds like heavy armor. And we just need to make sure that as we’re moving munitions, moving drones and other things, that we’re actually creating a box and a capability that’s going to move that most effectively and provide options to the Combatant Commander. So I am looking forward to the MCRS as it develops out – and that’s a classified study. 

But there should be some work done with industry to understand what the capabilities are and what the services to see what they’re developing and their concepts of operations out into the future.  

08:20 – 08:37 

(SK): Thank you, Ma’am. Now at the time of the RFI’s release, Air Force leaders indicated an opennes to having NGAL as a crewed or uncrewed platform. Or in other words, fully autonomous.  

What are some of the advantages and disadvantages of using autonomous technologies for the airlift mission? 

08:38 – 09:39 

(JVO): From the COCOM perspective, I would say that autonomous capabilities are part of the mobility enterprise and must be.  

It gives us an option in the fight to make a decision, like if this is optionally crewed to to not use a crew going forward for a particular hazard that’s out there. That said, these are not attritable airplanes, so we still have to have some defensive capability and the C2 architecture to support even autonomous airplanes like NGAL at that level is totally separate when you’re talking about something that’s moving 1,000 pounds. 

But when you’re looking at NGAL, it’s really not meant to be attritable. So it does provide options. And we want to be able to get an airplane into a higher threat region without and do the mission when it makes sense from an autonomous standpoint. 

Certainly, of course additional reps and sets. You could fly the airplane longer. You don’t have the crew. Not only are you not concerned about crew safety, but I’m not concerned about running them dry or running on a crew duty day. So you have more use out of it, but you want to use it in that capability when it makes the most sense. 

09:40 – 10:26 

(TT): Yeah, it doesn’t surprise me that they’re calling for that in the RFI. I mean, to some extent, though, especially the term optional, it almost puts you in the worst of all worlds in the sense that you’ve got to make design provisions for a full up crew, and that costs you weight, that costs you payload, that costs you fuel, costs you all kinds of things in the design of the aircraft while also needing to provision for the aircraft to operate autonomously with the digital backbone and all of the things that we have now with modern aircraft, it you should be able to insert that in.  

But to be able to have both is going to increase the cost of the aircraft. And we should, carefully examine: do we need to have all that optionality? Industry will come back and say this is how you can do it. Ultimately it’s going to become a design requirement or not, and then that’ll drive trade-offs that occur.

10:27 – 11:06 

(RM): We typically think of grey tails as cargo aircraft. But if you get into competition and then into conflict, gray tails, maybe the only way that you have to get troops all the way forward in the battle and an autonomous cargo aircraft there probably is a pretty fair amount of appetite for that. 

When you start putting people on it and you start talking about moving passengers, even combat troops in an autonomous aircraft, I’m not sure we’re quite there yet that we’re willing to put a couple hundred folks on an airplane and send them off into the night without some folks in the cockpit that can recover if something goes wrong.  

If nothing goes wrong, everything’s fine. But as soon as something does, then you have the potential for a very serious problem.  

11:07 – 11:19 

(SK): And General Thomas, given the cost challenges you mentioned, can you walk us through how an innovative concept like NGAL could be realistically funded and sustained – particularly in a congressional environment where continuing resolutions have become the norm? 

11:20 – 13:42 

(TT): Well, maybe I’ll build it up this way and just kind of get to a number. And I’ll start with Rick did a great job of laying out what’s in the recapitalization memo. Kind of the dates, key milestones at 2038, 2041, 2075. So if you look at that and if you just kind of set aside the front end developmental costs, which are consequential and big, but we can come back to that. 

Starting with FY26 dollars, it’s probably an all up cost of an NGAL. I would argue about $350 million. That’s not just the airframe itself. That’s all the spares. That’s ground support equipment, that’s training systems. All the things to actually like this is a machine that’s a fielded capability, that’s got all the things that are necessary to last for the decades that we’re going to expect to do it. 

Okay. So maybe you get a couple aircraft out of the developmental program and then your first squadron, let’s say Jackie’s successor says IOC is going to be one squadron of 12 airplanes. Okay. So you get to that at 2041. And then basically you’re making those airplanes all the way through about 2068 or so. And it’s about ten airplanes a year.  

So it’s $3.5 billion FY26 a year. This is a $100 billion aircraft production program just in and of itself. If you push the developmental cost there in front of it, I venture it’s probably a $20 billion developmental program. If this is a full clean sheet design, not based on any commercial derivative or a modification of existing military assets. 

And then you go back to what is life like in building a program and then defending it with OSD and then getting it over through the gates and the Hill to end up in an appropriation. This is going to scream having a multi-year. That would be the only way that you can have assurance that a program of this length, when it’s recapping at only ten airplanes a year is going to have the continuity that it requires. 

And actually, if I’m in industry, ten airplanes a year is a really low rate. 12 airplanes minimum? Companies that are building tankers right now would like to go from the existing 15 to 18 or 24 because they know the efficiencies on the line that come from the higher production rates. 

So to me, that’s just kind of the basic math. And there’s going to have to be a long  commitment that locks in funds in the Air Force generally doesn’t like to do that if they don’t have to, because you want to maintain that budget flexibility because the programmer always has to create offsets.  

13:43 – 15:12 

(RM): I agree absolutely with Ty’s assessment. An optionally manned aircraft – that’s a marginal cost that you’re talking about. It’s not a question about whether that can fit in the budget. The highest risk for the NGAL program overall is the time when C-5 and C-17s are still flying and NGAL is in development. $20 billion is about what we spent on C-17 development in the late 80s. 

And so development costs could actually be fairly substantially higher than that. Trying to fit all of that in the budget, that’s the highest risk to the program. If you wanted to de-risk the program, you would look outside the Air Force to see what kind of capacity absorbers are out there, so that you could start to bring the C-5 fleet down before NGAL starts to deliver, or certainly not a one-for-one tail replacement. 

If the requirement is that NGAL and C-5 and then C-17 have to shake hands with each other one-for-one replacement, I think there’s great risk that that won’t even fit in the budget. You’ve got to find a way to bring down that spike of non-recurring engineering, NRE and C-17 ops and C-5 ops. 

And if you’re going to start to bring the C-5 fleet down, we spend about a billion and a quarter dollars a year on C-5s. The real money is in the depot. It’s not in the airplanes. So what you have to do is figure out how you can let the fleet degrade gracefully without a depot, and let that be a shock absorber for the NRE for NGAL. 

Then you have to use outside capacity to fill in the gap. Otherwise, I’m not convinced that NGAL actually fits in the Air Force budget.

15:13 – 16:59 

(JVO): Absolutely, spot on for both of them. That bridge strategy is critical. There is no funding to bring the C-5 back up to where it needs to be. That really should be critically looked at. And what commercial capability is out there? What are we actually using the airplanes for?  

As we remember during Afghanistan, we really focused on the C-17 in theater, and we use the C-5 around the globe to clean up issues. It performed well, but it still didn’t perform at the level that we had expected after we did that major modification to the airplanes, we made the revised C-5M. 

Let me also go back to what Ty talked about with the respect to the acquisition strategy. Yeah, I would say more than 20 billion because of what we’re trying to do here and it is a clean sheet so far. There are some other thoughts about C-17s but pretty much just a clean sheet if you’re going to walk away from a tube and wing. But how we do it right? We all think, oh, it’s the magic button. Is it OTAs or using new acquisition strategies? 

You know, maybe there’s a tweener out there where we can accelerate the development through another strategy. But that would take a handshake with industry certainly, and partnerships and consortiums to probably do that. And then, yes, we expect that when you have a hot production line that you can get efficiencies by accelerating it. 

We see at a smaller level here with munitions and whatnot that we just some of the capacity issues, the materials issues, the second and third tier supplier issues, may be what really stops us from putting out something more than ten a year. And that’s what we absolutely have to do that.  

And I agree a multi-year strategy. And you’re seeing it more with this administration really understanding we have to have a commitment to industry so that they will invest in what it takes, automation, the materials to produce faster so that we can get a better copy – one – and two – reduced risk on the bridge strategy.

17:00 – 17:12 

(SK): Say the Air Force is able to overcome these budgetary challenges and deliver NGAL on these ambitious timelines with all the funding required: what would that NGAL capability look like in a theoretical future fight in the Pacific?  

17:13 – 19:24 

(JVO): The Pacific theater is the most operationally restrictive theater that we deal with. Whereas Europe is land and air, the Pacific is air and sea, and we just do not have the nodes, the multi-modal routes that we’ve defined over the years and years of dealing with NATO and then the logistics depth in Europe, and frankly, even in the Middle East right now, than what we what we have right now in the Pacific. 

So I would say that as we’ve been talking about it as a huge theater. The challenge is not just distance. It is the logistics depth across that theater that really can bite us. And when I think about the 2500 unrefueled distance, certainly you can get from northern Australia to most of the first and second island chain, certainly from Japan down to the first and second chain. 

We start talking about Alaska and Hawaii and the Konas. It’s going to require augmentation by tankers or some sort of a cross-load strategy with our commercial partners. And certainly we’re going to be depending on our allies and partners. They have some of the depth for what they need, but not for a major theater fight and that’s what we really have to be looking hard at. 

So it’s not just an NGAL, it is the mobility enterprise system, which is air, land and sea. And we’re going to have to depend more on intra-theater sealift. So we’d have to resurrect some of the capabilities we have or use as a service with our commercial partners or joint ventures out into the Pacific.   

I’m hoping that the MCRS that TRANSCOM is working on is going to help develop some of those concepts and put pressure on the services to deliver all of those capabilities so that the entire enterprise, which also has to be C2 fuzed in sensors and see the entire picture, that’s air land and sea mobilization capability, that they’re all together so that we can have options to move across different modes to meet the requirements.  

And we’re going to use NGAL for what NGAL can exclusively do, which is that high threat area. And then we’re going to use all the rest of the capabilities so that we can keep NGAL focused on what it does best. 

19:25 – 19:47 

(RM): It’s interesting that the range at 2500 nautical miles, it’s only 100 miles more than the C-17. The question is, does the NGAL design under this RFI drive a tanker requirement that we would like to engineer ourselves out of?  

There could be an opportunity here to reduce the requirement for tankers based on the design of NGAL, but I don’t see that that’s what the RFI intends. 

19:48 – 22:31 

(TT): And I would submit that this is no longer unique to the Pacific, although we’ve traditionally focused on the Pacific and this is in a combat environment: it’s getting off the X. But getting off the X in the CENTCOM AOR is important right now. And getting off the X in Europe is going to be really important if we ever get down to it over there. So there’s part of it in the RFI that gets to an element of getting off the X, which is the ability to upload and download cargo and passengers without any support equipment. So that’s going to have to be a fundamental requirement. So good on the RFI for capturing that. 

There’s a couple of things as I went back through it that puzzled me a little bit. The first one is there’s actually no question that asks about receiver AR capability on the NGAL. Maybe that was intentional. I’m not sure. But I would think that particularly for the Pacific, NGAL is going to need to be able to receive fuel from a tanker. 

There are other mission sets, by the way, where we’ve had to move people across the world or things across the world, and there was no stop between where it started and somewhere in the United States of America. And NGAL is going to need to be able to do that. So I think receiver refueling is maybe a critical miss in the RFI. 

The second one is the RFI talks about defensive systems, but that’s actually one of the most troubling things because it immediately goes to, ‘What are the things that are on the airplane that could handle some kind of engagement, whether it’s a terminal airfield or maybe something in the air?’ But the question I would submit that we need to be asking is: what is the signature management approach of the system? Of the aircraft as a platform and how it interfaces with the system as we have it?  

 There’s lots of ways to manage signature. We have historically struggled with focusing first on the platform and its RF signature in response to an active RF sensor that is merely just one part of it. So maybe we’ll get to that. Maybe that’ll become part of the industry discussions. But because if the opponent never finds you or struggles to find you, they’re not going to necessarily be able to target you. And if we can do that and pull it to the left, we’re going to be winning.  

The last one is a little bit more mundane, and it’s not necessarily related to getting off the X, but I think it’s particularly important going back to the long term: how do you have this system in our Air Force? 

And there was no question about aircrew and maintenance training systems, which will be a critical part. And the OEM has to bring that – it can be followed up and maybe provided to the services itself by somebody else. But putting thought right at the front-end to the air crew and maintenance training systems is going to be an important part of NGAL. 

But going back to the Pacific, we got to get off the X, we got to get off the X everywhere in a time of conflict. And there’s a few things that are worth talking about that aren’t in there.  

22:32 – 23:13 

(SK): During this same period of time, the Air Force has requested and put funding toward a new research and development program, Large Aircraft Survivability Systems, which would explore defensive weapon systems for air-refuelers and airlifters.  

Meanwhile, the House Armed Services Committee has also formally adopted language in the FY 2027 National Defense Authorization Act, requiring the Air Force to report on its plan to field LASS by 2031, explicitly stating Operation Midnight Hammer as proof that air-refuelers require some sort of defense mechanism. 

General Moore, if you wouldn’t mind starting us off with this one, why is the Air Force taking a revitalized approach to “survivability” for these larger aircraft? 

3:14 – 24:06 

(RM): I think it’s particularly important as you start looking at logistics over contested supply lines, you have to make sure that your airlift fleet is survivable. As Jackie said in the first part, these are not going to be attritable aircraft. Every single one of them that’s lost, is the loss of a national treasure. 

And certainly LASS is one way to think about large aircraft survivability. I would also add that one of the things that Air Mobility Command is looking really hard at is the survivability feature is connectivity. One of the things that you can do with a large aircraft is at least let them know where the threat is and what they need to do in order to avoid it and that’s kind of the first step.  

LASS then comes in or large aircraft infrared countermeasures. LARICM on the fleets that we have now, those come in in the event that that doesn’t work. But I think the first step is actually connectivity, so that you don’t get yourself in a situation where you have to use LARICM or LASS.

24:07 – 25:53 

(JVO): Scott, as Midnight Hammer and Epic Fury have shown that tankers and the airlift, tactical and strategic, are all vulnerable to air-to-air and air-to-ground. Obviously, we’ve seen some reports of battle damage out there, so we absolutely have to plan for, as the name Large Aircraft Survivability Systems portends, we actually need systems that are interoperable for defensive, and we need it not to be a single point system. 

It’s got to be much like: this is a kill web with sensors from space and airplanes and effectors that can come from different locations. We have to have a defensive web in layers around both types of airplanes. As Rick mentioned earlier, there is some defensive capability on C-17s, but that’s not the type of weapon that is really the reigning weapon right now. 

So we have to think about kinetic and non-kinetic and layered. And that’s what LASS looks at on the layered side. Ideally, you have CCAs that are out in front or drones that are out in front that are providing a layer for not just a tanker or an airlift, but for all aircraft followed by sensors on board that can see everything that to alert the crew to scram if they have to, or to maneuver to reduce the threat or reduce the signature, followed by electronic warfare capability, followed by a last chance kinetic effector. 

And does that have to come from that airplane? It all depends. But it’s a layered effect to get after the web because these are not single shot issues anymore. This is a complex web multi-domain, and we have to defeat that multi-domain threat both for airlift and tankers. 

25:54 – 27:13 

(TT): Scott the the only thing that I would add as well and it goes back to like thinking of this as a holistic system. And Jackie just laid out a really coherent: what’s it going to take particularly oriented on the high value airborne asset? Because it’s exactly right. It’s just as important for the rivet joints and if it ends up being an E-7 or whatever it is, the various other platforms, but it’s also the rest of the assets in the joint fight. 

So it really got my attention as a mobility airman, actually, when we just became public that there’s a few air-to-air weapons with a stick of 250 nautical miles plus now in our inventory. Red has to respect that. So when red is forced to respect that, just like they’re trying to push us back, that’s pushing them back as well. 

That’s winning for us in large aircraft survivability. You got to have the sensing, you got to be able to close your own kill chain on the red assets. But all of that works together. There’s no sole mobility solution. There’s no sole combat Air Force solution that fits into this. It’s all of it together that counters the red threat, enhances our survivability, lets us do the mission. 

And as long as there’s an Air Force and as a joint force, we’re thinking it through that way, we’ll find the right solution. So LASS is a piece of something that’s really much larger and has to be pulled together all the way through it. 

27:14 – 27:32 

(SK): The Air Force has requested to fund the LASS program to the tune of $508 million, and so far four different industry partners have been contracted to take part in the study. 

But what is the role of industry studies like this, particularly as the Air Force looks to develop novel and innovative capabilities necessary for the future fight?

27:33 – 28:16 

(RM): So we saw with Collaborative Combat Aircraft that the Air Force took a different approach than we’ve taken before. Rather than define a requirement and pass it to industry and ask them to build to the requirement. We asked industry what would be possible if we gave them the opportunity to build CCAs and let them come back with what their thoughts were. 

These industry studies are part of the way we’re letting that happen right now, rather than developing a requirement, which, by the way, invariably leads to technology that’s been available for quite some time. I suppose that’s not always the case, but that tends to be what happens. If we ask industry a question and give them a chance to do some studies and come back with an answer that wasn’t already predefined, the chances that we get something truly innovative are actually pretty high.

28:17 – 29:27 

(JVO): Yeah, I would say that how we used to treat studies and now how we treat studies are really different? A decade and a half ago, we were looking at kinetic effects for defense on large aircraft. But study after study that we didn’t get very far. We didn’t drop a requirement down. We didn’t fund it.  

There was some thought on test for a small weapon, but we never got there. And now, clearly the operations are showing that we have to have it and we need it soon. So when Congress said, ‘Hey, show me a plan, they must have been thinking, ‘You know, I haven’t seen a plan.’ 

Or maybe the briefs that they got that were unsatisfying. And that’s going to add a little pressure to ‘What’s the plan?’ But we have to have resources for the plan. And the amount of resources does not seem like it’s going to be enough for the fleet. And that’s just, I mean, LASS starts with tankers, but it is like you mentioned, this is about all heavy airplanes we need that effect for C-17 as part of the bridge strategy to 2075. You know, in 2040, the multi-domain threat, the kill webs that are out there are very complex and we have got to have a capability by then that addresses the complexity of that web.

29:28 – 30:16 

(TT): Yeah. Scott on that my comment would be 500 million is a drop in the bucket. If you’re talking about fielding some type of endgame effector on the mobility platform, if that’s the number that you end up with, I’d much rather see industry be asked for options to. Rick touched on it and they’re moving out on it with [sic]. But increased connectivity to the platform, increase the situational awareness of the crew as well as the C2 system that’s supporting it, and then manage the signature in ways which are mostly passive. 

You can do that less expensive than hanging things on the airplane that have to go out and go boom. If we approach it maybe in that order, which is increase situational awareness, understanding connectivity and then reduce signatures through passive means, we can make a lot of progress within a smaller budget. 

30:17 – 30:32 

(SK): And to continue on the thread of budget constraints – what opportunities  exist for the Air Force and its industry partners to incorporate or leverage private capital to either facilitate additional funding or offset some of these costs in order to deliver these capabilities into our Airmen’s hands? 

30:33 – 31:38 

(RM): I think probably the most powerful way that that’s happening right now at large scale is the Office of Strategic Capital. And they have the authority to put out something like $250 billion of guaranteed loans. That is, in my opinion, the most profound impact on the requirement for research and development to be funded by the government. 

It still takes time. You can’t rush the engineering and you can’t necessarily buy your way out of it. But what you’re seeing is the current administration. They understand private capital. They understand how to leverage it. It’s important to them. The Dep SecWar has said he would like to see something between one third and two thirds of the development costs of new things that are coming to the department funded by industry. 

When you get into some niche capabilities that aren’t used universally and there’s no commercial application for them, like LASS, you have a little bit more difficulty. But if you’re looking at something like simply airlift capacity, then you can see that there’s applicability outside the DOW you have dual-use capability. And then I think that’s a place where the Office of Strategic Capital can come in and make a really big difference.

31:39 – 32:57 

(JVO): Absolutely. What Rick was saying that the dual use potential for components for airlift and tankers that we can use for efficiency and effectiveness. And for C2, as airlines, they see to their forces. Well, they see in transit visibility of the stuff that’s moving around that they’re moving around. And they’ve been very effective with that.  

And frankly, all the way out to doing autonomous operations and dropping packages, we could learn and use a lot of that to leverage as much of that as possible into the system and leave as minimal as possible for the military requirement. But there’s no doubt the military requirement is not an easy one to address. 

Although when you think about what is different between a C-17 and an F-35 on some of the systems that it uses to understand itself, to sense and whatnot. So there are some components there that we could use from across, not just us, by the way, but our allies and partners who are willing to go there. And then on the allies and partners side, obviously, if we have capability that we need to be interoperable with them.

And that’s just not the airplanes themselves in the C2 piece, but the offload and unload, the minimum MHE or minimum handling equipment, minimum people doing servicing on the ground, but also flat out selling those and being able to scale that way and reduce the unit cost for the aircraft that we’re going to be buying. 

32:58 – 33:37 

(TT): Two words that I think is what attracts private capital. Intellectual property rights. Okay. So if you’re going to make an investment you’ve got to own the rights. The government may have its own unlimited rights, but you’ve got to have the rights to be able to use it as you see fit. And it’s an assumption like Rick made on his first comment that there’s a market out there for you to use that intellectual property, right?

And then the other one is run rate. Okay. So what’s the demand? So out there is a government man that’s going to manifest as a commercial demand that’s going to manifest? But if you’re going to bring capital to bear, you’ve got to know that there is good confidence, not 100%, that you’re going to get a return and a decent return. And if you don’t see it, you’re not going to bring it. Those two. 

33:38 – 34:59 

(RM): We mentioned continuing resolution before, but we didn’t spend too much time on it. But continuing resolution is probably the biggest threat to defense modernization that’s out there. On average, we spend four months out of every year in continuing resolution. Essentially, we’re giving the Chinese four months of head start every single year because we’re waiting for an appropriation to come to the Department of War. It’s truly challenging.  

 First of all, in a time when defense budgets are going up, typically continuing resolution is based on last year’s budget, and usually it’s something like 80% of last year’s budget. But if the budget was accelerating, then you don’t feel any of that acceleration until the continuing resolution is replaced by an appropriation. And continuing resolutions almost always include a provision that there can be no new starts. That means you can’t start a new program, and it also means you can’t transition from research and development into procurement for most programs that are out there, which means you just have to wait until it’s over. 

And this is why I say we’re giving away four months of modernization space every single year. Continuing resolutions also include multiple provisions for things that would be automatic in a normal appropriation cycle that have to be individually approved under the continuing resolution. And it’s just become completely commonplace. But it is a dramatic damper on the ability to move quickly with respect to defense modernization. 

35:00 – 35:10 

(SK): And what are some of the challenges that industry leaders might be facing that the U.S. government might not be aware of? And in what ways should the government be engaging those industry partners to get in front of those seen or unseen hurdles? 

35:11 – 36:03 

(RM): I think with NGAL, a particular hurdle for industry is going to be the timeline that we think this is going to happen on. I think having a first flight by 2038, the RFI is on the street in FY26, but there’s not even money for analysis of alternatives in 26. There is $8.9 million in 27 if it makes it through the appropriations process. After a continuing resolution, because it’s new money.  

But I mean, just if you look at what it takes to actually get things like this moving, I don’t see that there’s going to be a first flight by 2038. I don’t see that industry can cross that rubicon. If we were doing a commercial derivative, that would still be challenging to meet. I don’t see with a fresh design, a clean sheet design that there’s any way that’s going to happen.  

With LASS, it’s great that the House asked for a plan to put this in place by 2031. I just don’t see that. I don’t see that being feasible. I don’t see that it can happen that quickly. I don’t think industry can get over that hurdle. 

36:03 – 37:33 

(TT): There’s either some assumption on the part of the writers of the RFI and the recapitalization memo that we don’t know, or there’s a little pixie dust laid in there, and it’s probably the latter. What I would add on this one is particular to NGAL.  

If you go on the website the Sam.gov and there’s industry questions and one of the industry questions was about airworthiness and certification and what I would offer to industry and to the Air Force as well is that: unless you must, like there’s no alternative unless to get civil certification. Don’t. Don’t attempt it. The reason why is not because anybody on either side is necessarily so much better than one or the other. The incentives are different.  

So for the FAA, for our civil regulatory authority, their incentives are for safety. So is ours on the military. But on the military, there are also other incentives, other mission imperatives that that airworthiness authority has to take into account. And so what you end up getting is it just is simply a different approach. 

Neither one is right nor wrong. But if you are building a machine to go to the places and do the things that we’ve talked about in this call – that calls for military airworthiness. Unless you’re starting with a civil already type certified design. And I can just tell you a little bit about this, because right now I’m in a world where we’re flying a military designed aircraft with no type certification and attempting to have a civil airworthiness certificate. 

This is not easy, so I would suggest not attempting to do it from the very beginning unless you have to. 

37:34 – 38:51 

(JVO): Well taken, right? I’ve been in that world as well, that if you do propose something that for the military and you can get data off of that for future FAA certification for civilian cargo or passenger movement or using the airplanes for something else, then there may be a lot of data, but that has to be mapped out early. 

And so I’m hoping that digital twinning will show the difference against the FAA certification requirements versus what we’re trying to do in the mil-standard to support safe military operations.  

I’d also add that requirements change. I have yet to see a large airplane that didn’t have some requirements change. Even in the B-21. There may be some requirements changes there. And it’s been very successful, don’t get me wrong, but we don’t yet have an updated what the joint force needs given the environment, how we’re going to fight, which is really radically different than what we did even 15 years ago. 

So I would look to see and partner with TRANSCOM on the MCRS and the services to try to get a better understanding of how we’re doing it. We’ve published things on distributed operations, but what’s the final thing that we’re trying to do? And work with us on that and focus those industry studies on the areas that are the deltas that they’re out there.

38:52 – 39:04 

(SK): Now, we’ve discussed two separate, but tangential efforts today in NGAL and LASS, both of which have pretty ambitious timelines set against them.  

What do you see as the common thread that ties these two efforts together? 

39:05 – 40:11 

(JVO): So let me just start at the strategic level. These are not platform programs per se. I talked about the enterprise. They are real statement and an urgency associated with this because we want to maintain the ability to deploy and sustain forces around the globe at a time and place of our choosing. 

We have been doing that for 75 years and we’ve not had an issue. We now have an issue. The environment has changed. And this is not a future problem. This is a today problem. That’s why that bridge strategy is so important. Timelines are a little questionable. 

And I think that we have to look at risk over time and risk to the strategies that we’re saying we’re going to use out in the Pacific and around the globe, frankly, when it deals in denied environments. So we need to have these systems, whatever it is, whether it’s an actual platform or its software that all has to be interoperable.

We have to have sensors everywhere. The information has to be integrated for the joint force so that we can see and react to how the joint force is morphing around the globe. And that includes, the use of drones, and how we’re using that data to ensure we can do the mission of deployment and sustainment. 

40:12 – 40:38 

(RM): So I think you have to look at two things here. I think you have to look at what the Air Force is studying and looking at, and what they’ve actually committed to do in the budget. You can see with both of these that there’s a commitment to a study and there’s a commitment to exploration, but with neither of them is there a commitment to procurement and installation. 

So I think it’s obvious that we’ve acknowledged that there’s a battlefield that we’re not prepared to fight on necessarily. But I don’t see that we’ve acknowledged that we’re going to make that become true. 

40:39 – 41:27 

(TT): Yeah. And that presents to industry a gigantic risk, because the Air Force and Air Mobility Command, in particular, has asked repeatedly: invest your time and effort into answering these RFIs or participating in this AOA or fill in the blank, and those don’t come for free. You know, it’s not the same as a capital investment in setting up a production line and so on and so forth. 

But the Air Force has to show that it is serious about this problem that Jackie identified is not optional. This is a problem that has to be solved, should have been solved in the past, needs to be solved now. But the way that you’re going to convince industry to dig in and commit more resources is to first show that the government is serious about it. And with a couple of the other things we talk about, about what incentivizes private capital, I think it could be done. But it has to start at the beginning.  

41:28 – 41:44 

(SK): Now, each of you represent Elara Nova in different capacities as part of its Aeronautics & Mission Systems sector. How does Elara Nova and its AMS team in particular, fit into this ecosystem at a time when the Air Force has set lofty goals, set against ambitious targets for its mobility fleet? 

41:45 – 43:05 

(TT): I’ll hop on that one first. I mean, in this case helping the government on the front end. Like for example, this RFI, I don’t know if they asked somebody to come help that was outside what used to be building 1600, I don’t think they moved back into it at Scott Air Force Base. If they didn’t, that was a swing and a miss.  

If they did, then great. Congratulations and good job. Keep doing it. But there’s a lot of talent and industry experience that could be just brought into, ‘Hey did you consider this?’ That makes the RFI better, makes the RFP better quite frankly, and then closes the times faster on what needs to be done. But if you don’t ask the question and you don’t bring the additional team member on board, you miss the opportunity.

And the other part I would just add throughout the process. I think if I’m out there in industry, I think that the capabilities that Elara Nova brings very much helps them in the response and identifying where the opportunities are.  

There’s just a deep portfolio on this call right here. And I’m not talking about myself. I’m talking about the other two – that just know how the system works, have been out there and flown the aircraft, and if you’re able to craft a better, more coherent and innovative response just because of that then I think it’s absolutely worth ringing the phone and calling us. 

It’s not quite a cheat code, but it certainly can help to move in that direction. 

43:06 – 43:45 

(RM): So I think Elara Nova has certainly all of those traditional things to offer that Ty talked about. I think there are a couple of nontraditional things that we offer as well, which are important. The first one is we have partnerships that allow us to help companies navigate the Office of Strategic Capital. There’s a potentially strong role for OSC to play in this process.

And we also have a team that focuses on NATO and international partners, and I think that could be key here as well. If you look at just the development costs that we’ve talked about, the ability to share those across some allies and partners and to count on procurement from other than just the U.S. Air Force, that could be an important way to get the program across the line, and certainly we can help with that.

43:46 – 44:51 

(JVO): And I think Rick is spot on there. Both you and Ty. I think Ty mentioned being the interpreter. Understanding the deep experience that we have. We can interpret what the signals are, what the language is. And then we have experience possibly doing that exact process, but also contacts that are doing the process right now and are trying to help and they’re trying to translate themselves. 

And how do we sit at the table on both sides and help industry and help the government speak to each other in a clear language? And absolutely on the finance part, not just only the finance division, but the OSC and the opportunities that are there, and frankly, seeing the tech that’s out there, because all of us also do and work with other various companies in various sectors and trying to apply that technology and how that might work for aeronautical mission systems or anywhere else for the Department of War. 

We’re all keen to it because we all want to help. We’re not wearing the blue suits anymore, but we all want to help be part of the Department of War and be the success arm and root on our Airmen out into the future. This is our way of giving back.

44:52 – 35:28 

(SK): This has been an episode of The Elara Edge. Elara Nova is the trusted global security partner delivering decisive advantage.  

As a strategic advisory firm, Elara Nova builds expert teams uniquely tailored for client needs to deliver actionable results. With the trusted insight to deliver your decisive edge, Elara Nova is your source for expertise and guidance in global security. 

If you liked what you heard today, please subscribe to our channel and leave us a rating. Music for this podcast was created by Patrick Watkins of PW Audio. I’m your host, Scott King, and join us next time at the Elara Edge. 

Episode 43: NASA Reorganizes to “Ignite the Orbital Economy”

The Elara Edge

Host: Scott King 

SME: Renee Wynn, former Chief Information Officer at NASA and Partner at Elara Nova 

00:02 – 01:05 

Earlier this year, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (or NASA) announced a reorganization effort that restores its “mission directorates” in a way that agency leaders hope will position itself for an ambitious future. The moves, whose influence can be traced back to a December 2025 executive order, will streamline workforce priorities toward five new objectives recently unveiled by NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman.  

Taken in tandem, the reorganization steps and the new agency objectives aim to ignite a commercial orbital economy that advances scientific exploration, but NASA can only get there by scaling the safety and cybersecurity discipline that the agency has forged over the years. 

Welcome to “The Elara Edge.” Here to discuss these changes, and why NASA’s commercial space partners should be paying attention to them, is Renee Wynn, partner at Elara Nova and the former Chief Information Officer at NASA. 

Ma’am, welcome to the show.  

01:06 – 01:16 

Thank you. Scott. It is fabulous to be here and represent what I think – the most iconic federal agency in the United States federal government. But I’m biased. 

01:17 – 01:24 

NASA certainly is an iconic agency with a storied history, so before we get into the changes underway today – can you first take us back to NASA’s founding? 

01:25 – 03:19 

I think a great place to start is our origin. And that is those Soviets up there in space, not before us, but parts of what they were doing were before us. And a bit of how dare they? I mean, we’re the United States. And so the National Aeronautics Space Act of 1958 charged NASA with some very important and I think a very sustainable mission that really holds true today. 

I’m going to point out, I think, some key elements from this Act of 1958: expanding human knowledge of phenomena in the atmosphere and space. It included performance, speed, safety, efficiency of aeronautical and space vehicles. And today we benefit with our airplanes on greater safety and greater sustainability. Developing and operating vehicles capable of carrying instruments, equipment, supplies and living organisms, not just astronauts, but living organisms through space. Establishing long-range studies for the benefits, opportunities and the challenges for aeronautical space activities for peaceful and scientific purposes. 

And I stress peaceful because space is highly contested. Intentional and unintentional. The unintentional is we’ve also got a lot of space debris. Some of it is man-made, some of it’s not man-made. And of course, this Space Act says preserve the role of the United States as a leader. And then finally, I want to point out, is cooperating with other nations in the peaceful application of space research and its results.

03:20 – 03:27 

Thank you, Ma’am. Now, can you speak about the influence of NASA’s role in what’s become a projected $1.8 trillion space economy?  

03:28 – 07:35 

The shuttle program was retired in 2011 and there wasn’t a replacement. And imagine what that might have felt like that retirement day, that decision, how that would have weighed on the agency and the nation to say our route to the International Space Station, which was done in cooperation with the Russians, is no more.

And I think from a business perspective, that you do have some stopgap measures in place. And so the United States sort of turned to Russia and said, “Hey, can we buy some seats?” to the tune of roughly $80 million for U.S. astronauts to ride on Soyuz, and our astronauts needed to be trained in Russia. So we’re going to Russia.  

This was a costly lesson, and I share this because it had some benefit from a geopolitical relationship perspective. But it also meant we lost some things from a United States capability. And so it really set us up for a lot of learning and a lot of opportunity.   

And so NASA got to work long before the retirement to begin what was called the Commercial Crew Program. There’s a big culture shift. NASA went from being a buyer and a maker of all of these things, to being a partner and having, in this instance, SpaceX and Boeing developing something. 

Then we were going to be buying these rides to the International Space Station. You also had the culture of: does the commercial sector truly get what it’s like to look in the eyes of the family to say, “I am sorry that we lost an astronaut.” Over 40 astronauts have been lost in the pursuit of space exploration. They were NASA employees, they were NASA people that went to those families to break the horrific news, just like it happens in the military. 

Would those cultures truly understand the depth of the heartache and heartbreaking that that would bring? We understood it because there were engineers from the shuttle program that knew Columbia and Challenger, and knew what it felt like. Did they understand safety? That was a very, very hard thing for NASA to convey.  

And so you begin on the lower risk version, but it’s still high risk and that’s cargo. So first we’ll do the cargo and then we’ll get around to crew. It’s a tiered-risk you know milestone-based. And we just worked and we worked and we worked. NASA helped SpaceX and Boeing achieved success. And that was hard sometimes because we were there to coach and mentor and So you have all of this learning going on and the next launch from American soil wasn’t until May of 2020.  

So what is the difference make? The difference makes from a bottom line. And I like to use this with people is in 2020 when I left NASA, in general, it was $17,500 to launch a kilogram of something into space. And that just gives you kind of an average price. Today, that average price is $1,500 to $2,500 per kilogram. That is the difference six years makes and that is the economic difference. How more and more businesses and countries are now reaching space. And I think that puts a really fine point on how accessible, although still expensive, space is today, more so than it was just a few years ago. 

07:36 – 07:45 

And this past May, NASA announced some reorganizational changes to position itself toward the future. Can you describe what these changes are and why they matter? 

07:46 – 10:10 

I want to begin with the objectives stated by the administrator, Jared Isaacman. And that is one: Artemis is key objective on this one which is a continuation of what was going on when I was there. The Moon Base. The moon base is a sustainable presence on the moon, and that has been back and forth between being a lab off the moon called Gateway versus a lab on the moon. The decision now is a moon-based lab, the Moon Base. 

This next one, I think really matters. It is the creation of a Space Reactor Office. And in short, is a nuclear power in space. Then the fourth thing is “ignite the orbital economy.” Not only astronaut missions, but high potential commercial science. And finally is build more X-planes, launch more missions of science and discovery and finding some efficiencies in commercial Earth observation, space weather, and other missions beyond their original design life. 

So the reorganization puts NASA back somewhat like it was when I was there. What NASA announced was the Exploration Systems Development Mission Directorate and Space Operation Mission Directorate was pushed together to make Human Spaceflight Mission Directorate, which is what it was when I was there. And then the other change was the Space Technology Mission Directorate and the Aeronautics Research Mission Directorate was pushed together to create the Research and Technology Mission Directorate.The Science Mission Directorate remains where it is.  

So when I say bottom line, NASA looks more structurally like it did when I was there. The big change is this former STMD, as we call it, and Aero, have been pushed together. It has the opportunity to succeed. I think from a perspective of an organizational size. It puts it as a size that’s probably about right for a directorate at NASA than it would have been given budget size and people size losses that we have seen at NASA over the years.

10:11 – 10:19 

So what do these changes enable NASA to do now that maybe wasn’t possible or more difficult to do before? And why make these changes now?  

10:20 – 12:03 

I think the changes are largely resource-driven. So NASA offered a number of deferred retirement opportunities, and a number of individuals took this opportunity, and it was multiple waves of it. As an example, in my organization, in the end, about 25% of the people took it. And that happened across the board. NASA was certainly one of the agencies at the higher end of people staying for their career. 

Most people, when they hit their 30-year mark, that is not even close to when people are thinking about retiring from NASA. So the opportunities offered for the deferred retirement, a lot of people took that. And this particular administration went over the five objectives: Artemis, Moon Base, Space Reactor Office – nuclear power in space – ignite the orbital economy and build more X-planes, launch more missions of science and discovery. 

And they felt that the reorganization would allow them to focus because they also created a place for a space reactor office. So that was a new creation. And pulling people into that, all the rest of the stuff is tightening up the organization, which is what we’ve seen in this administration. So I don’t see it as trying to fill a gap or anything else other than: how do we tighten up our organization in order to meet these five objectives?  

12:04 – 12:07 

Can you explain some of the challenges that will need to be overcome as these changes unfold? 

12:08 – 14:16 

It’s all about people. Any reorganization needs to have a clear purpose. The current administrator, Jared Isaacman, laid out why he did what he did. So clarity of purpose was written, and he’s been going around to provide that clarity to more people than just the people that get to see him on a regular basis. But the challenge remains: does everybody understand what needs to be done and how their job matches with the objectives of the reorganization? 

And so not only does the administrator and his direct reports, but all the way down the line, everybody just needs to understand their role in that reorganization.  

And the second difficult piece with reorganizations is: how do I get my job done? So if the people I worked with moved organizations, the good news is they didn’t move their email and their phone number – most likely. 

I still can reach them, but some people may have left their job. So now how do I find my procurement specialists that would help me get something done? How do I find my HR person? How do I find my software engineer? Making sure I know how to get my job done in the middle of a reorganization – that’s the other hard part that happens during a reorganization. 

It’s a little bit of the chaos with it, and so doing that piece is also very hard. I say this from experience. Every reorg that I did, I did better and better on it. I feel like now if I ever led a major reorganization, first of all, I would set the bar really high, but I would spend so much time getting to that clarity and making sure that everybody knew how to do their job, so that when we moved the chairs and shifted the figurative organizational boxes, that when we hit the go button, everybody would be able to do their job 60-80% on day one.

14:17 – 14:23 

And what does this reorganization effort reflect about how NASA, as an agency, has evolved from its founding?  

14:24 – 15:05 

I think it just represents the evolution of science and space exploration? And that is when NASA was founded. Yes, space exploration was envisioned. We have humans living in space, and we have for 25 years.  

That’s not what was envisioned. I mean, yes, we plan to put boots on the moon. Well, now we’re envisioning not only have humans lived in space for over 25 years, but now we’re envisioning this Moon Base and so I think the evolution of an organization is with these dreams and these goals that we have of space for our country. 

15:06 – 15:20 

As we mentioned at the top, this reorganization effort can be traced back to an executive order that was signed in December of 2025: Ensuring American Space Superiority. 

Can you summarize that executive order for us and what some of your key takeaways are from it? 

15:21 – 18:05 

I see this building off of the previous administration’s efforts for the United States, and this is especially under Trump’s first administration. And as I read through it again, the emphasis that I see in it was the deadline for commercializing the ISS, the International Space Station replacement and explicit preference for commercial solutions, and a preference for Other Transaction Authority or Space Act agreements at NASA to focus on troubled programs. 

That’s always been a focus of NASA, but it’s calling it out in particular in this executive order. And then the firm fixed price and “as-a-service” models were extended for weather and ground infrastructure. This is really continuing to nudge on the commercialization of several elements of what NASA does – ground infrastructure being one of those. And we’re seeing the private sector really develop some of that as well. 

So those were, I think, sort of some of the highlights. There’s a lot of information in there, but those are the things that really struck me.  

I see there’s a couple of benefits and I see there’s some challenges. I see economic growth in what they’re pushing on this one, and that’s always good. Advancing space traffic management, that’s a definite need from a safety perspective, as well as for economic growth, vehicle safety as well as astronaut safety. 

Debris management – we’ve got to continue the conversation on debris management and the harm, as well as the opportunity that managing this debris better can come of this. and just start to get going on this. It’s just going to take us some time to get there. 

The challenges are the timelines. I love a good challenge, get this done by then, but I also like to be realistic because of safety and just want it done well. And funding. And I reflect on the 27 president’s budget across the United States government and the funding that would be required for some of these items in here. I don’t see it matching up, but perhaps these Other Transaction Authorities and Space Act Agreements can offer some innovation towards the funding that I’m just not privy to. 

The International Space Station replacement. It’s a funding thing. And can we get this going? Because it is a wonderful asset for this country and for humanity and I don’t want to see it lost without us having a replacement. You know, I go back to the example about losing the shuttle and not yet having commercial crew. I really, I don’t want to see that. That’s where I would see those challenges.  

18:06 – 18:10 

Can you elaborate on what Other Transaction Authority (OTAs) and Space Act Agreements are? 

18:11 – 19:42 

So for an OTA, as they are most commonly called, you can write a white paper to the government and get an early stage technical solution to a problem. And the government can say yes and fund it. You can’t scale it and say, wow, this really does solve our problem. You got to pop over to the more typical understood acquisition process. 

But if you want to do your experimentation and all of that, the OTAs are a great way to say, “Yeah, let’s try a few of these items and see what they can do to solve some of these problems.”  

So I’m not that familiar with Space Act Agreements. It wasn’t an instrument that I used in my organization, and I wasn’t exposed to how it was being used in other parts of NASA as well.But quite quickly: Space Act Agreements enable NASA to enter into flexible mission-supporting agreements outside the typical procurement rules, which means they can engage contractually with private and commercial industry, universities and nonprofit organizations, government agencies and international entities. So it allows them to pretty much work with a lot of different entities to support getting the mission done. 

19:43 – 20:00 

Now, earlier you shared NASA’s historical emphasis on safety. In the modern day, particularly in space, cybersecurity is a key component to safety.  

So given your prior role as CIO at NASA, how do you think NASA views the relationship between cybersecurity and mission safety? 

20:01 – 23:24 

Oh, I have direct experience about how NASA thinks about cybersecurity. When I first got there NASA didn’t want to think about it at all. Why do I say that? Because I had only been the CIO for a few weeks when a now dear friend of mine called from the White House, the Chief Information Security Officer, former General from the Air Force, calls and says, “Renee, we are coming over to talk to your administrator about a problem here at NASA.” 

“Well, what’s the problem, Sir?” He says, “Your cybersecurity posture is a problem for national security.” “Well, tell me about that problem.” “You are a problem for everyone.” “Everyone?” “Like, everyone.” “Yes, for almost every federal agency and the military that you work for.” “Okay, well, that would be a big problem,” He says, “Yep. I think you’ve got the picture.” 

So he proceeds to describe to me what the conversation is going to be about – greatly appreciate it. You know, a phone call before bad news to your boss is always appreciated. I call my boss, Charlie Bolden, former NASA administrator, former Marine Corps general, former astronaut, former shuttle pilot. So it’s going to be former general to former general Air Force to Marine Corps. 

And I’m like, all right, I got to get everybody ready. So we get Charlie ready for the whole thing. We have a great meeting. Explain everything from the White House’s perspective. So Charlie’s listening, he’s like, “Great. Thanks so much for telling us that.” And he just looks over to me and he says, “You just go make that happen.” 

What they were talking about was not only our global posture. Remember, we operate in Russia, but also our posture in space. So at this point, this is 2015. We are seeing satellites hacked from a cyber angle, NASA’s included. So you can take it as a crisis or you could take it as an opportunity. I frankly took it as both. 

And what the approach was is mission had to operate – don’t break mission. But I also had to say we let nothing happen to our astronauts and we can’t have an international incident on the International Space Station because of the cyber incident. So we did all of the basics first because that didn’t exist. And I made it a point that we were going to be doing a culture change, that NASA would be a safety and cybersecurity culture by the time I left the agency. 

And we just did it by hook or by crook, we made friends. We got yelled at like you wouldn’t believe. I got called up on the Hill a lot to brief them on one incident after another, we found things that’s embarrassing for the United States government. It was embarrassing for NASA to have this. 

We got F on our report card for how we managed IT, and NASA was embarrassed by that report card. And Charlie and then Jim Bridenstine were huge supporters of these initiatives that we went about to make that change.

23:25 – 23:34 

The relationship between space and cyberspace is a thread we frequently pull on in this show. But to get your perspective on it: how do you personally view the relationship between the two? 

23:34 – 25:06 

They go hand-in-hand. I mean, first of all, you can go on YouTube and see how to hack a satellite and it’s not wrong. Secondly, you’ve got insider threat, which can be a cyber hack, and then you’ve got the ability to hack a satellite through typical cyber means. And it’s a real threat. And from a science perspective, if you’re going to build your entire career on the integrity of the data and what you find in space – cybersecurity is confidentiality, integrity, and access of data – that is the heart of scientific discovery in space. 

They’re just hand-in-glove. Go together for scientific integrity. So to me it’s a must do. It’s table stakes. If you’re going to put your career on the line for discovering planets and dark holes and dark energy and all of that, you’ve got to have cybersecurity in place if that’s what you’re going to do. When you’ve got human space exploration, you have lives on the line. 

Everything that those astronauts rely on in space, on station, we are giving it to them. It’s not like the air they breathe is out there in space. It’s not like the water they drink is coming from a stream. It is coming from services provided to the International Space Station through complicated – and that’s chips and software and hardware. And the Mission Control Center for Human Spaceflight is very, very well run from a cyber perspective and I was so excited to learn that. 

25:07 – 25:28 

This also brings to mind the challenge that comes with having so many stakeholders operating in the space domain, whether that be national security, civil, or commercial entities.  

Can you elaborate on why a military service like the Space Force or the Air Force should care about the cybersecurity measures in place at a civil agency like NASA or similarly at a commercial partner? 

25:29 – 27:32 

So NASA is not military, it is civilian, and it will remain that way. However, NASA does a lot of research projects. They do a lot of research projects for FAA. They do research projects for NOAA, they do research projects for the military, and they do research projects for space just in operational space awareness and things like that. That means we’re grabbing data, we’re looking at things, we’re interconnected. When we’re taking on these research projects, that interconnectedness means that I’m exposing myself to you and you to me. 

I like to use the example, and this does hold true for space. If I do a project with glitter, I get glitter on my hands. And let’s think of glitter as cybersecurity. Then I go to hug you or shake your hands. Now, I’ve tried to get rid of that glitter, but guess what? You now have glitter on you, Scott. 

And you go home and now you’ve got glitter on your carpet. That is cyber security. For a moment in time, we became interconnected and tried as I might for personal hygiene for glitter. It didn’t go so well. And if I hadn’t had personal hygiene or cybersecurity hygiene, you just got covered in glitter. I give that as a visual. 

And that’s what cybersecurity is, is when I shake your hand, you’re getting my glitter. When I connect up with you to exchange data, you get my glitter. And that’s what was happening with NASA is: we were giving you way too much glitter, whether it was in space when we would have to connect or when we were coming down here, or sending you data with our research projects or however we were working with you. 

You weren’t just getting a packet of data, you were getting a very sparkly packet of data. And that’s what was putting other agencies at risk because of the way NASA was and wasn’t taking on cybersecurity.

27:33 – 27:49 

Earlier we also spoke of the lessons NASA learned as it transitioned from the shuttle program to commercial launch providers. 

So how have conversations evolved between NASA and its commercial partners to ensure that their hands are, as you suggest, remaining glitter-free? 

27:50 – 28:59 

Number one, NASA FAR has been modified that if you’re getting a NASA contract, you’re supposed to be doing your part for cybersecurity, amongst many other things. So the first thing is, it better start being in the contract. And then the second piece is it’s got to be enforced. The point of rules is that at some point when things go wrong that you can enforce against the rules and you hold everybody up. The third piece is risk, which to me is really important. When we work together digitally, which we all do, we’re passing along our risk to each other, which we’ve got to have a line-of-sight on that risk and keep an eye on it to manage and mitigate it. 

We don’t get to zero. First of all, space exploration is highly risky and it will remain that risky. Just because we can see it all the time doesn’t change the risk of space exploration. It just means we can see it all the time. And that third party risk is now changing. And you’re just going to have to take a look at it. And NASA has looked at third party risk for quite a while. And some of it will watch but most of it. We’ve got to mitigate. 

29:00 – 29:23 

This next question goes back to the December 2025 executive order, which pushes commercial first acquisition and leaning on tools like OTAs and Space Act Agreements that we talked about earlier.  

That same executive order also calls for identifying supply chain and industrial capacity gaps. What are these gaps NASA sees as needing to be filled? And how prepared are their commercial space partners in being able to fill them? 

29:24 – 31:38 

It depends on the gap. So from a launch capability, I think we’ve got that filled. One of the things is that there’s been a bottleneck just in terms of number of launch pads and so that’s getting fixed here. That’s not a capability thing. That’s just a – we need more launch pads. It also depends on what orbit you want to get to. Private sector is pretty good at building satellites to look at the earth and things like that. So we’ve got good capabilities there. You know, data back from space. That has been a choke point. 

It’s been a choke point for NASA for a very long time. We got a lot of data that we can collect in space, but we can’t always bring it down. That is being worked on quite a bit, and we’ve seen some great strides by the major providers really coming up with amazing ways to do compute in space and bring down a completed product that doesn’t take as much of the pipe, which is just so amazing for the science that we can get. 

So those are sort of some three big things that we’ve solved for, and that’s awesome. And working there, there are some advantages to computing in space for space use. That’s going to continue to get better. We have use cases, both civilian and military, national security. That’s going to continue to get better. And I think the commercial business will get improved.  

On the human space side. There’s a few companies that understand what it’s like to keep humans alive in space. So that’s an area of growth and opportunity. And so you can start to fill that gap with former NASA people and we can do that. I think all in all there are some gaps because there’s some seams. But we’re well-positioned for that growth to happen and in that growth we’re going to learn about more seams and more gaps. And then we will begin to fill them. 

The big however, and I worked in supply chain risk from a cybersecurity perspective: chips, compute power. Space is facing that. Because all that stuff that’s floating up there needs chips. And we need to make sure that those chips are of a good pedigree. 

31:39 – 31:49 

And to tie it back to the reorganization of NASA and its mission directorates, how will those changes tie back that to those gaps? Will this reorganization effort help facilitate the closure of those gaps and in any way? 

31:50 – 32:44 

Thanks for asking that. I think to the nuclear power. That is a gap that needs to be filled. My opinion. There are a lot of people that are not going to be into this nuclear power piece. I am because deeper space needs nuclear power. So that is in fact an industrial capacity gap that is being filled. NASA’s reorganization has set an organization out to help with that particular gap. 

And so that is a gap that is being filled. We talked about other acquisition vehicles besides the typical procurement. NASA knows how to do that really well. So I think they’re just well situated with the number of people that they have. They are on a hiring spree. The new folks will have to blend in and understand NASA’s history of safety culture, and then bring their way of thinking and innovation and curiosity to help NASA advance as well.  

32:45 – 32:51 

And so why should industry be paying attention to these reorganization steps, particularly given NASA’s recent commercial-first approach? 

32:52 – 33:55 

First, I would ask them a question: do you want to be part of the Artemis generation? If you want to be part of the Artemis generation, then let’s get going. And this is one of the things I like to mention because I’m part of the Apollo generation. 

But what we are seeing in front of us is the blossoming of the Artemis generation. So if a business wants to be part of that, then let’s take a look at NASA and where they are going, their five major objectives and what can you do to advance Artemis or nuclear power in space, or X-wings or science in space? 

What can you do to advance it and be respectful of the fact that you are getting taxpayer money, and honor that money and honor a culture of safety, and then become part of history in the making? It’s really that simple. 

33:56 – 34:12 

Now, as a partner with Elara Nova and a member of its Cyber, Data and Communications sector, what role can and does Elara Nova have in this moment in time? Both for NASA as it reorganizes and its commercial space partners looking to be a part of its future? 

34:13 – 35:25 

Elara Nova has deep experience in space and a cadre of individuals vested in the mission of the United States government. 

And I give that as an umbrella because they are bringing on more and more individuals, shifting away just the national security piece and more of my colleagues from the civil space side, but also civil space on the aeronautics side as well, where they can now offer a wealth of knowledge and a greater breadth of knowledge across aeronautics and space, which would allow our clients, commercial and government clients to have the opportunity to use our deep experience in space and in aeronautics to really advance their objectives. 

And if I tie it back to Artemis, if their objective is to be part of the Artemis generation, then that means by hiring Elara Nova that they get the opportunity to be part of putting boots back on the moon. 

35:26 – 36:06 

This has been an episode of The Elara Edge. Elara Nova is the trusted global security partner delivering decisive advantage.  

As a strategic advisory firm, Elara Nova builds expert teams uniquely tailored for client needs to deliver actionable results. With the trusted insight to deliver your decisive edge, Elara Nova is your source for expertise and guidance in global security. 

If you liked what you heard today, please subscribe to our channel and leave us a rating. Music for this podcast was created by Patrick Watkins of PW Audio. I’m your host, Scott King, and join us next time at the Elara Edge. 

Episode 42: Chinese AI Closing Gap in Cybersecurity Vulnerability Detection

The Elara Edge

Host: Scott King (SK) 

SME: (KC):Maj Gen (Ret) Kim Crider, Founding Partner at Elara Nova; former Chief Technology and Innovation Officer at the United States Space Force 

(BS): Lt Gen (Ret) Bob Skinner, Executive Partner at Elara Nova; former director of the Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA), and the commander of the Joint Force Headquarters, Department of Defense Information Network, (DODIN) 

(MR): Col (Ret) Mike Robbins, Partner at Elara Nova; former Director of the USSPACECOM Joint Cyber Center and Joint Ops Center 

00:02 – 01:06 

(SK): The race to artificial intelligence supremacy appears to be getting tighter. Earlier this summer, a Chinese AI model known as Z.ai was found to match Anthropic’s Mythos at discovering cybersecurity vulnerabilities despite trailing U.S. models on other tasks. The narrowing gap in AI-enabled cyber capabilities carries real national security implications as the cyber domain increasingly operates at machine speeds. It also heightens the imperative for the U.S. government and commercial industry to partner together and streamline development and adoption of secure and reliable AI tools. 

Welcome to The Elara Edge! We have three guests today, here to discuss the ever-evolving and attention-consuming topic of artificial intelligence, as well as the challenges and opportunities to streamline adoption of these cutting-edge technologies in national security.   

First, returning to the show is retired Major General Kim Crider, Founding Partner at Elara Nova and the first Chief Technology and Innovation Officer at the United States Space Force.  

Ma’am, welcome back to the show! 

01:07 – 01:08 

(KC): Thanks, Scott. Great to be here.  

01:09 – 01:27 

(SK): Also joining us is retired Lieutenant General Bob Skinner. Bob is an Executive Partner with Elara Nova and the former Director of the Defense Information Systems Agency, DISA, and the Commander of the Joint Force Headquarters, Department of Defense Information Network, or DODIN.  

Sir, welcome to the show! 

01:28 – 01:30 

(BS): Thanks, Scott. 

Happy to be part of this esteemed group and panel. 

01:30 – 01:43 

 (SK): We also have Mike Robbins joining us today. Mike is a retired colonel with the United States Air Force and a Partner at Elara Nova who previously served asthe Director of the US Space Command Joint Cyber Center and Joint Ops Center. 

Mike, welcome to the show! 

01:44 – 01:46 

(MR): Thank you very much, Scott. Appreciate it. Really honored to be here.  

01:47 – 02:04 

(SK): Now, there was a Wall Street Journal article published earlier this summer that found a Chinese AI model now matches one of the most advanced U.S. commercial models in discovering cybersecurity vulnerabilities.  

Mike, can you bring us up to speed on what the implications are for this finding? And what makes this recent development so concerning? 

02:05 – 03:38

(MR): Appreciate it. Scott. So it’s not a real surprise the Chinese are actively seeking to advance their technology, not only do they have human resources, but they want to be able to leverage all the technology that they can. So nothing shocking about that for those that have been paying attention to what our adversaries have been doing in the cyberspace and cybersecurity realm for the last 20 plus years.  

It is a common theme for the Chinese to steal both intellectual property from our defense industrial base, as well as from the government itself, on how they can maximize the capabilities that they have at the lowest cost to themselves. They’ve actively sought ways to exfiltrate data, exploit data, and embed themselves into our systems.  

And if you take a simple search of various academic and industry periodicals, the U.S. assessment has been clear that the Chinese have the intent to leverage AI wherever they can, and they want to advance their technology, whether it’s through the chipsets that they are trying to develop or procure through whatever means necessary, or whether it’s their models and how they are trying to exfiltrate and learn from our most advanced models. 

It is concerning because as they advance their models, they make those models available to whoever will work with them and in whatever manner they want to work with them. 

03:39 – 04:49

(BS): Hey Scott, I’d love to add a little insights into what Mike’s talking about from a China standpoint. They have stated publicly that they want to dominate the emerging technology sector by 2030. That’s a huge goal.  

And really, I think we’re talking more on artificial intelligence and quantum computing. If you think, okay, how can they best do that? Well, it’s to continue their coercive manner of stealing where they can and disrupting the time continuum that it would normally take through research and engineering to get to a good spot. And so that’s really what they are focused on is: how do they continue to coerce and steal their way to the top?  

I am less concerned about their technology because I think in an autocratic environment, it’s harder to innovate than it is in the United States. And so I would offer our LLMs, I think we will stay ahead of them from a technology standpoint.  

But I don’t think we can overstate what China is trying to do, but I think their normal manner just will not enable them to be at the top because of the innovative ways that the United States and our allies and partners, which is a key component of our ability to innovate where we’re headed. 

04:50 – 05:04

(SK): And Mike, what does this emerging AI-enabled cybersecurity environment change for the cyber operators on the ground at a place like the Joint Operations Center or Joint Cyber Center, who are now confronted with an operating environment that is moving at machine speeds, both offensively and defensively? 

05:05 – 06:36

(MR): I’ll go back to my Air Force roots and John Boyd. It’s about the OODA-loop. 

As an ops center, your job is to get information in, identify those things that you can exploit and move on and make a decision so that you are ahead of your adversary. So in an ops center, it’s not really going to change what you’re trying to do. The tools that you’re using might change. And that’s where you talk about moving at machine speed, moving in that machine learning environment. 

I would propose today, if we’re not already using AI in our ops centers to help synthesize data to help commanders in their OODA-loop, then we’re already falling behind, right? So from a cybersecurity standpoint, a big risk we have is if I have somebody who’s finding a zero day exploit on zero day or before zero day, I’m already at a disadvantage. 

My challenge becomes how do I respond to that? What are the tools I am using to identify that zero day, and then have my defensive tools write a rule for me that says, ‘Hey, I found a zero day. Here’s a rule that you can implement that will help prevent an attack or mitigate an attack on that,’ and then move forward. 

So two separate things how the ops center works. And then what is it tactically my operators have to be able to do? I can’t emphasize enough if we’re not using AI already. We’re behind the power curve.

06:37 – 07:17 

(BS): I agree wholeheartedly with Mike. The cautionary tale with AI, though, is if you’re just jumping into AI for AI’s sake, then that’s going to cause more problems for your mission and your operations than what it’s worth.  

You have to understand what problems you’re trying to solve and have the mindset of how can I leverage technology to achieve the gains and achieve the objectives that the mission requires? And that takes some thinking beforehand, because there’s a whole litany of cautions from a fiscal standpoint, from a legal standpoint. But yet that’s my only cautionary tale, is, that yes, you want to jump in, but you got to be careful that you don’t jump in without understanding where you’re trying to go. 

07:18 – 07:25 

(SK): So considering how quickly these models are being developed, how do you balance the adoption of these innovative technologies weighed against the inherent risks that might come with them? 

07:26 – 08:07 

(BS): The thinking model doesn’t change because at the end of the day, as a commander, you are responsible for understanding the risk and managing the risk. 

If we go into this with being risk averse, we are going to lose ground significantly. So you have to manage that risk. Part of managing that risk is understanding, so there’s an education piece and a training piece. Understanding the technology well enough that you at least have kind of an understanding of what that risk is and what the potentiality is. 

And then you can make the decision of, ‘Hey, do I need to slow down a little bit until I understand a little bit more, or do I need to go fast because I understand the second, third order implications of this technology and understanding the operational impacts and then just move out. 

08:08 – 09:24 

(MR): It’s a risk management approach. And there’s two things to that. There’s what the commanders do in understanding the tools that they have available to them. And then there’s what we want industry to do and we talk about our allies and how that works. We want to have the defense industrial base advancing as quickly as they can, and putting opportunities and options in front of commanders to use this.  

We look at where we were in World War II, great example, the P-51. We needed the P-51 in 1942, but we didn’t have it. We didn’t get that until late 1942, 1943. And what really advanced the P-51 was the defense industrial base, combined with an ally to put the Merlin engine into a P-51 that made it what it is. 

And then American industry took that and implemented it fully because the British could not meet the need. So it is truly about advancing as quickly as we can. And once we have a solution, let’s go. And that’s what we need to be in AI. We need to have all the industry partners working in concert with the government, and with what commanders are willing to accept risk on. 

09:25 – 10:36 

(KC): Yeah, I think I’ll just add to that, Scott, is that there’s an opportunity cost that’s also a risk. The risk of not leveraging the technologies effectively to do what you need to do. To Bob’s early point, first, you have to decide what your objectives are, and then you have to understand how can this technology help me achieve these objectives and then you need to be able to leverage that technology and move out.

But it’s not just an individual unit leveraging the technology necessarily, because how we win is at scale. So we have to be able to leverage the technology at scale with the whole operational entity being able to employ it effectively, which includes not just pointy end of the spear operators, but all of that infrastructure that comes behind them: the acquirers, the policy makers, the defense industrial base all being part of how do we drive this technology into our operations to maximum effect? 

It’s not just as simple as saying we’re just going to leverage technology, but we have to be able to do it at scale, and we need the entire enterprise to be able to work together to that outcome to get us the maximum benefits that we want to achieve. 

10:36 – 11:20 

(BS): And, Scott, I’ll give you a perfect example on risk. As a commander, as you leverage AI, you have to understand that you’re going to get a non-deterministic answer. You can have the same input and you can put it in twice and you get two different answers. And so you’ve got to understand that just leveraging AI isn’t necessarily going to give you the right answer that you need for the problem that you’re trying to solve. 

And so as long as you understand that and you understand that risk, I think you can be successful. I have a concern with those who are leveraging AI and thinking AI is going to give them 100% right answer every single time. And that can be devastating when you’re thinking about security and you’re thinking about potential lives on the line, on the front lines and or even in the rear echelon. 

11:21 – 11:32 

(SK): To take the idea of risk one step further, how do you go about trusting the answer that you’re receiving from an AI-model on whether or not a vulnerability exists, or that after it’s been identified, it’s been effectively patched? 

11:33 – 12:53 

(BS): The first thing is industry and the government has to do a better job of validating and auditing LLMs. Being able to ensure that the success rate, because every model has a different success rate when you’re talking about the prompting and the answering that it’s doing and I’m just talking about the prompting part, right? There’s a whole bunch of other AI that’s going on. That’s the first thing.  

The second thing is what kind of testing mechanism do you have as an organization? That is, once you get those answers, than how are you validating and testing? Are you finding? Do you have a way to quickly find like, say, there’s X, Y, and Z vulnerabilities in X, Y, and Z systems? 

How are you able to assess and validate in a quick manner, sometimes autonomously, X, Y, and Z vulnerabilities are in X, Y, and Z systems, and then you start building the confidence levels that the model is providing the right information, realizing that it may go off periodically, but I think that there’s this validation step that and I know we talk about the risk management framework, which I’ll tell you that that three letter word is like a four letter word in a lot of vocabularies because of the way that is implemented. 

And so how do you have continuous monitoring, continuous validation, continuous auditing to highlight and showcase that things are operating nominally. That to me is where we as a Department and we need commercial industry and our allies and partners to help us get there.

12:54 – 13:39 

(MR): I can follow up on that, Sir. You want to have that model that works for your environment. You can’t afford to have your model exposed where the adversary could potentially inject things into it through a concerted effort to change what the model is looking at. That’s where as we look at space systems, we’re going to be in a position of how do I have a model that is developed at the scale that the commercial world can do it at, at the speed they can do it at and still be focused enough on a what’s my niche that I need to have my model work because I can’t on a classified system have my model call home. It can’t go out to the dirty internet and call home. I’ve got to have a model that works in my environment. 

13:40 – 13:59 

(SK): Now Mike, on the note of space systems: it’s well known that both space and cyber capabilities underpin all of the operations across the Joint Force.  

So when it comes to cybersecurity risks and threats, not only to IT networks and systems terrestrially, but to space systems themselves, what are the implications for those risks? 

14:00 – 14:52 

(MR): Everything. General Burt a number of years ago had a quote. That was when she was at SPOC. It was, you can’t have space heroes without ones and zeros. And that is true. I would propose that you absolutely cannot separate space and cyber, because you cannot get to your space vehicles without those ones and zeros without cyber to do that. 

Yeah, there’s RF signals involved. There’s electronic warfare that’s involved. But fundamentally you’re talking about commands at the basic level that we’re sending to space vehicles to do things and those commands are cyber.  

That’s a computer programming thing and has been since the dawn of the space age and without effective cyber operations, space operations will cease to be effective both in the space vehicles and on the ground systems and the networks that connect those ground systems.  

14:53 – 16:51

(KC): I think it’s important to recognize that a space system is not just the network. Mike kind of touched on this. It’s really an interconnected system that includes the spacecraft, the ground segment, the links between them, the user terminals, and then any extended cloud infrastructure and supply chain that may be connected to that. So the attack surface is pretty extensive.  

But what’s also interesting is that an adversary doesn’t have to necessarily hack a satellite. You can get into this environment in a variety of different ways and the most accessible entry point still is the ground segment. But that’s not to say that these other parts of the system are not vulnerable. So it’s an integrated system. It has multiple components that are threatened. And you can’t really think about space cybersecurity. Therefore, just as our general understanding of enterprise IT cybersecurity extended into orbit. It’s an entirely different system, and the consequences are a little bit different as well. 

When a traditional IT enterprise is hacked, there’s a recovery process. It could involve rebuilding a server, isolating the attack, maybe restoring data from a backup. But when you’re talking about a space system that’s been compromised in some way, even if the compromise starts in the ground but then impacts the entire system, that attack may not be noticed right away. 

It might be a limited, gradual degradation of the system, and it might not be something that you can immediately address through an immediate recovery or restoral process. Space architectures are different than a more traditional ground-based IT enterprise architecture, which raises the stakes of what we’re talking about here. And to Mike’s point, the dependency on that environment is at the heart of everything that we’re able to do in space. Those are important subtleties to keep in mind. 

16:52 – 17:52 

(BS): Well, you know, I think Kim’s hit it on the head. If you think about a mom and pop shop in the Midwest that an adversary has exploited that has a connection either from a supply chain and or a connection to a power supply, to a data center, to something else that is critical to space operations or critical to those space systems operating. That’s pretty powerful.  

And you may not know because leveraging AI, they can find it, they can sit low. And we’ve got to be able to do a better job of countering that because as of right now, I would offer AI has given the adversary a leg up or the attacker a leg up until the defensive systems and processes and technology catches up, but it is significant as you think about the operational technology and the nontraditional IT that Kim was talking about. I think that is a huge challenge, but also an opportunity to get things better in the future. 

17:53 – 19:06 

(SK): Thank you, Sir. Now it’s important to note that to date, the leading AI models have been coming from U.S. commercial industry. In the context of our conversation today, we’re referring to Anthropic’s Mythos model and the Chinese model Z.ai that appears to have matched its cybersecurity capabilities.  

This development follows a series of years where federal export control orders were increasingly used to restrict the AI chips that could potentially empower them in the national security environment.  

But in June, the U.S. government went a step further to place an export control order on the Mythos model itself. And because Anthropic could not assure the foreign national status of every user, the company revoked access to Mythos entirely. But this also had a collateral effect for other government users relying on that model, including the National Security Agency.  

So all that being said, General Skinner, you spoke of the vetting process that goes into ensuring the AI tool is suited for the job, weighed against its risks.  

So Sir, can you take us behind the scenes of the vetting process to ensure a commercial AI model is both reliable and secure? And then walk us through what happens when that model disappears on short notice, whether it’s due to a flaw within the model itself or an adversary’s action to compromise it? 

19:07 – 20:56 

(BS): Yeah Scott, to me, it all starts with the approval for a system to operate on a DoD network. DISA being a big part of that, although not the only part because you have authorizing officials throughout the entire department who helps enable that. I think it starts there. Again, it’s a very slow process and one that continues to need to be refined to catch up. 

I will tell you from an operational standpoint, it really drives home the fact of what is your PACE plan, right? Mike talked about John Boyd’s OODA-loop. A PACE plan is probably been around as long as the OODA-loop, where you’re really focused on what’s your primary, alternate, contingency and emergency. People look at it from a communication standpoint more so than anything else, but I look at it from an operational and a mission standpoint. 

It’s: what happens if you do not have something that you are relying on? I mean, we used it in a Space Command. We used to do “A day without space,” and you would have the combatant commanders or the component commanders come in and you kind of walk through that. We have to do the same thing from a cybersecurity standpoint.  

What happens if you are no longer able to use this capability, whether it’s because of an export control, whether it’s because there’s an eccentric CEO who decides that their patriotism has a limit if the dollars don’t come with it, or is there a cybersecurity issue that you need to stop? And so I think that really comes into play is: how resilient are you in your operations and what kind of PACE plan do you have to really understand what your next move if something like this happens? 

And it goes back to risk, as a commander, you have to understand the risk, not just the risk from an adversary, but risk of your own operations and how you need to leverage that to move forward. And I think that’s going to bring them to bear how important a PACE plan really is, at least from a planning standpoint, and then have the flexibility and the adaptability to change as necessary as you’re moving forward. 

20:57 – 22:00 

(MR): It’s no different than any other tool, AI and whatever the tool it is. If you look at another space system, GPS and what are operators  having to do understanding the risk to GPS? They have to go out and figure out, well, how do I operate? If you’re in the Navy, maybe you’re using a sextant again, very old school type things, but that’s what you have to do. If I have to do analysis on my own because I lost access to a model, how do I do that?  

The second part of this, the export control right, is then you start to get into: how involved is the government in deciding what industry and not defense industrial base, what the commercial capital market will be able to do and not do? And how much constraint do we put on our innovation if we say, ‘Hey, the government’s going to get involved in that and what you can and can’t do,’ because the Chinese government’s not going to put that constraint on their industry. They want them to go as fast as possible.  

22:01 – 22:15  

(SK): And General Crider, speaking from your perspective as the former Chief Technology and Innovation Officer with the Space Force, how do you go about leveraging these systemic processes that are put in place across the government to adopt a tool that is oftentimes iterating faster than the approvals can keep up? 

22:16 – 24:46 

(KC): This challenge, this conundrum that we face is not necessarily new and is certainly not specific to space. It really is kind of a broader cultural challenge that we’ve seen over and over again, where technology is very often moving faster than the organizations can adopt it. 

We’ve seen it in the case of nuclear technology, where we had advances in nuclear capabilities that moved a lot faster coming out of the labs and policy was prepared to address. We saw it in the internet. When the internet boom first happened, the internet spread pretty quickly, faster than policies and organizations could adopt it effectively. 

So this happens a lot, right? I would say what’s different this time around with AI is that AI is literally just exploding on the scene, and the velocity of change that we’re seeing in AI since it first really came out in a grand way, has just been moving very, very quickly. 

The advances in technology that I talked about earlier. These things unfolded over several years and decades. But with AI, the capabilities are quickly evolving in a matter of months. So it’s really hard to get in front of that, especially when large organizational processes, policy acquisition, workforce development, governance, these move on multi-year timelines. So you’ve got a technology that’s evolving very rapidly in a matter of months, and you’ve got organizational adoption through those sort of mechanisms taking years. 

So it’s really about how do we build our institutions to be much more flexible and adaptable? How do we get ahead of some of these changes? How do we become much more flexible in our ability to leverage these technologies? Hopefully we’re going to get smarter as organizations because we’ve talked about AI for quite some time.  

I remember running around the country talking about AI was such an important capability and we need to take advantage of it.  It wasn’t until the advancements of ChatGPT, when it went out into the marketplace that people actually started to realize, ‘Wait a minute, this really is a thing.’ And then all the other frontier models came out and things started to rapidly take off. But still, the organizations then and now, struggling to catch up, struggling to find ways to integrate it, struggling to find ways to have the right policy to adopt it, to manage it, to control how it’s applied in the most effective way. 

24:47 – 25:03  

(SK): And to bring it back to General Skinner, how would you respond to the questions that General Crider just posed? 

Does the example we saw this summer that played out with the Mythos model, where there was approval, implementation, a temporary revocation before it was ultimately restored, change anything about the current vetting and approval process? 

25:04 – 28:07 

(BS): I would offer it validates that the current process is not flexible enough, but that’s something that we’ve known for decades now. And it’s just it’s so hard to get over the hump when you’re talking about authorizing officials who have a fiduciary responsibility on: I am a signing off that this system or this application is secure enough that it will not cause mission impacts by putting it onto the network. And so it’s the dichotomy of how do I go faster? But also, excuse my French, my butt’s on the line because I’m authorizing this. And so I think that’s the dichotomy that Kim was talking about.  

I would offer there’s a couple of ways. There’s an education piece. Being able to educate, authorizing officials not only their duties, but also on the missions and the understanding of the technology underneath those missions. I think helps, because the more comfortable they are with the systems and the missions and the software, the more comfortable they are to accept a certain level of risk based on that understanding.  

I think there’s partnerships. Too many authorizing officials I would offer and too much within the Department. We think, well, just because the Army approved it doesn’t mean that I should approve it or the Space Force approves it, so the Navy is not going to prove it. Well, there’s a foundational reciprocity that we have the authority already out there to leverage, but we don’t leverage that enough.  

And I think because there’s a trust part of this, that I’m not going to trust them because I’m the one that is going to get in trouble if something goes wrong versus how do we have a foundational education, foundational training, foundational certification to ensure that people are staying up with the technology and the processes? So I think the reciprocity from a partnership standpoint is also important.  

And then I think we don’t leverage technology enough from a validation standpoint. There is technology out there that we can leverage to improve our understanding and improve our probability of risk percentages to the technology and to the mission. And we just don’t leverage that enough. And part of that is, is some of the workforce within the Department is mature. And we’ve got to make sure that they are educated and trained with the new technology versus just understanding the processes that they’ve learned over the past decade and or two.  

So I think it’s a multi-pronged approach, and I see Mike laughing because of my mature comment. But I think that plays into it because I would offer if I’m in charge of auditing and authorizing, I have a much different mindset than a person who is 20 now or 25 or 30 who has basically lived with the technology that we have today. 

And there’s a culture piece of that we don’t usually talk about enough that I think plays into how do you understand the risk management part of all this versus being risk averse? Because the easiest thing to do is be risk averse, and I’ll get in less trouble if I’m more averse.  

28:08 – 30:41 

(MR): So the mature comment, I think, Sir, I think we’re part of that mature group. We just happen to have a better understanding of the technology. So I’ll bring up a couple of things. We talk about how AI is going to do all these things and the advancements and the speed.  This is no different than many other technologies that have come into the services over the last 40 to 50 years. How quickly can we adapt the technology into what we operationally need to do? 

It just so happens AI is moving so much faster than those technologies have before. How do we address that? I think we address that with good design. The systems we have authorizing officials signing off on today, in the last 20 years have all been, ‘Hey, we’re just going to go throw this system out there and we’re going to go do some software development, and you end up with poor design habits, poor systems engineering because computer processing and computer power got cheap, we were able to do things a lot faster. 

But we didn’t maintain good design practices, good engineering practices to ensure we had a foundationally secure software application or network. We just kind of had things happen. So we have authorizing officials that are trying to make decisions based on that history. Now, we’re not going to fix that overnight.  

But I would also propose that there are authorizing officials that are both accepting risk on behalf of an operational commander, that that operational commander then does not know that somebody has accepted for them and therefore they can’t make decisions. 

But I would also propose there are times when authorizing officials are too restrictive, because the operational commander might be willing to accept the risk on something because they’re going to be able to move inside the OODA-loop of the adversary and make the fact that there is a risk on their system not a factor, but that authorizing official doesn’t always think about that way. 

And that goes to what General Skinner talked about, is helping authorizing officials have better understanding of missions and systems, not just from a pure technology standpoint. There’s a lot of times where we try and evaluate things and it’s, ‘well, there’s a risk to the system, which means there’s a risk to a router, a server, a software application,’ but there’s not a good understanding of what the risk to the mission might or might not actually be. 

30:42 – 30:50  

(SK): And Sir, who in your mind is responsible for that educational piece? Does that come from the industry partners developing these tools or some other leadership within the Department? 

30:51 – 31:42 

(BS): I’m always most cautious because when I say shared responsibility, then a lot of people think that is nobody’s responsibility. But I do think it’s a shared responsibility.  

I think at the end of the day, since authorizing officials fall under the DOWCIO from a policy and procedure standpoint, they’re the ones who are ultimately responsible. But it has to be a shared responsibility with industry and with mission owners so that we can make sure that authorizing official, they got to be educated on the process itself and their responsibilities, but also whatever missions that they’re assigned as an authorizing official for and then industry, which I would offer industry loves to make things complex way too often.  

And the more complex you make something, the less comfortable that people are leveraging that technology and or authorizing it. And so the simpler that you can make it, the better at the end of the day. 

31:42 – 32:03 

(SK): We should note that the Department of Commerce is the one that issued the export control order that temporarily restricted the Mythos model.  

What does that demonstrate about the delegation of responsibilities and authorizations across the various departments of the U.S. government? How does that delegation complicate the vetting and approval process, and what can the U.S. government do to overcome that challenge? 

32:03 – 33:08 

(BS): Whenever you have multiple organizations involved in something that makes it more complex, and I talk to the industry about this all the time: you cannot have a transaction relationship and be successful. It’s got to be a partner relationship.  

And so as the Department of Commerce is making determinations on export control decisions, they have to be discussing with the Department of War, and I would say the State Department and others, to make sure that they understand all the implications of what that decision is going to entail, whether it’s going to be a productive one or if it’s going to hinder operations and or capabilities. 

And then at the end of the day, right there, the ones that ultimately held accountable and responsible. But it also gives an opportunity for the Department of War to go to the President as an example and say, “Mr. President, here’s the implications of this. We don’t agree with what the Commerce Department is going to do.” And then the President is the one ultimately who will make the decision based on national security. 

So I think there’s a partnership that has to be there in order for us to be successful, when we’re thinking about the export control and what it means to us. 

33:09 – 33:57 

(KC): I think that I would agree with the point that it really comes down to communication and partnership. Before we start to develop specific policy, we should be thinking about what is the outcome that we’re trying to achieve collectively? Put on that commander’s risk hat. What level of risk does one policy decision or another create to the mission? What are the effective controls that are appropriate to mitigate risk?  

So in all cases, I think the policy measures, really should come down to being risk-based, continuously informed with some data and evidence of their effectiveness and executable in a way that supports mission outcomes. 

33:58 – 34:19 

(SK): So in some ways the vetting and approval process can be described as “export control, plus trusted access.” But given the size and scale of the Department of Defense Information Network (DODIN), which includes the joint force, the defense industrial base, and international allies alike, is this process positioned to accommodate that size and scale required for the mission? 

34:20 – 35:56 

(BS): Well, I say it has to. I mean, at the end of the day, and I think that’s where the partnerships come into play is to enable that scaling. You mentioned the scale of the Department of Defense, Department of War networks. Think about: it is the third largest number of addresses in the world, the United States number one, China’s number two and the Department of War is number three. So that is significant from a scale standpoint.  

We all heard the saying of, “bureaucracy or headquarters staff simulate the enemy in peacetime.” And I think that there’s friction in peacetime of those processes and the amount of time that it takes to get through your approvals or the amount of time that takes to get those partnerships and those interagency, I’ll say, task force together to address. 

And so I would offer they are not where they need to be. And I think senior leaders know that and understand it. And they take that into their risk calculus, whether it’s something that’s internal that they’re working through or it’s something that’s external from an export control standpoint, they just continually work through that as part of their risk management process. 

But it’s still too slow. And the leveraging of technology has to be at the forefront because you have to understand them. And then you can make changes as necessary. And I just don’t think we’re there yet with all the different policies and procedures and understanding across the partnership realm. 

35:57 – 37:48 

(MR): And Scott, following up as General Skinner said, right? We’re talking about the DOW here and the impact of export control, which is very much national security based. But the challenge is the US does not have a lock on smart people and it’s a numbers game. There are 1.5 billion Chinese five times or whatever it is more than we have of U.S. citizens in this country. 

And we’ll go back to the nuclear weapons and coming out of World War II, that was a nation state it took to develop those capabilities. And we were utterly shocked how fast, despite our best efforts to control that technology and that information, how fast the USSR developed weapons with that. 

Move that to computers, we still try and control that and that’s part of what we’re using to control AI is the compute power to have the models run fast enough and generate that. As we move into models, once you have the compute power. And oh, by the way, every other country can develop that compute power, this is almost less about what the DOW does internally. We ought to be finding ways to use that technology.  

But the genie’s out of the bottle on AI. It’s not a matter of whether we can control it through export control. We tried that with nuclear weapons. We’ve tried that with compute power, and the same thing is going to happen with AI. We are going to have to be able to move fast, be agile, and honestly get out of industry’s way to allow them to develop fast enough. 

Because, as General Skinner said, our innovation is going to be better just because of the environment we’re in than an autocratic society is. If we try to control things in an autocratic manner, we’re not going to be successful. That’s fact. Industry and our commercial world develops fast enough, and that’s where we need to control what we can, but understand it’s not going to stay in the bottle forever. 

37:49 – 38:00 

(SK): And what about our international partners? They may have different policy, procedures, and approval processes in place when it comes to adopting innovative AI technologies.  

So in what ways does that factor into our discussion here? 

38:01 – 39:15 

(KC): I think I’ll jump in on that one. Scott. This becomes more of an alliance and international partner problem than a technology problem. 

I mean, the fact is that every international partner has a different set of legal authorities, privacy rules, security processes, and we shouldn’t expect identical approaches or identical laws. But we can establish a common set of mission assurance standards. So I think it really comes down to working towards that outcome and fundamentally getting to the point where with our allies and partners, we have some degree of federated trust. 

They have their policies and procedures, we have ours, but we have some common standards between us so that we have a federated trust. And we can verify that through those managed standards and credentials that we agree to as allies and we agreed to as coalition partners.  

This enables our partners to maintain sovereignty in their approaches. But we can still have interoperability, and we can still have a degree of trust to employ these technologies effectively in our coalition operations. 

39:16 – 40:40 

(BS): And I think, Scott, in my travels within the government and since I’ve been out of the government, our allies and partners, the first question they ask is what is DOW doing? So we have a leadership opportunity and they are looking at the U.S. relationship. That doesn’t mean, again, as Mike said, right? We don’t have monopoly on the talent. We don’t have a monopoly on the technology, but they’re looking at how we’re doing it, because what they understand is the things that we use. 

We develop playbooks, we develop TTPs, tactics, techniques and procedures. We develop all this around the technology from an operational success standpoint and operational maneuverability and or implementation and they like that. They want to see that because they don’t have the staying power and the buying power that we have. It’s just they just don’t. And that’s okay.  

So I think as we kind of continue these partnerships with our allies and partners and we continue this federated trust, I think it’s a golden opportunity because I think, again, at the end of the day, I think our allies and partners is what’s going to save the day against whatever China is trying to do in changing the rules-based international order.  

And technology is a good way of helping maintain that trust, because we can all see what the pros and the cons and the challenges and the opportunities are with that technology. So I think it’s while they do have different rules and different laws, and I think it is a force multiplier with allies and partners more so than it’s not. 

40:41 – 41:04 

(SK): Now, if you’re a commercial industry executive, and you’re providing a capability to one of the military services within the Department, what should your takeaways be from these recent developments on AI adoption, integration, and risk? 

And how should they, like the Department of War, similarly navigate this rapidly evolving environment where these innovative technologies are becoming available faster than the institutional procedures are capable of vetting them? 

41:05 – 43:22 

(KC): I think we’ve said a lot of this already, so I’ll footstomp a few of the points that have been made. First of all, it begins with moving beyond a transactional relationship, as Bob said, really has to be a partnership. As AI becomes part of our operational infrastructure in how we intend to employ our operations and enable our decision-making resilience relative to that, AI also needs to be built in together in a partnership. 

There needs to be active dialogue on policy and understanding how to present this information in a way that authorizing officials can understand the importance to mission, the risk to mission of certain controls. Industry can be a part of those conversations. Industry can be a part of the joint exercises and thinking through how the capability gets applied. 

I also think that it’s important for industry to recognize that, as we’ve said earlier, their AI capability may not always be there as something that we would employ or would be employable. For any number of reasons. It may become unavailable to the user. The biggest risk we can have with AI is overdependence on it, so we need to be thinking through that. 

And if there is a reason for that particular tool not to be available from a cyber standpoint, export controls, whatever the case may be, industry needs to be part of helping to ensure that there is enough resilience built into the capability that the mission can still be accomplished, the operator can still make the decisions, can still operate the capability effectively, and there’s graceful degradation. 

There’s continuity plans to ensure mission assurance. So industry and government need to be thinking about all of those aspects of working together with AI, not just all of the promise of leveraging the technology, but how to employ it through the enterprise. With all the enterprise factors at play, including policy and governance, and recognizing that resilience when it’s not available is just as important as being able to maximally leverage it when it is. 

43:23 – 44:23 

(BS): Industry, you got to know your own exposure, and that exposure can be internal to your organization. It can be the technology that you’re leveraging and or producing. It can be your supply chain. And Kim will love this one, right? It’s: understand your data flow. And that data flow will show you your dependencies and your potential issues and challenges across the board. 

And I think if you understand that as a company, then you can do the contingency planning that Kim talked about. You can enable a disaster recovery if necessary. You understand where you’re vulnerable to export control decisions before they even happen. And then you can actually advocate for yourself and or your position better. But if you don’t know your exposure, then you’re blind. 

And if you’re blind, then you’re more apt to be caught off guard by some of the decisions that the government may make in regards to your company and or the controls and or technology that you’re leveraging.  

43:24 – 45:36 

(MR): Sir I’d add to that, also is when I joined the military, 35 plus years ago, the DoD had the best computers in the world on my desktop. Within three years, I could buy a better computer for 10% of the cost, and the DoD stopped being able to drive requirements on the industry. So I think the government also has to be cognizant that despite what transactional approach you want to have to declare a model or a company to be not in vogue right now, if it’s the best model in capitalism, that best model is going to win. 

So the DOW and the U.S. government also has to be aware that they can’t cut their nose off to spite their face, just because they disagree with something industry has done or a company has done. We have to be able to work as we’ve talked about. It’s a partnership. It can’t be transactional. If we want to advance and be competitive as we move forward with AI and not allow the Chinese to take the lead that they want to take, we have to be partners and not transactional. 

45:37 – 45:46 

(SK): And so on that note: what steps can the government take to proactively facilitate those touch points with industry, so that industry leaders can recognize those opportunities when they’re presented? 

45:47 – 47:08 

(BS): You can have better partnerships today without going awry, legal and or contractual limitations. I think that’s first and foremost, because the more that you can sit down with industry and walk through your problems, the more industry can bring their commercial capabilities to bear to not only help DOW, but it also helps society as a whole. And you don’t have these, I’ll say one-off or two-off or unique government capabilities. That again, usually costs more and are less sustainable than if you can leverage the technology.  

 So I think part of this is, is okay, I have a process in place. I have a mission that I want to accomplish. If I understand the technology and the commercial company understands my process, there is a back-and-forth to get at a good solution to where I don’t need a one-off technology solution. Maybe I just need to tweak my process a little bit, and then that allows me to take full advantage of this commercial capability.  

There’s very minimal technology that the government and or society takes advantage of fully. And I think that partnership can help bridge that gap to understanding how we can better take full advantage of the technology that we have first and foremost, and then we decide if we need more technology based on that. So I think we are so far ahead of where we were from a partnership standpoint, and we just have to continue with that trust but verify going forward. 

47:09 – 48:22 

(MR): Yes, sir. I totally agree. The transparency that has to be in the requirements part of the process, what is it the government needs from AI? What is it the government is willing to do? And I think where you get in trouble, you get the risk averse is nobody wants a protest on a contract that’s let.

I think it becomes very important to be transparent up front so that every company has an equal opportunity to understand the problem set and help write what a requirement might be versus one company comes in and all of a sudden you drop a proposal that nobody else knew was behind it except 1 or 2 companies? I think that’s where you get into risk-averse.  

And then don’t stop the conversation when the proposal is out there. You have to continue to have a conversation because the business develops things, they learn things and they want to actually have a conversation with the requirement owner. So it’s that transparency through the process, keeping the conversations going. That’s an important factor so that businesses can understand, ‘Okay, this is where I can actually bring value as opposed to, well, I really don’t know what they’re looking for.’

48:23 – 48:40 

(SK): Thank you, Sir. Now each one of you represents a different role as part of Elara Nova’s Cyber, Data & Communications sector. So what can the strategic advisory firm, and the CDC team in particular, do to help provide that clarity and support needed to strengthen that partnership between the U.S. government and its industry partners? 

48:41 – 49:35 

(MR): I’ll go first as the junior partner here, I think the role that we have is to facilitate conversations with the right people. Each of us brings a different background and a different skill set. We bring a perspective that helps companies better understand what the government might be asking and how to shape their message to get their point across.

That’s an important thing, especially for businesses that in the tech industry and the new environment, AI, right? Many companies have never been involved with the DOW before. You have to talk about the operational problem. You can’t just say, ‘Hey, I have a cool solution.’ You have to say the problem you’re solving.’And I think that’s what Elara Nova brings, is helping companies do that and then get in front of the right person to go, ‘Oh, I can use that technology.’ 

49:36 – 50:24 

(BS): Mike was spot on. I think we bridged the gap with perspective and context for partnerships. That includes understanding the technology. It includes understanding the problem set includes understanding the challenges and where a technology and a problem can meet, and bringing them together in a faster manner than what they would to give optionality to the government, but also optionality to the technologist to understand other places that they can go and bring their technology to bear. 

But just as important is how do we bring technology companies together to solve a problem, right? So it’s this multidimensional, multi-domain understanding and context and perspective that brings all these organizations together for the common cause of our national security.  

50:25 – 52:25 

(KC): Bob and Mike really hit it on the head with a lot of why we created Elara Nova and what Elara Nova brings to bear. 

It really is about being able to bring a variety of perspectives. You know, our partner portfolio consists of people who have spent their time in mission operations, in technology development, in systems acquisition, in policy writing, in cybersecurity operations. So we have all these perspectives, all these disciplines where we’ve got folks that have spent their careers working in different agencies, both in the government and in industry. 

And so we can help bring together these entities, connect the dots, if you will, on all of these partners and help all sides understand how do you take this great idea, this great innovation, and make it available? So how can we, Elara Nova, help the government more fully leverage and take advantage of technologies?  

We do that by making sure that industry is very adept at conveying their message. What is the mission that they’re trying to solve with this innovation? But that they also understand the policy constraints and the challenges and how they need to work through those steps. 

We help government understand what industry is bringing to bear. We help government understand where policy may or may not be hindering the ability to leverage this technology effectively with the appropriate controls that need to be in place. So we’re really trying to bring all sides together and act as the connector in getting to resilient architectures that can leverage technologies in a way that can meet mission needs. 

And that goes for AI, that goes for any number of technology innovations that might be coming forward. There’s no company in the world that can do that. And so we’re very excited to be part of that solution and to have a fabulous team of folks as part of Elara Nova, like Bob Skinner, like Mike Robbins, and like the 150 or so other partners that really can deliver on that outcome. 

52:26 – 53:03 

This has been an episode of The Elara Edge. Elara Nova is the trusted global security partner delivering decisive advantage.  

As a strategic advisory firm, Elara Nova builds expert teams uniquely tailored for client needs to deliver actionable results. With the trusted insight to deliver your decisive edge, Elara Nova is your source for expertise and guidance in global security. 

If you liked what you heard today, please subscribe to our channel and leave us a rating. Music for this podcast was created by Patrick Watkins of PW Audio. I’m your host, Scott King, and join us next time at the Elara Edge.

Episode 41: NATO Ankara Summit Creates a Call-to-Action for Defense Industrial Base

The Elara Edge

Host: Scott King 

SME: General (Ret) James “Scorch Hecker, Senior Principal Advisor at Elara Nova (JH) 

Brigadier General (Ret) Chad Radeuge, President of the Cyber, Data & Communications sector at Elara Nova (CR) 

Tom Goffus, Executive Partner for Global Security (TG) 

Brad Head, Executive Partner for Global Growth (BH) 

00:02 – 01:46 

Heads of State and Government from 32 nations will gather at this month’s NATO Summit in Ankara, Turkey, looking to accelerate progress toward the goals agreed to at The Hague Summit last year.The Hauge Summit Declaration pledged to strengthen collective defense by committing member nations to spend 5% of annual GDP on defense by 2035, while deepening transatlantic defense industrial cooperation and reaffirming the alliance’s support for Ukraine.  

But now, several factors are also heightening the stakes of the Ankara Summit: Russia’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine, recent conflicts in the Middle East and “NATO 3.0,” or the increased pressure on allies to take on greater defense investment and burden-sharing responsibilities. In response to these factors, there is growing momentum as NATO nations increasingly invest in their defense capabilities, which also presents a call-to-action for the defense industrial base to respond in kind. 

Welcome to The Elara Edge! Today we’ll be looking ahead to the NATO Summit in Ankara and the context and conversations that member nations and the defense industrial base should be paying attention to – both at the summit and in the weeks and months to follow. 

We have four guests today, each with a unique and qualified experience that reflects both the complexity of the challenge NATO faces, as well as the opportunities the alliance has to meet its growing demands. 

Our first guest is retired General James “Scorch” Hecker, a Senior Principal Advisor at Elara Nova. Scorch recently retired after a 36-year military career with the United States Air Force, culminating in roles as Commander of U.S. Air Forces Europe, U.S. Air Forces Africa and Allied Air Command at NATO.  

Sir, welcome to the show! 

01:47 – 01:58 

(JH): Well, it’s great to be here. I really appreciate the opportunity, Scott, to address this very important topic. I think it’s going to be a pretty memorable summit that we have, so I’m looking forward to the outcomes. 

01:59 – 02:19 

(SK): We’re glad to have you. 

Returning to the show is retired Brigadier General Chad Raduege, President of Elara Nova’s Cyber, Data and Communications sector. General Raduege previously served as the Director of the Command, Control, Communications and Computers Cyber Directorate, as well as the Chief Information officer at Headquarters, U.S. European Command. 

Sir, welcome back to the show.  

02:20 – 02:22 

(CR): Scott, great to be here. Thank you.  

02:23 – 02:38 

(SK): Our third guest today is Tom Goffus, Executive Partner for Global Security at Elara Nova. He is the former Assistant Secretary General for Operations at NATO, and previously served as the Policy Director for the United States Senate Committee on Armed Services.  

Tom, thanks for joining us. 

02:39 – 02:52 

(TG): Thanks, Scott.  

02:52 – 03:12 

(SK): And also returning to the show as a familiar voice for our audience, and that’s Brad Head, Executive Partner for Global Growth at Elara Nova. A retired Colonel with the U.S. Air Force, Brad has previously served as the Chief of Defense Planning at the U.S. Mission to NATO and later served as the director of International Affairs at Space Operations Command. 

Brad, welcome back to the show.

03:13 – 03:15 

(BH): Thanks. It’s great to be here. Looking forward to this conversation.  

03:16 – 03:39 

(SK): So let’s jump right in. We’re here to discuss some of the expectations, challenges and the broader environment surrounding this year’s NATO summit in Ankara, Turkey, which will be held on July 7th and 8th, or shortly after we release this podcast. 

Now, Tom you just recently left NATO, from your post as Assistant Secretary General for Operations, so as the guest with the most recent experience at the alliance, I’d like to turn it over to you for some opening remarks.  

03:40 – 09:21 

(TG): Okay. Thanks, Scott. Let me just start with the framing from a NATO perspective. What I think most allies would tell you is that they see a more aggressive Russia, a more unpredictable America, and a more challenging China. And those are the dynamics driving allies to make decisions and take action. 

I should say first that the overall objective of the NATO summit is not to have a major blow up, not to have a fiasco. But overall, this year’s summit, if I summed it up in one word, would be ‘Implementation.’ The three big rocks at the NATO summit in Ankara, will be one: defense spending pledge implementation, two defense industrial production and innovation expansion. And number three, NATO 3.0 execution, also known as burden-shifting by another name. 

So, first: defense spending implementation. The 5% pledge is broken down into two parts, 3.5% on core defense requirements think planes, tanks, ships, and 1.5% on defense-related requirements such as critical infrastructure, defense industrial base and resilience. 

The 3.5% is very precisely defined, while the 1.5% is broad by design. That 3.5% aligns with the capability targets assigned to each ally as part of the NATO Defense Planning Process. And that process works as such: you ID the threats, that drives the building of operational plans, which in turn drives capability targets that are needed to execute those plans. 

The last targets were assigned and agreed in 2025. The next ones won’t be out until 2029. So I expect for 2029, several big new areas. For example, I expect space, autonomous systems, drones that is, and Arctic-specific capabilities. Those are just three areas that we expect to see new capability targets defined in.  

So back to spending for the summit. You can expect positive announcements. Poland and the Baltic nations could be at 5% as early as this year. Germany is shooting for 3.5% by 2029. Sweden is looking at 3.5% by 2030, and the other hard chargers that I expect will hit the line before 2035 are the Nordics and the Netherlands. 

Second, on defense production capacity and innovation: in order to actually translate money into capability, we have to have defense production capacity. And what has been clear is that increased defense spending without increased defense production capacity won’t result in more capabilities. It’ll result in more expensive capabilities. 

As the wars in the Middle East and Ukraine sharply underscore, our defense industrial base is currently not structured to produce what we need at the volume and pace required. And this key dynamic is why NATO has announced that the Defense Industry Forum that is connected with the summit in Ankara will be expanded into the largest industrial event in NATO’s history. At Ankara commensurately, I think NATO is expected to officially launch its front door for industry and that’s a single portal where contractors can upload their potential innovative solutions. Those solutions are then routed to the appropriate NATO point of contact, aimed at connecting industry directly with the alliance procurement needs at speed.  

And a third one – on the 18th of June, Secretary Hegseth brought this up with the allies – and it was called “NATO 3.0.” And what it means is that Europe and Canada will have capability gaps that they need and want to close alongside the money to do so. 

Now, here’s where I would offer a word of caution about rhetoric versus reality. The framing coming out of Washington is that America is forcing a reluctant Europe to finally carry its own weight. That is the political rhetoric. The data tells us a bit more of an interesting story. The Secretary General at that same defense ministerial said that European allies in Canada put in over $90 billion more into defense in 2025 than in 2024. That’s roughly a 20% single year increase. So the step up is not a future ask that the allies are resisting. It’s a present fact that they are already delivering on at a pace that has no precedent in the alliance’s history. 

Now, I want to be very clear that I’m not making a political argument here. I am making a market argument. Strip away the rhetoric and look at where the money, the capability gaps and the durable demand actually sit.  

So if America is generally stepping back from its conventional role in Europe, then Europe and Canada own the gaps and they also own the budget to close them. So your takeaway is Europe defense spending is rising faster than at any point since the founding of the alliance. And that demand is going to be met substantially through industrial production. So I’m going to stop there and conclude. Just a quick summary.  

First, avoid a fiasco. Make the event short and sweet. Second, allies are dealing with a more aggressive Russia, a more unpredictable America, and a more challenging China. And third, three big implementation rocks: defense spending, defense production and innovation and NATO 3.0. That is my framing for the Ankara Summit, and we’re hoping for a successful outcome there. Thanks, Scott. 

09:22 – 10:46 

(JH): Great opening there. Really appreciate you outlining the three big rocks and I think it’s important you mentioned some of the burdens-shifting. Getting an extra $90 billion over just a one year period is very important. But we need to make sure that we spend that money wisely in what I used to call an “integration by design,” and I’ll just use integrated air and missile defense as an example.  

 In the past, each country would buy their individual system. So we ended up having some systems, but unfortunately they didn’t talk to one another and that doesn’t work. So we got to make sure that there’s a force inside of NATO that can take this money, group it together, and buy a system for all of NATO that is interoperable amongst one another.  

Another thing that you talked about was shifting the money, the 5% and those kind of things. In some areas, that’s going very well. Let’s talk F-35. By 2032, we should have around 700 of them in NATO. What people don’t realize is of those 700, only 54 are going to be U.S. So that’s a good positive shift that we’re seeing.  

Now areas where we’re not seeing such a good shift is areas like tankers, AWACS, E-7 Wedgetaill, ISR platforms. So those are areas where we need to improve if we’re going to make this shift happen. So I’ll just pause there.

10:47 – 11:37 

(BH): One nuance that I would add. So I happened to be at the U.S. Mission and NATO in the run up to the Whales Summit, when the first investment pledge was agreed. And that pledge said that allies that were above 2% should stay above 2%, and allies that were below 2% should aim to move towards 2% within a decade, which was not particularly aggressive and hard to hold people to politically. 

And what we see in the updated investment pledge at The Hague Summit and what they expect to see at Ankara are investment plans. The nations are supposed to come with specific plans that show how they’re going to get to 5% by 2035.  

The other nuance in that investment pledge, the kind of why of the investment pledge was in order to fill their capability targets. But the whole point of it was to buy the types of stuff that we collectively need to meet our collective level of ambition, so we’ll unpack that in a little bit.  

11:38 – 12:18 

(TG): And I think really good point on the F-35, Scorch as well.  

The other thing that I emphasized before I left NATO, and this is more in Chad’s lane, and he’ll probably cover some of this later, but that’s a lot of data. A four ship of F-35s in an hour generally will produce four terabytes of data. If you can’t take that data and move it, process it and share it, then that’s a good chunk of your investment that’s on the cutting room floor. 

And so that’s going to be a big challenge is how to move big amounts of data, what gets processed at the edge and what gets pushed around the alliance. But I thought that was a perfect example of the shift in burden-sharing that is ongoing in Europe right now.  

12:19 – 12:41 

(CR): Tom, great point on the data-sharing. And what I would offer is the challenge for the alliance really is having an architecture in place that as you set up these things like a front door for industry to come in, that you don’t just buy a whole bunch of tools, but that you have an architecture that supports interoperability. If you don’t have that, then you’re not going to be able to communicate anyway. It’s a waste of money.

12:42 – 12:55 

(SK): Now, given the three priorities Tom laid out for us: there’s going to be a lot of different capabilities that NATO will be looking for moving forward.  

General Hecker, Sir, what do you see as the main capability gaps that NATO will have to address? 

12:56 – 15:28 

(JH): Yeah. Thanks, Scott. I think one of the ones that really stands out to me, that I struggled with a lot when I was the AIRCOM commander, was air defense  because ever since the Cold War ended, NATO has really kind of taken a knee when it came to investment in air defense. 

We would buy some things, but not near enough. And as an example of that, what we do when we kind of are putting together our air defense plan is we will take a look at what we call the Critical Asset List, and we would determine things that needed to be protected. These would be like airfields, oil production facilities, headquarter buildings, munition storage areas. 

And then there’s also another thing called the DAL, which is what you’re going to actually defend – the Defended Asset List. Well, there was a huge mismatch there. There was a lot more assets that we needed to protect than we actually could protect. 

And then you add the fact that the systems that we had weren’t always interoperable and then the third thing that really made the problem worse was when the Ukraine Russian war started, you had the introduction of these one-way attack vehicles. When I first showed up there, the war was just started about three months, and there would be a couple a day.

When I left, it was up to around a thousand a day from each country going against each other. And then the most recent attack that we just saw from Ukraine, they had basically a thousand of these things in one day, and the production capability has really increased in the country. So that compounds the problem that we have when it comes to defending these assets. 

 And the other thing that we need to think about is how are we going to sense these things? Because a lot of these are at low altitude. So a traditional radar on the ground doesn’t work as well. You know, once you get 10 or 15 miles away, they’re hiding at 500ft just because of the curvature of the Earth.  

So we need to make sure we can detect these things. And there’s capabilities that came out of Ukraine where they can do this with acoustics, which is basically putting up a microphone. And they got somewhere around 20,000 of these in their country now, and then they just take the acoustics that are coming from the noise that is emitted from the UAVs, and then they triangulate and they get a pretty good fixed position, and then they have mobile firing teams that can move out and shoot these things down. And they’re doing it in a cheap way, you know, with Triple-A and EW and things like this, that we just don’t have that capability near to what we need it to be in NATO.

15:29 – 16:24 

(TG): So on that Scorch, just curious, you’ve been watching both what’s been going on in Middle East and what’s been going on in Ukraine. Like you said, the threat is much more complex than we ever thought about before. I mean, in Epic Fury, you had two Iranian F-5s and they were just on Iran state TV. The pilots that got in and bombed a base in Kuwait. And to your point about curvature of the Earth, they were flying under power lines when they were doing that.

One of the things that I took away from both Israel and Ukraine is they don’t really do point defense, they do layered defense, thinning the herd, if you will. 

 And Ukraine, like you said, they don’t have all of their sensors around one particular city or one. It’s 20,000 of these things all the way across the country. So for me, one of the things is if you’re going to sit in your one point defense and hope that that’s going to save everything, that’s not how air defense works in the modern battlefield. But having said all that, what do you think, Scorch? What else strikes you that we should be taking away from the Middle East and or Ukraine?

16:25 – 17:30 

(JH): You know, number one is you can’t kill a threat unless you know it’s there. So we need the sensors, whether that’s acoustics, space-based, or radar on the ground or an E-7 Wedgetail up in the air, we need to be able to sense it in order to shoot it. 

And then we need the shooters. The ones that we have are pretty much exquisite ones that cost a lot of money. And we can’t be trading $3 million PAC-3 missiles for a $30,000 drone.  

Ukraine has figured out ways to shoot these things down at relatively cheap and now industry is definitely getting it. But we need to accelerate that to make sure that we’re prepared if something should happen, and then we need to make sure we have the command and control that connects all these things, so that the sensor detects the target, it gets to the shooter, and then the shooter shoots and we don’t want to waste missiles on it.  

So we got to make sure that the right shooter with the right probability of kill shoots that. And then we need operators that are trained to do it. And we need logistics to make sure that they get resupplied. So it’s not an easy problem, but it’s something that’s right in front of us and we just can’t look away from it.

17:31 – 17:45 

(SK): And taking that integrated air and missile defense example, you just spoke to a number of variables within that mission area alone. 

So as NATO looks to better field its integrated air and missile defense system, how does the alliance go about prioritizing which element goes first? 

17:46 – 19:10 

(JH): Yeah. Overall, when I look at the lessons learned from Ukraine and Russia war, the number one thing that stands out is neither side was able to get air superiority. 

So what we saw over the last three years is trench warfare, several casualties, bombings of civilian infrastructure and nothing that we want to be a part of. And if you contrast that with what Israel and the U.S. did against Iran, they were able to establish air superiority fairly quickly by doing counter anti-access aerial denial. So they were able to take those double digit surface-to-air missiles out and take other radar sensors that they had in Iran. And we could basically fly with immunity over Iran and take out high value targets, etc..  

What we weren’t able to do is take out all of their one-way attack vehicles. That’s just going to be a fact that we’re not going to be able to do that in the future, because they produce these things underground, they can set these things up anywhere, and it’s going to be difficult to get all of them. So that’s why we need to make sure that we invest in defensive capabilities for the few that actually get through. And we can’t do this for a long duration using expensive, exquisite shooters. We need to get way cheaper shooters to make that happen.

19:11 – 19:45 

(BH): And if I could add one nuance, Scott, to the way that you framed that question, I think a way a lot of people think about NATO. NATO is a collection of 32 nations that pool their resources to respond to a collective defense. NATO as NATO doesn’t actually own and operate most things.  

So one of the things that NATO can and should do is to provide that overarching framework that would allow countries to invest their resources in a coherent way so that those capabilities [that] come together, are interoperable and additive, and not that there’s gaps and seams. And that’s something I think we’ll talk about here in a minute, particularly as it relates to the space domain and the investments that are being made there.

19:46 – 19:50 

And as it relates to the space domain, what does interoperability look like for NATO? 

19:51 – 23:07 

(BH): Yeah, I think a couple things. One, NATO declared space an operational domain in 2019, but they’re continuing to struggle with defining what does that mean in practice?  

And so we see a lot of activity, but not necessarily the most coherent. For example, there are programs like the Allied Persistent Surveillance from Space, which is looking down like overhead imagery. 3SAS is focused on looking up. There’s a launch capability, there’s a SATCOM capability, there’s a group of nations that are getting together around these various mission areas and working on something.  

But there isn’t an overarching framework that is coherently driving those investments. Like I talked about. It’s not NATO as NATO investing in things. It’s individual nations investing in things. 

And when you get into something like space, which is very expensive and very complicated, that is ripe for these kind of multinational programs or even at the NATO level. Not that it would be a common funded, but the individual nations would be contributing to something. So there’s not a lack of programs, but there is a lack of coherent investment thesis. 

And so I think a couple of things that need to happen over the next period of time are in the NATO Defense Planning Process. In the last cycle, there was nothing for space, specifically. We need to get to a point very quickly that we are articulating those capability targets, which are the things that tell nations. Here’s what you need to go invest in.  

And I look at the Space Force. General Saltzman at the Space Symposium, rolled out the Objective Force baseline, clearly articulating by mission area, by geography. And there’s a classified annex that goes into more detail where we think we need to have those coherent investments.  

So that’s something even the US Space Force is still working on. So it makes sense that NATO would be struggling with that. But again, I think we need to get the right pieces in place, the right capabilities in place. 

And here a dynamic that we see a place is the commercial strategy. So there’s a team over there in the defense investment world that has created a NATO Commercial Space Strategy, which is largely in line with the U.S. strategy. But there’s an acknowledgment that in the same way the U.S. talks about e’ploit what you have, buy what you can and build only what you absolutely must,’ because it will cost billions of dollars and take decades to build capabilities and we have real operational challenges today.   

I think we’ve got commercial providers that are chomping at the bit to provide that. And so as this increase investment comes from the Hague Investment Pledge, and we have individual nations saying, “Hey, I’ve got X many millions of euros that I need to go spend and I’ve got to spend some of that on space, but I don’t have the first idea what is worth investing in.” NATO could help provide that framework so that we are investing those dollars in a coherent way to field real no kidding capabilities.  

And I think the last bit of that is the command relationships. And so once you get those pieces and parts together, NATO and Scorch can talk to this better than literally anybody because he owned that as the AIRCOM commander. He also owned the space function.  

There isn’t really a coherent way to command and control space capabilities that flows back through the U.S. under Operation Olympic Defender. We’ve got Space Force Space out at Vandenberg, which is the operational headquarters that actually deliver space effects on behalf of the U.S. And we coordinate with other nations under the Olympic Defender umbrella. But NATO as NATO does not really have much of an ability to command and control a space fight right now. 

23:08 – 23:45 

(JH): Yeah, Brad, information sharing when it comes to space is so important. The problem is a lot of nations, including ours, don’t share the information with the other countries, or in my case, the commander who is out there. So if I didn’t know what the capabilities were, it’s kind of hard to command and control it.  

So we were starting to tackle that and we released some things from the U.S. that previously we hadn’t released to NATO countries before, and I think that started the ball going, but I think we still got a long ways to go when it comes to information sharing, particularly when we talk about space. 

23:46 – 24:40 

(BH): Absolutely. I remember I went to the space ops commanders conference two years ago when you were still in that position and you said, “Hey, if I don’t know it exists, I can’t ask for it. So if you just want to whisper to I think it was Johnny Stringer. If you just want to tell one guy, tell Johnny, and he’ll be the keeper of all the information. You don’t even have to disclose how you would do stuff.”  

And then I understand. In the last year they actually put out a survey to try and get nations to in a more formal way to provide that input. And I think that that’s still a gap in the knowledge that’s missing. 

I know certainly from a U.S. perspective, that’s something that they’re interested in. And I think from a NATO perspective, the same thing: this idea of like, ‘Hey, what do nations have? What are they in the process of buying? And what would they be willing to do? From a trade-off perspective, would they be willing to invest in this capability as opposed to that capability, if they understood that in the aggregate everything was going to get taken care of? 

And I think that’s still something that we’re struggling with both from a NATO perspective and a U.S. bilateral with all the different nations’ perspectives. 

24:41 – 25:14 

(TG): Yeah, and I’ll just throw in on that. There’s an old policy from 2019 that misses the whole space revolution that basically says, “A couple of us big allies will take care of space for you – don’t worry about it.” But allies are moving out right now with or without capability targets.  

The Bulgarians have two nanosats doing Black Sea overwatch. They have their own satellite manufacturing company there in Bulgaria. So nations are going to move out one way or another in the next three years before those capability targets are there. And we do really need NATO to structure this so that we do it in a logical and effective way. 

25:15 – 25:45 

(SK): And on Brad’s point of NATO facing real operational challenges faced today in the space domain. We have a telling example from the Russian invasion of Ukraine, when one hour prior to the invasion, Russia deployed a cyber attack on a commercial satellite that Ukraine was depending on for their command and control. 

So here is an example of a country that was leveraging a commercial space service, which was then disabled in the context of a pending invasion. So to tie it back to the coming Ankara Summit, what conversation needs to happen today to make sure that NATO, or a NATO nation, doesn’t find themselves in a similar position? 

25:46 – 26:59 

(BH): If I was going to kind of reinterpret that question, I would kind of frame it in the terms of: Can we rely on commercial? If I have my own sovereign national system, I can protect that, and I know it’ll be there in the time of need. A commercial provider, whether it’s they say, “Hey, we’re not comfortable with you using that in a certain way, or they’re vulnerable to things that I’m not responsible for or able to defend them from those sorts of attacks.” 

It does present vulnerabilities. That is a challenge that has been acknowledged, and we’re actively working through that. But I do know that commercial providers in space are doing things that 5 to 10 years ago were the exclusive remit of a handful of nation states. 

And nowadays, if you’ve got a commercial provider who’s going to do on-orbit servicing and refueling, that is the equivalent of what is considered orbital warfare. If I can get up close enough to your satellite to touch it, fix it, refuel it, I can break it and take it where it doesn’t want to go. 

And so now we’ve got commercial providers doing everything up to and including that. It is unrealistic to think that we’re not going to rely on commercial, but there are challenges and risks, and we’ve got to ensure that we’ve got those systems available to us in a time of need. 

So that part of that is the agreements that we put in place. And part of that is, frankly, the agreements between those commercial providers and the government to go, “Hey, to the extent that you rely on these things, then there’s an obligation to protect those assets.”

26:60 – 27:14 

(SK): Thank you, Brad. And so NATO also has their political guidance window coming up in 2027. 

What opportunity does that present the alliance as far as taking a meaningful step towards ensuring NATO has space capabilities available to them at that future time of need? 

27:15 – 28:23 

(BH): This is a critical moment in time, right? So we mentioned the fact that in the last cycle, there wasn’t a demand signal from the political level of NATO to force the system to produce these capability targets that brought coherence to the space domain. 

The 2027 political guidance. If you look at the way the NATO Defense Planning Process operates, the guidance gets signed out that says, here’s what I want you to go do. Here is the level of ambition. Do these two big kind of conflicts, these 5 or 6 smaller conflicts, different geographies, different domains that results in what’s called the minimum capability requirement. 

So the guidance articulates that. And then there’s operational plans. And out of that we come up with here’s how much stuff we need. If there isn’t guidance in this cycle that says you will go develop some space capability targets, and we’ll figure out how we apportion those and how we hold people accountable to those and their kind of effects-based, not specifically platform-based. 

Then you’re going to miss the window of time. And if you miss this window of time, your next window is 2031, which won’t produce capability targets till like 2032-33 timeframe. So NATO has got to figure out in this next round of political guidance, a coherent approach to creating that demand signal for space, which includes the commercial stuff that we’re just talking about. 

28:24 – 28:49 

(SK): Now, moving this conversation forward once more, having 32 nations provide different systems and platforms to the alliance comes with an inherent integration problem that General Hecker referenced earlier. 

And going back to the F-35 example, there’s expected to be over 700 coming available to NATO through its member nations that will have to collect, process, and share massive amounts of data interoperably.  

So this question is for General Raduege. Sir, where does NATO begin to address this challenge? 

28:50 – 30:19 

(CR): Yeah, NATO begins with this by creating a framework of some sort of digital architecture to figure out how to connect those platforms. This modernization challenge where we have these digital assets and capabilities coming in and not having the reliant infrastructure associated with moving those capabilities, that information sharing that General Hecker talked about, it’s really a systemic problem and not the exception of today. 

What we’re seeing is really advanced platforms that are trying to operate on legacy networks, and they’re dependent on communications infrastructure that’s not designed for the contested environment that we’re asking it to fight in. And the big question is why? Well, I would say the digital backbone is harder to fund than the platforms themselves, and that’s simply because it’s a kinetic, non-kinetic discussion. 

What sells – that’s aircraft. What doesn’t sell is investing in your infrastructure. What we’re seeing is that innovation and modernization is indeed happening, and industry is, frankly, leading the way with many cross-cutting and great capabilities. But there’s no funding to put those capabilities in place. 

We can’t afford to just buy those capabilities and hope that interoperability works. So our biggest operational consequence, and really the threat to the alliance, is that every investment is dependent on the digital foundation that has not been proven under attack. If you summarize it in a meaningful way, the comms infrastructure is the limiting factor in this case. 

30:20 – 30:50 

(SK): And so, how does that also factor into the expectation that any system or platform leveraged by NATO is not going to be operating in a benign environment? In any modern day operation, there’s going to be a contested environment where every system is going to be facing jamming, spoofing, and electronic warfare attacks. 

So this question comes back to the command and control aspect, which we saw Russia directly target when it first invaded Ukraine. How does NATO ensure its command and control and the foundational networks you were referring to is resilient to this myriad range of attacks?

30:51 – 32:43 

(CR): Yeah. Resiliency, the word that we often utter, but quite honestly, sometimes misunderstand. When we talk about resilient command and control, we’re talking about having multiple pathways, whether that’s satellite, terrestrial, airborne, HF, what we would call our PACE Plan or Primary Alternate Contingency Emergency communications. It requires some sort of zero-trust architecture that always assumes that the network is compromised. 

It requires that cross-domain solutions allow for appropriate classification sharing at speed, and that there are pre-delegated authorities to allow commanders to act when that connectivity is degraded. And what I would say is that there are indeed pockets of excellence, but there’s an alliance-wide architecture that really remains a very fragile environment. 

The hardest part is not the technology itself, and it’s not the integration of that technology. It’s really the culture. It’s a cultural decision that must be made where we accept that the network is degraded and we design and train to that reality rather than optimizing for some sort of peacetime efficiency.  

The cyber command gap is real and Brad talked about some of that command gap on the space side. But frankly, NATO’s Cyber Operations Center provides coordination and situational awareness right now. They do not have the same authority to employ integrated cyber effects across the allied networks in times of crisis.  

NATO, what they really need is an exercise series that specifically designs to break the command and control under attack, not to test the architecture when it works, but to find where it fails when the crisis begins. Frankly, the days of assumed and exercised exquisite comms is over. We must practice resiliency in this place.

32:44- 33:27 

(JH): Yeah, Scott, I can just throw in when I would do my exercises. There is nothing more frustrating than if I had a team at a certain base and they didn’t even have a classified network, and there’s several bases that don’t. 

So then we built some teams that could go up and set up a classified network and then there’s different levels of classifications. Like when we were talking with space, some it’s just at the secret collateral level and then you need some that go beyond that and that needs to be a lot greater in the NATO countries.  

And I think there’s some good progress being made there. But we need to improve that even more, and then we need backup plans on top of that.  

33:28 – 34:22 

(CR): Yeah. General Hecker, that’s a great point. I had the privilege of serving with you in the European theater under the command of General Cavolli. General Cavolli at the outset of some of the Ukrainian operations, had an observation when he would go into some of the coalition C2 centers and at times there would be 80% of the environment was set up for U.S. secret and above operations, and the remaining 20% was all behind some plywood walls. 

And we’d say, go and do all the Coalition and Alliance comms over there. But never could the two speak. And so he would come to me and he’d say, “Chad, really what we’re looking at is the future fight is not 80% U.S. secret and above. It’s really 80% alliance coordinated activity where we can talk amongst ourselves and maybe you have that exquisite 20% that’s off in the corner, but we need to switch the model of what we currently have in place. 

34:23 – 34:56 

(SK): And another follow-up question for you, Sir. Earlier Brad spoke to the opportunities to leverage the commercial space industry for NATO’s space needs. But what about commercial opportunities in the cyber realm? Things like commercial cloud, commercial communications, data service exchanges, things of that nature. 

So, my twofold question here is this: One – what opportunity exists for NATO and NATO member nations to leverage commercial opportunities in cyber and cyber-related technologies? And two – how does NATO, to Brad’s point earlier about commercial space, ensure that resiliency, in its cyber systems? 

34:57 – 35:54 

(CR): It’s a great question. And what I would offer is that you start with the bottom line up front, which is asking yourself two important questions. 

 First, which commercial services are so operationally critical to your entire operation that their loss would degrade the mission execution? Question two is what is your plan to fight without those capabilities? You ask yourself those two questions and you start building in opportunities and resiliency.  

 There is continued opportunities for commercial providers to integrate into our live operations, and whether that’s some sort of stress testing exercise, simulating attacks, working through physical disruptions, having our commercial partners that are there, providing those capabilities from a cloud environment to cyber tools and techniques, having all of those things in place, I think creates a more realistic environment for us, and it also allows for that resiliency to be learned together.

35:55 – 36:14 

(SK): Thank you, Sir. Now as we look to close our conversation today, I have three remaining questions and I’d like each of you to respond to.  

The first is, given our discussion around the likelihood of the threat coming at the seams, what is the biggest seam NATO should be cognizant of and be prepared to protect against? And how does the alliance go about doing that? 

36:15 – 37:21 

(TG): Scott, I’ll go first on seams. Where Iran in Epic Fury, where we had the leakers come through our air defenses were generally along the seams. One of the biggest ones were the air pictures between the Army and the Air Force and I talked to the Ukrainians who went down with their system to go take a look at it. And they were like,”This is crazy.”  

There are 23 or 25 different air pictures, and they’re not all shared. And to Scorch’s point earlier, when you’re not sharing the air picture, either one you’re going to miss and you’re going to get leakers like what happened, or two, you’re going to fire more weapons at what you’re shooting at, then needed in an already adverse cost-ratio exchange.   

So the seams go right back to what Chad was talking about which is the exchange of information in the most seamless way is necessary. And in missile defense, one of those seams as Scorch brought up is the air and space seam that’s going to get bigger as space plays more in missile defense. 

 We’re going to have to sort that out before we spend the more than 100 billion on Golden Dome, because otherwise we’re just building on a rickety foundation and that’s not going to go well. 

37:22 – 39:31 

(JH): Yeah, Tom, let me talk about another one. This is more on the offensive side, but we do not have the capability to produce in the quantities available of offensive one way attack vehicles that are launched from NATO toward our enemy country that we’re fighting, and they’re cheap. So it’s easily the capability to get some of the nations that can’t afford F-35s, for instance, to buy a bunch and build the capacity to build a bunch of these one way attack vehicles. 

And those one way attack vehicles are not necessarily just going to be used like they are in Russia and Ukraine right now, but they will be part of a larger, coordinated attack for counter anti-access aerial denial. So you’re going to have space providing intel and EW and those kind of things. You’re going to have F-35s with stealth going in. 

You have to have the tankers to refuel all of this. You need your AWACS and those things going in as well. And we saw that they were able to make it happen in Iran with Israel and the U.S. But we need to practice that a lot more and then integrate these one-way attack vehicles at the same time, because that just creates a lot of confusion and the success rate will go way up if you can do that. 

And not only does it do that, it empties the enemy’s magazines. So now they are on the wrong side of the cost curve. They’re spending SA-10’s going after $30,000 drones as opposed to vice versa. So I think that’s a seam on the offensive side that we really need to get after and NATO has the capability to do that, particularly with some of our smaller countries. They would be perfect for doing that. 

And when I would talk to them, they’re more than willing. The biggest thing is when they go ask their defense minister to do it. There’s not a requirement, or at least there wasn’t when I left, I was trying to make it a requirement on the list of what NATO needs for equipment. 

There was nothing in the way of one-way attack vehicles. I don’t know, Tom, if that ever got through in that they’re on the list now. But defense ministers aren’t going to buy something that is not on the list that NATO needs.

39:32 – 40:35 

(TG): It’s a great point. And Brad, chopped down this road with the new political guidance that’s coming out in 2027. They didn’t make the list as far as I can tell. And it’s going to be a hard list because what kind of drones do you want or do you need? Do you specify a number of drones?  

It’s really about the effects. So where they’re going is effects-based kinds of things. And actually what they’re sitting on for 2029 is a disposition that is like if normally your country got told you need four fighter squadrons and you can come back to them and go, really, all I need are two fighter squadrons and four different squadrons of drones, and I can achieve the same effects. I’m just giving you a hypothetical.  

Nobody knows how to do that yet. And basically what NATO has done is go, “We’re open. Give us the argument, prove it to us, and we’ll accept it. More than likely.” 

So there’s going to be a real need for operational analysis to kind of come up with that and figure out what those capabilities are to do that. So it’s a really good point on the drones. And you’re right, it’s a big gaping hole in what NATO capabilities we have right at this minute.  

0:36 – 41:25 

(CR): Scott, I’d come in and talk about the digital seam. When we think about NATO communications architectures, faced with simultaneous jamming, cyber intrusions, physical attacks, and that those information sharing gaps between the Allied networks, that’s where we need to invest our time and our resources. 

We should be celebrating the fact that we found gaps, and that we’re closing those gaps through technology or processes. We should not be white carding these exercise environments. We should be recognizing that finding those gaps is exactly what the future fight is all about and we have to figure out a way of fighting through that.  

So it’s no longer a lost training environment because you can’t send the email. It’s no longer that the network is down and so everybody goes home. Now you have to figure out how to work through that and fight through that at the digital seam.

41:26 – 42:20 

(BH): And I think so I’ll end this off with sounding like a broken record. But on the space side, I think clearly articulating what the collective set of requirements that we need so that we have coherence in the investments that 32 individual nations are making, and then having the ability to command and control those effects. 

I mean, space is critical to any future battlefield in the same way cyber is. And so they’re going to have to figure out how to command and control those effects, particularly in the space domain. You think about like electromagnetic warfare capabilities, who’s doing PNT and SATCOM jamming, and what can I do about it? If I had some systems in the same way that we have like Patriots that do defense, we’re going to have those sorts of systems.  

And so even if it just starts with that regional EW kind of capability, getting those capabilities chopped to NATO and then having somebody with the authority to command and control those on behalf of General Grynkewich, as SACEUR, and then having the actual tools and systems that are able to do that kind of work, I think is something that needs to be sorted out over the next period of time.

42:21 – 42:30 

And as far as the Ankara Summit itself, what will you be looking for both at the summit and in the weeks and months to follow? What will be your metrics for success coming out of it? 

42:31 – 45:41 

(TG): I’ll lead off again on that. I’m focused primarily on the defense production and innovation follow through. And then on NATO 3.0, the only way that’s going to get fixed is by producing a lot more capabilities for European and Canadian allies. 

And I’m looking for two aspects out of that. You know, the cost exchange ratio of a $3 million PAC-3 against a $30,000 drone. This came up with the Ukrainians interestingly enough.  

In 2023, at the Munich Security Conference, he was the minister of Strategic Industries Commission. The Ukrainian asked to see me. And so I walk up and I say, “Hey, what’s going on?” And he goes, “Well, because here’s my issue. I have three different anti-tank weapons. I know how much each one of them cost by going on the internet. And I know from the battlefield how many it takes on average to kill a tank. So I’m doing cost-ratio analysis.” 

And he said, “Tom, I’d like to talk to the people at NATO that are doing this.” And I said, “Yeah, I’d like to too.” It’s not how we thought before, but it’s what we need to get at. So I’d like to see some progress on cost-ratio analysis. We’re talking about it more, but something needs to be done there. 

And then the other piece is on the acoustic sensors that Scorch mentioned, 20,000 of them. I talked to the guy that put that architecture together, and I said, “So was this some kind of requirement that the Ukrainian government gave you to fill to put acoustic sensors out here?” He goes, “No, there was no requirement when we saw that our friends and our relatives were dying and getting hurt and so we wanted to do something about it. So we made this up as we went to figure out how to do that.”  

They did not wait for an RFP and a full blown set of requirements to move forward. And it’s a different ecosystem than what we’re used to and we got a lot to learn from commercial. 

And one of the things that we were trying to and Chad will appreciate this. I was trying to get cloud solutions for NATO before I left and they said, “Oh boy.” Well, if you started tomorrow to get approval to pursue one of those kind of things, by the time you go through all the committees, it’s 54 months before you can spend the first euro.” 

54 months. That’s the process to get all the approvals done. And I said, “You got to be kidding me? Everything will be in a rearview mirror by then.” And they said, “Nope, that’s how the process works.” So we need to fix the process. And the folks at NATO headquarters know that. And this is the process of acquisition and what I think it needs to go down is there are a couple things that the Ukrainians do. 

They don’t let the perfect be the enemy of good. They have the operators talking directly to the innovators. When I went to Ukraine in March, I talked to one drone manufacturing company and she said, you know, “We set up 1-800 hundred number for the operators.” I go, “What do you mean?” She goes, “Well, you know, the guys on the front lines every night flying the drones. We gave them 1-800 fix it number so they can call in 24/7 directly to the engineers to get a patch made on the drone. When they see something not work, they just pick up the phone and call. And that next day they have a patch that tries to fix whatever they highlighted.”  

That’s not how our system works, in general. So if we’re going to get somewhere operators talking to innovators, don’t let the perfect be the enemy of good. Build it, try it, fix it, and rinse, lather, repeat. It’s more of the commercial operation than waiting on an RFP and doing a 30-day campaign to try and get a program a record going.

45:42 – 46:38 

(JH): What I’ll be looking for is, you know, last year they had the five-fold increase in IAMD commitment. What are they going to do this year to follow through with that? Because there needs to be a named force package review with measurable readiness standards to push this thing forward or otherwise we’re going to be here on this podcast next year talking about the same thing, right? So that needs to happen.  

How much we talk about the 5% GDP? That is 100% necessary. And the system that we need, needs to be integrated by design from the get-go. So everything’s talking to everything else, and we need to take advantage of all NATO countries capabilities, whether it’s exquisite capabilities like a Patriot or a simple triple-A on the back of a pickup truck that can shoot down a one way attacks, we need all of them. So we just need to get after it. So that’s what I’m going to be looking at, at the outcome of this.

46:37 – 47:06 

(CR): Well, I’m going to be looking to see whether a coalition digital backbone initiative is in fact directed with the specific architecture requirements that we’ve talked about, or whether the cyber and comms resiliency efforts will remain at the 1.5% category level. 

We do have a precedent for this in the alliance. We have NATO interoperability standards. On the communications protocol side. We need the same on the digital and data side as well and that’s what I’m going to be looking for.

47:07 – 47:53 

(BH): Yeah. And I think I would say the specific concrete plans for getting to 5% and investing those things in a coherent way, particularly as it regards the space domain, getting those capability targets in the NATO Defense Planning Process and the political guidance agreed, and then providing that coherence, updating the NATO space policy. When you talk to people over there, they go. “It’s still fit for purpose because it doesn’t keep us from doing anything that we want to do.” That’s certainly one way to look at it, but it also doesn’t tell you where you’re going and what you need to be able to do.  

So I would prefer if it was much more aggressive and forward leaning and driving things, as opposed to just looking and go, “oh, it doesn’t keep us.” That would be my pitch, is that we have a much more coherent way forward on the space domain to take advantage of the increased resources that are coming in as a result of the political moment that we find ourselves in.

47:54 – 48:11 

(SK): Now, our audience is made up of leadership across government and industry, who will also be paying attention to the conversations and actions coming out of the Ankara Summit. 

Can you share a little bit about Elara Nova and how the strategic advisory firm is positioned to support them as they respond to NATO’s needs?

48:12 – 49:02 

(TG): I think that what we’re seeing in Europe right now, the desire to grow the defense industry production pie means partnerships are going to win, despite the political shin-kicking that’s going on, companies still want to work with American companies. American companies have a lot that they can do with European companies. 

There’s a real opportunity here. And one of the things that Elara Nova can do is help companies navigate the partnership landscape. Who should you be partnering with? What countries are most forward leaning in the areas that you want to work in? 

That’s something that Elara Nova can be really good at helping companies in a bit of a matchmaking regime in order to get to the point where we can produce enough to, as Scorch said, to spend that money smartly rather than just spend that money. Scorch? 

49:03 – 49:32 

(JH): Tom talked about the 90 billion increase. Hopefully we get another 90 billion next year, and it looks like we might be on the U.S. side to 1.5 trillion. So there’s lots of money out there.  

And what Elara Nova can do is help you get partners and make sure that we spend that money wisely, like Tom said. So that’s with the operational backgrounds that we have with a lot of the folks that are on board, they can make that happen and we can do it smartly and your company can make money out of it as well.

49:33 – 50:05 

(CR): What I would offer from an Elara Nova perspective is that our value proposition is working at those seams. And we talked about seams in this conversation quite a bit, but what takes place in space and aerospace and cyberspace and how those things are interoperable together, that’s where Elara Nova is built, is to have these remarkable people that we have an opportunity to work with, with the relationships that we have around the world to integrate all those in a very meaningful way and so it’s that integration between multiple domains.  

50:06 – 51:16 

(BH): And I think I would say a couple of things. One, as we see nations going through these transformations, helping nations navigate those institutional capacity building, we have an unrivaled team of experts who have been there and done that at the very highest levels that can come alongside our allies, partners and friends and help them to navigate those transitions to say, “Hey, we learned lessons and you don’t want to go down this road. Here’s something you need to start thinking about early.” So we have the ability to kind of help in that regard from a national perspective.  

And I think with our commercial clients, whether it is European providers in this case who are trying to penetrate the U.S. market, or U.S. companies who are trying to penetrate the NATO market, the days of waiting for an RFP to then compete for a program of record and then be the company that wins that, and you’re going to have that business for the next 10 or 20 years. That moment is passing.  

And so understanding where the requirements are emerging and skating to where the puck is going. We’ve got the ability to provide some very unique insights in that regard, because we have deep understanding at the highest levels of where those enterprises are moving. And so I think we can help clients on both sides of that house understand where they should be going and where they should be investing that would be something that Elara Nova is fairly uniquely positioned to help with.

51:17 – 51:54 

This has been an episode of The Elara Edge. Elara Nova is the trusted global security partner delivering decisive advantage.  

As a strategic advisory firm, Elara Nova builds expert teams uniquely tailored for client needs to deliver actionable results. With the trusted insight to deliver your decisive edge, Elara Nova is your source for expertise and guidance in global security. 

If you liked what you heard today, please subscribe to our channel and leave us a rating. Music for this podcast was created by Patrick Watkins of PW Audio. I’m your host, Scott King, and join us next time at the Elara Edge.

Episode 40: From NASA to the Pentagon, Commercial Space Takes Center Stage in “Rocket Dreams"

The Elara Edge Podcast

Intro/Outro: Scott King, Strategic Communications Manager, Elara Nova (SK) 

Host: Mike Dickey, Founding Partner, Elara Nova (MD) 

SME: Christian Davenport, Author, Rocket Dreams (CD) 

00:02 – 01:30 

(SK): When the Artemis II crew splashed down in the Pacific Ocean after their record-setting mission around the moon – America was watching. Just over 27 million peopleacross the nation’s largest television networks tuned in to follow their re-entry.  While the Artemis II mission was a precursor to America’s actual return to landing on the moon – it was aptly timed for Christian Davenport’s new book, Rocket Dreams: Musk, Bezos, and the Inside Story of the New, Trillion-Dollar Space Race, which chronicles the commercial dynamics and geopolitical tensions defining the modern day space race against China. 

Welcome to “The Elara Epilogues,” a special edition series of The Elara Edge podcast where the space industry’s leading journalists and authors join Elara Nova partners to discuss their published work covering today’s ever-evolving space environment. Founding Partner Mike Dickey, the former Chief Architect of the United States Space Force, is returning to the host seat today.  

Mike will be joined by Christian Davenport, the former Washington Post reporter and author of the 2025 book Rocket Dreams. Together, they’ll discuss how Rocket Dreams continues the storyline from Christian’s 2018 book The Space Barons, which we previously covered in the inaugural episode of “The Elara Epilogues.” A link to that conversation will be in the show notes.  

And on one additional note for our audience, this podcast was recorded prior to the SpaceX IPO. 

Thank you for joining us and onto the show… 

01:31 – 01:34 

(MD): Okay. Christian first, welcome back to the Elara Edge. 

01:35 – 01:38 

(CD): Hey, it’s so good to be back. Thanks for having me back a second time. I really appreciate it.  

01:39 – 01:53 

(MD): Yeah, that first time was over a year ago. And we were talking about Space Barons, which was your first space book. And in this interim period, it’s been long enough for you to have written and released another book, Rocket Dreams. 

I think September of 2025. Is that about right?  

01:54 – 02:48 

(CD): Yeah, that’s right. Rocket Dreams came out late last year. It’s something of a sequel of sorts to The Space Barons. I mean, the Space Barons, as you might remember, covered the early days of the commercial space industry. Elon and SpaceX and Jeff Bezos and Blue Origin and Virgin Galactic and Richard Branson and Paul Allen and you know, Mike, after that book came out in 2018, I thought at some point there would be enough material for another book. 

I just didn’t realize it would be within seven years or so. I thought it would be at least a decade. But there’s so much going on in this little industry of ours, and it’s moving so quickly that I looked up, called my agent. I said, ‘Hey, I think we have enough here for another book, because so much has happened and Rocket Dreams came out – and it comes out right before the Artemis II mission. And it seems like before too long there might be enough material for a third, so we’ll see.

02:49 – 02:59 

(MD): No, that’s right, it is definitely a dynamic time in this business. It’s not your first series of books that you wrote. Your first book was not about space. Can you maybe tell? I think our audience would like to hear about what you did there. 

03:00 – 04:29 

(CD): Yeah. So that was a book called ‘As You Were: To War and Back with the Blackhawk Battalion of the Virginia National Guard. And, you know, at the time, I was a metro reporter at the Washington Post after 9/11 and the war in Afghanistan and Iraq. And I was watching citizen soldiers, you know, service members from the reserve component, you know, the guard and reserve being called up in extraordinary numbers. 

We’re talking about firefighters and police officers and teachers and paramedics. And I was watching this strain that was putting on local counties and municipalities having so much of their workforce deploy. And we have big Pentagon reporters who were covering that. And we had reporters who were embedded with the 101st Airborne and 82nd Airborne and some of the big Marine units. 

And I was looking at it and was curious about the reserve component. So I embedded in Iraq with a unit from Virginia, they were a Blackhawk unit, and then toward the end of their tour and then came home with them and wanted to be sort of the first reporter to embed on the home front and to watch them transition back from being – we were in Anbar province at al-Asad Air Base – and then you process out through Fort Dix in New Jersey, and then the next day you’re civilian again and you’re not at some big Army base like Fort Campbell. 

They’re just home and trying to resume their lives again after just leaving Iraq. And so I wrote about that experience, which it was very rewarding. I’m still in touch with a lot of those soldiers to this day. 

04:30 – 04:36 

(MD): Oh, I bet. I mean intensely personal and not an easy ‘I’ll just jump back in and do my day job right.’ 

It’s not an easy transition psychologically.  

04:37 – 05:29 

(CD): No. And I wanted to highlight that particular sacrifice. And then also one of the bigger themes is the role of the citizen soldier. I mean, that goes back to the Revolutionary War and the citizen-based militia and the National Guard being part of the country’s fabric. And, you know, the 29th Infantry Division, which is the unit I was embedded with, fell under the 29th ID. 

And those units stormed the beaches of Normandy at D-Day. And we got away with that because they didn’t call up the guard and reserve during Vietnam, which was already a very unpopular war. And they had the draft. And then we saw in Iraq and Afghanistan, and without the draft, they kind of needed the guard and reserve component. And at the time, people remembering Vietnam was kind of like, hey, what’s going on? Why are we relying on these citizen soldiers so much? And the fact of the matter is that’s the way the founders actually created it. So it was done on purpose.

05:30 – 05:54 

(MD): Awesome. So then you go to the business desk, your financial desk at the post, right? And this is where you end up kind of getting into this space business. And so now you write Space Barons. You are a consulting producer on two TV shows, one of which won an Emmy. 

Congratulations on that. Not too many authors win Emmys. And then Rocket Dreams? So I personally am not a medical professional, but I think you have caught the space bug. So what gets you excited about this topic?

05:55 – 07:14 

(CD): It’s funny that, you know, I’ve covered the military. I had done a stint in covering politics and editing and the space thing really just grabbed me from the moment, the way it just does. 

And I use this quote, it’s a Jeff Bezos quote, and I use it with my kids. And I say, “You don’t pick your passions, your passions pick you. But you have to have your antenna up.” And, you know, I didn’t grow up a big space fan. I was born in 1973. So after the Apollo program, I don’t think I was riveted too much by the shuttle. 

Actually, my first space memory is Challenger exploding, and so I didn’t grow up a space nerd. But started watching what was happening in the commercial sector, and rockets that would fly to space and then fly back to Earth and land, and the space baron billionaires getting into it and the rivalries and just how NASA was changing and relying on these companies. 

And I thought, ‘You know, there’s something really here.’ And as a journalist, they say that old adage, ‘Follow the money.’ And I thought if the richest people in the world were putting their money into this, we should be paying attention to it. And it’s just really grown and expanded to the point where you have room for not just one book, The Space Barons, but now this other one, Rocket Dreams. 

And of course, others have written books as well. And we’ve seen, you know, a little bit of a boom in that, and it’s spreading now into national security space is something that’s become very, very important.  

07:15 – 08:06 

(MD): Yeah, no doubt this is where Elara Nova has at its roots is continuing to mature space security on a U.S. and a global scale. 

So if we go back to Space Barons and to our listeners who haven’t done their preparatory homework for this podcast, you should go back and listen to that podcast, in April last year, we talked about it. But Space Barons introduced us to four billionaires who all wanted in some way to drive a space agenda, really for their own reasons. 

Right? It wasn’t all the same. They all had their individual motivations. But now we get into Rocket Dreams, and it looks like it’s come down to a two person or two company race. Blue Origin and SpaceX, Bezos and Musk. And so 2018 is where the book starts. And there’s been sort of a lot of hype, but maybe not a tremendous amount of progress. 

So take us back to the start of the book and where we are at that point. And then what are some of the arcs in the story as you go through Rocket Dreams?

08:07 – 11:44 

(CD): Yeah, so I think the Space Barons, you know, which covered the early days of the commercial space industry and their interaction with NASA, I think it posed a question. 

The question was, you know, ‘is this sort of commercial paradigm for real?’ The public private partnerships that NASA was using — is this a viable industry? Is this going to have any kind of growth, or is it a flash in the pan? And the answer comes in Rocket Dreams and it’s clearly a yes. And you can see that manifested in the fact that you are putting astronauts on rockets and spacecraft that are owned and operated by the private sector and not by the government, then that’s a big deal. 

And NASA is obviously outsourcing human spaceflight to the commercial space sector. You’ve seen the growth of space tourism. We’ve seen a proliferation of the space industry beyond just the Space Barons. I mean, I focus on Blue Origin and SpaceX, but there’s a proliferation of that. And then third, what you see carrying through the theme of Rocket Dreams is, for the first time, NASA really having some momentum of building the Artemis program to return to the moon and having that program survive subsequent presidential administrations. 

And we haven’t had that since Apollo. We haven’t had a deep space human exploration campaign survive one administration to the next since the Apollo era. And so I tell a lot of that story here in Rocket Dreams. But yes, we revisit SpaceX and Blue Origin, aligning themselves to move forward with NASA on this moon program. And that’s where the story begins. 

It begins with the transition team. President Trump has just won the election, and he is meeting with various companies. And they’re telling them, ‘Hey, we want to go to the moon. And what can you do to help us go to the moon?’ And Blue Origin, which had been left behind SpaceX, had moved so far ahead and Jeff Bezos tells his team like, ‘Hey, we need to compete. 

Everything SpaceX goes after, we’re going to go after.’ And so as Blue Origin’s executives are meeting with the Trump transition team and they’re saying, ‘We want to go back to the moon,’ they say, ‘Okay, well, we’ve just landed our suborbital space tourism rocket, New Shepard, in the West Texas desert. And well, we can build something like that and land it on the moon. 

And the executives, they completely made it up. They did not have a moon program. They did not have a lunar lander. But they knew that Bezos and the leadership really wanted to align themselves with NASA and start winning government contracts, start bringing real revenue. So they make that pitch to NASA, and then they have to go back and tell their boss. 

At the time, it was Rob Meyerson, the president of Blue Origin, ‘Hey, you’re not going to believe what we just did. We just pitched NASA on a lunar lander.’ Rob calls Bezos and says, ‘You’re not going to believe what the guys just did.’ And Bezos loved it and went all in, even helping write the proposal for a lunar lander himself and then pitching it himself. 

And so you see that the lunar lander competition is sort of the central tension, I think, of the narrative, because of course, SpaceX bids on it as well. Everyone thought Blue Origin was going to win this contract, but they ended up losing it to SpaceX. But it really brings us to today, where now they’re opening it back up in this competition, and we’re seeing them compete. 

So the book really sets that up. And there of course, some subthemes about it with this space race with China and the role of NASA and others. But I think that’s sort of the general arc of the story. 

11:45 – 12:30 

(MD): So let’s pull on the NASA thread a little bit, because that culture has had to evolve a lot. And a lot of the agency’s energy in the human spaceflight program. They have people living and working in space on the International Space Station 24/7, 365 and getting resupply and crew back and forth, obviously, was their focus for many years. 

And now they find themselves sort of pushed by these companies instead of the government pulling and wanting to do things. These companies want to do things bigger. They want to do things faster. And so how do you see the evolution of the cultural piece of NASA and their willingness to embrace the private sector influence?  

There’s a great story in the book about the astronauts. They want a stick, they want to fly the spacecraft, and they don’t get a stick because it’s a private enterprise. So tell us about that.  

12:31 – 15:55 

(CD): Yeah. No. And that’s the story I was going to tell that here’s Elon and SpaceX trying to build a more futuristic spacecraft. And there’s no stick, which a lot of the astronauts that NASA has are former fighter jet pilots. 

They fly with the stick. Boeing, the other contractor that had the contract to fly humans to the ISS, their Starliner spacecraft had a stick. The lunar lander that Neil Armstrong piloted down to the lunar surface had a stick. And on SpaceX’s Dragon spacecraft, there’s  mostly it’s done by touch screen. 

And the very first time the astronauts went to SpaceX headquarters to fly it in a simulator and they’re flying it on the touchscreen, it did not go well. I mean, the software, it was sort of the first generation, and it wasn’t working very well and all but one of the astronauts crashed in the simulator. They crashed into the ISS. 

So a little bit of an ego blow there. And they turn around and they’re complaining to Garrett Riesman, who is a former NASA astronaut who at the time was working at SpaceX, and they’re telling him, like, ‘Hey, this doesn’t work, and you got to get it better.’ But over time, the SpaceX engineers just kept working on the software, and they went to 2.0 and 3.0, 4.0 and took all the input from the astronauts, and it just got better over time. 

And the astronauts just got more comfortable flying that way. And it worked. I mean, because the whole idea is that you don’t have to have all the skills to fly on a fighter jet that everyday people should be going to space.  

The other story I’ll tell real quick about NASA and the relationship with particular space and the commercial space sector was here SpaceX is vying for the contract, a very prestigious contract, to fly NASA’s astronauts to the International Space Station. And NASA goes to SpaceX and said ‘you’re going to dock your spacecraft on our space station, our $100 billion space station. They’re six people living there at any time. We don’t want you crashing into it. We want you to have a nice, soft park and docking. 

We built the docking system. We’ve tested it. It’s robust. It works. We’re going to give it to you for free. Just bolt it onto your spacecraft. And please use that.’  

And there’s a young engineer whose job at SpaceX was to review it. And he takes one look at it and it’s like, ‘Yeah, it’s actually not that great.’ It’s pretty heavy. 

There are these six mechanical arms. Each one has their own motor. Each one has their own software system. It’s heavy. You got six individual points of failure. He built something much simpler using springs. He actually used the springs in the prototype from the shocks of a mountain bike. And they called it the M(CD)ocker. And it’s pretty rudimentary and simple. 

And his boss loved it and immediately took it to Elon. And Elon studied it for a little bit, asked some questions. It was like, ‘Yeah, do this instead.’ And so now this poor young engineer has to turn around and tell NASA, ‘Yeah, hey, that docking system that you wanted us to use to dock to your space station. Yeah, we’re not going to use it. We’re going to reject it.’ And had to overcome their skepticism.  

And it was that more than skepticism. I mean, there I think their frustration and anger and say, ‘Why would you not do this? And you remember SpaceX had not yet even won the competition.’ And, ‘Oh, by the way,’ they were going up against Boeing, which was the big legacy contractor. But again, over time they were able to show that their system worked. It was reliable and won them over.

15:56 – 16:24 

(MD): So, at this time, the first NASA administrator that President Trump picks is Jim Bridenstine and you talk about him quite a bit, too, because, you know, he’s the first politician to take over the helm, and a lot of people had some concerns about that. 

But to your point about maintaining some sort of thread of continuity and being able to move forward and then being able to message in and tell the story about why this is important and then ultimately to embrace this continued move towards the commercial world. It seems like he had a real steadying influence there. Is that your outcome?  

16:25 – 18:19 

(CD): Yeah, he did and he was interesting for a couple of reasons, because, like me, his first memory of space was Challenger and imagine he’s the NASA administrator during the Commercial Crew program, where SpaceX now is at the point where they’re going to fly astronauts from U.S. soil for the first time since the space shuttle was retired in 2011. So this is a very big moment. 

President Trump goes to the launch. Vice President Pence is there. The pressure is on and all Jim Bridenstine can think is ‘What happens if something goes wrong.’ And so for the first part, he actually goes out of his way to hold SpaceX and Elon Musk accountable and really is concerned about the parachutes. He’s concerned about problems they had with their abort system. 

They had a spacecraft blow up, and he ordered a safety review of SpaceX. And he did try to treat them with respect. but also to hold them accountable. And then with respect to the Artemis program: here, he knows that George W Bush says ‘We’re going to the moon.’ 

Obama comes in and says, ‘Oh yeah, the moon. We’ve been there, done that. We’re going to go to an asteroid. We’re going to go to Mars.’ And then Trump comes and says, ‘No, no, we’re going back to the moon’. And the metaphor he used was like Lucy and the football. That every time we get it, we pull the football away and there’s no momentum and we can never get a clear shot. 

So he wanted to create a program that, even if a Democrat was elected, would survive. And he did that by numerous reasons. But creating the Artemis Accords and bringing in international partners and making it so much harder for any other subsequent presidential administration to kill it, and really casting this as a space race between the United States and China. So there’s a geopolitical influence in there as well.  

18:20 – 18:52 

(MD): So the book also briefly introduces us to a new billionaire, Jared Isaacman, Shift4 and, you know, makes it his own pile of money and buys from SpaceX a couple of commercial astronaut missions. 

The first time that’s ever been done. Inspiration Four and then Polaris Dawn a few years later. And now we find that he’s a NASA administrator. So how does his presence on the scene influence all of this, to have him come from that sort of dynamic Silicon Valley type of world that the rest of the gang does and now be in charge of this government bureaucracy that’s taking us back to the moon? 

18:53 – 20:49 

(CD): Yeah. And I think you see, in some ways, a lot of similarities between Jim Bridenstine and Jared Isaacman. I mean, they’re both great speakers. They do a lot of interviews, a lot of media that are out there really telling the story of NASA, telling the story of Artemis, telling the story of the next space age, and just very good at that. 

But you may remember that it was a little bit of a rocky road for Jared at first because he was nominated, then because of his ties to SpaceX chartering those two private astronaut missions. He sort of was collateral damage when Trump and Elon had their breakup. And then he lost it and then he came back. But he’s had a huge impact. 

And, you know, I’m grateful for him. I joked to him a few months ago that what NASA has done was a great set up for the book because initially SpaceX won that moon lander competition, which is such a prominent scene and storyline in the book, and then they beat out Blue Origin. But then, because of concerns about SpaceX’s timeline with their vehicle Starship, they opened it back up so that the Blue Origin can compete, and it’s just sort of the book sets that up so perfectly, but I think he’s a great champion for NASA and has a lot of credibility and has been able to win over people on both sides of the aisle, which I think is really important now.  

And you see it that space has always been not just bipartisan but nonpartisan. And I thought it was very telling that from Trump. 1.0, into Biden. President Biden lay waste to so many of Trump’s programs and policies, except for two and then the Artemis program and the Space Force, because they were able to see the importance of those programs. 

And now they’ve continued, obviously, under President Trump again, and they’re putting an emphasis on getting Artemis. The dates have slipped, but has had some momentum in the sustained focus from the White House ever since the first Trump administration.

20:48 – 21:16 

(MD): So, Chris, I’m sure like you, I was glued to the TV during the Artemis launch and the landing and many hours in between as they swung by the moon and I was getting texts from family and friends that don’t pay attention to this stuff normally. 

And it’s obviously sparked excitement in the public about space, again. There is some attention span issues sometimes with the American public. Do we have staying power this time and will this help accelerate the efforts?

21:15 – 22:47 

(CD): No. It’s such a great question. And I would say, first off, that NASA was so smart in who they picked for the Artemis II crew. 

That was an all star crew. I mean, they’re all good on TV and they had their huge media tour and I thought their staying power actually did last a little bit and made a lot of sense. I think to have the first African-American go to the moon, the first woman, the first non-U.S. citizen, and they clearly just gelled as a unit. 

And I think we saw at a time that’s very politically divisive, you know, real unity there. But we saw during the Apollo program that after the Apollo 11 moon landing, the American public’s attention soon faded away. And this is not going to be followed up soon with a landing on the moon. We now know that the next mission will just be a docking of Orion, with one or both of the lunar landers in low-Earth orbit, and then that mission would be followed by a lunar landing in 2028. 

Hopefully, but maybe not, since it doesn’t look like the next mission will happen until the end of 2027. So that’s a lot of time. And the American public they do have a short attention span. And so I think Jared Isaacman, the NASA administrator, is going to have to really do everything he can not just to keep the American public engaged, but to keep Congress engaged, to keep it funded, and to talk about the significance of the program and the space race with China while months go on in between these very important missions. 

22:48 – 23:18 

(MD): So now I’m going to ask you to put on your crystal ball here a little bit and think about: the architecture now has a little bit of the old, and a little bit of the new. 

We’ve got the SLS, the Space Launch System, traditional government run program using technology from the space shuttle program and Orion, which which came out of the previous version before where we’re at now, coupled with Starship and New Glenn and the landers that we’ve been talking about – how do you see that unfolding over the next couple of years? 

Is there still going to be this two part solution, or are we going to go all one way or the other? 

23:19 – 24:55 

(CD): I think in the near term, there’s going to be a two part solution that they’re going to use SLS and Orion. But over time, I think there will be more of a shift toward commercial. I mean, particularly away from the SLS rocket, I could see Orion existing in some fashion, but as you mentioned SLS is built on 1970s technology. 

It uses the RS-25 engines, which were literally developed in the 1970s for the space shuttle. They’ve been upgraded and modified and modernized since then, but it’s a very expensive vehicle. It’s not reusable, but right now there’s not an alternative. I mean, Starship isn’t ready. New Glenn has flown just a few times, [but] has had problems in and of itself. 

But Jared Isaacman has said that when there are commercial alternatives that are less expensive, reusable, more efficient, that NASA would go toward those. So I think he’s made that pretty clear.  

Jim Bridenstine and this is a scene in Rocket Dreams at one point, tried to sideline the SLS. Senator Shelby, who’s a big champion because it’s headquartered out of Alabama, pulled him into his office after Jim tried to do that and gave him a dressing down and threatened his career basically if he tried to sideline the SLS. 

But now, SLS doesn’t quite have, you know, Senator Shelby’s not there. And you’ve seen, I think, a shift politically where everyone is on board, that we are really in a space race with China. We need to move fast. We need to use the resources that we have. Especially if they’re limited and do everything we can to beat China. 

24:56 – 25:22  

(MD): Now, let me put a pin in that. I want to come back to that point in a couple of minutes. But one or two more questions for you on this. If we go back into Space Barons, there was a metaphor throughout that book about the tortoise and the hare, right? Blue Origin was the tortoise to SpaceX’s hare. 

In terms of who is going slow and steady? Who’s going fast? Does that metaphor still hold? Is it coming closer together? We talked about the lunar lander being opened back up to both companies. Where are we there?  

25:23 – 26:51 

(CD): Yeah. I mean, I think it still holds in the sense that SpaceX is far, far ahead. But Blue Origin is catching up. 

SpaceX is launching the Falcon 9 once every two or three days. They’ve had enormous success with that. They’ve shown that reusability is for real. That’s not even sort of a new novel thing anymore. And now they’re moving on to Starship, which is a big, complicated vehicle. They’ve had some problems with it. They’re now in version three. They’re going to have to show rapid reusability where it lands back at the launch site, they’re going to have to show that the spacecraft can be refueled in orbit. 

They’re going to have to show that they can launch a fleet of tankers to be able to refuel it within a short amount of time, 24 to 48 hours. So we’ll see. And meanwhile, yes, Blue Origin’s had some success with New Glenn. They are set as early as this summer or later this year to land their Mark-1 lunar lander on the moon’s surface. 

There won’t be any people on it, but that will be a big deal. We’ll see how they do. But we need to see: can they get their launch cadence up? They just have an anomaly, a problem with their second stage engines. Can they fix that? Can they get back to flying? Can they fly the lunar lander and can it land on the moon? 

Those are all big steps and those are all big question marks. So we’ll see. But now NASA has specifically pit Blue Origin against SpaceX. Whichever one of you is ready, you know, with your lunar lander to fly astronauts to the moon, you get the honor of doing that. So we’ll see.

26:52 – 27:13 

(MD): So one more kind of look back to Space Barons, because there was a couple other billionaires in there, right? 

There’s Paul Allen and Suborbital Tourism. And then Richard Branson took over after Paul Allen unfortunately passed away. Robert Bigelow wanted to do hotels. So that tourism in these commercial space stations is not as prominent in Rocket Dreams, but is it still prominent in the reality of our space program?

27:14 – 28:55 

(CD): Yeah. So for the suborbital space tourism, we’ll see. Virgin Galactic has paused. They are building, a whole new vehicle that was more economically viable and make for a sustainable business to be able to fly more frequently, fly more passengers. 

They’ve yet to fly. It’s been a while. We’ll see how they do. A lot of people are skeptical of it, but we are seeing the commercial space stations having some momentum, and there’s incentive for them to move forward because the International Space Station has been up there for 26 years continuously. It’s not going to last forever. NASA says 2030 or maybe a little bit longer, and they’re going to need to be successors. 

So you see companies like Axiom Space or even Blue Origin or Vast. And others, Voyager, building these next generation space hotels, if you want to call them that. And I do think those will ultimately be successful because it’ll be a national priority. And if the United States doesn’t have a presence in low-Earth orbit, we would cede that to the only other country that has a space station in low-Earth orbit and that’s China. 

So there will be a national priority for that. I do wonder Blue Origin, which had been up until several months ago flying its New Shepard suborbital tourism vehicle with some real frequency, actually put a pause on that so that they could focus on New Glenn and on their deep space and lunar programs and ambitions, which I think tells you how serious they are about all of that. 

I think a lot of people hope they come back to New Shepard, because I think they still have a lot of people who have signed up to fly on that thing.

28:56 – 29:43 

(MD): So that’s the second time you sort of talked about China and that competition and the space age nationally, as you were going to cast in that light, right? For prestige and then economic and other reasons as a new space race. 

And so the U.S. government’s primary stated objective is to want to beat China to the moon. But the military component of that, there’s also something a lot closer to Earth, right? Is the ability of China to make their military more capable through the use of space, like the U.S. has, to be able to do precision and lethality and communication and all those things that have made the U.S. military so effective and lethal. 

So how do you see the private sector part of this then leaking into the military and how the national security sector is capitalizing on that or not?  

29:44 – 31:46 

(CD): This is a great question, and I think it’s a very important one and I think the significance can’t be overstated that right now, as there you are obviously familiar with the term space superiority. 

 And then in order to achieve that, the Space Force and the Pentagon are going to need to rely on the commercial space sector for the kinds of technologies that we need. And ten years ago, when I was writing The Space Barons, the big breakthrough, the big innovation in space was the reusable rockets having the rockets come back and land so they could fly again. 

I think now it’s satellites and spacecraft that can maneuver in space. And when the satellite goes up, it’s moving very fast, but it stays on a fixed orbit. So you know where it’s going to be in an hour or a day or three weeks from now. But if you have spacecraft that can maneuver and can be refueled and have the propellant to be able to do that, so they can essentially dodge and weave and hide and sneak up or go high, go low — that is significant. 

And that’s necessary for space superiority. And I think there are a lot of companies that are working on that. I think also just the weaponry that we’re seeing and yes, we’re using the ‘W’ word now. I think more in space you’re seeing Space Force officials use that, that we’re talking about weapons. And I think a lot of it was Earth to space: firing missiles, these anti-satellite tests, which obviously were problematic because they created a lot of debris. I think now you’re seeing maybe more subtle attacks, you know, using high energy microwaves or laser or other kind of spamming or spoofing and jamming sensors, you know, again, space to space. And that’s the real change that it used to be satellites in space for all their purpose to look down. 

And now they’re looking up or they’re staying in space so their whole mission is in space. And the question is, can the Space Force really leverage and incentivize? And to really be clear with industry, this is what we need. This is where we’re going this is what we need to focus on and to build is an open question. And Golden Dome will have a huge impact on that, I think.

31:47 – 32:09 

(MD): Well, that’s right, because the idea is to use a lot of that things that are being funded and capitalized in the private sector to bring into military. It’s probably not a perfect analogy, but where NASA on the civil side, had a culture that needed to shift and begin to adopt a sort of private sector approach. Space Force was kind of in that role on the military side, where do you see the service in the adoption of the things that you’re talking about?  

32:10 – 33:33 

(CD): Yeah, and that we saw that in the beginning of the Space Force that they said we got to start from scratch. We should be more nimble, be more efficient, and avoid the kind of government procurement debacles that Senator McCain used to turn into theater in the Senate Armed Services Committee, and they didn’t want to have those. 

And I think there’s been some success. There have been some frustrations, some people are concerned that they haven’t been as successful in working with commercial, but they say the right things. I know that the motive at least, is there. But one of the things that I point to that I think is significant is talked about that, some of the war gaming scenarios, and they’re doing four of them, I think, this year that are focused in large part on that threat that we heard about from a couple of years ago of Russia developing a space-based nuclear weapon and the Space Force wargaming that, but bringing in the commercial side and making them part of that so they could see what are the challenges, what are the threats, what is the adversary doing and what are the technologies and the capability that we need? 

You know, I also think of Even Rogers from True Anomaly Space, being in the Air Force and the Space Force, and realizing that nobody in the commercial sector was building what the Space Force ultimately would need, so leaves and starts a company in order to do that. So I think we’re beginning to sort of see that nexus there.

33:34 – 34:09 

(MD): Yeah, I agree that this military doesn’t get to stop doing other things that they were doing right, and shift gears. So there’s a lot of things that the Space Force has to cover down on. We’ll see if you don’t want to say that, you know, money’s the answer to everything, that is definitely not. But, you know, the big jump in the Space Force budget coming in fiscal 27. You know, ultimately, whatever Congress appropriates, but it’ll be a boost.  

Can they then start moving a little bit more aggressively into some of these new areas that they’ve been a little slow to do in my opinion. So again, another metaphor, is there a tortoise and the hare metaphor between the U.S. and China on on the military side, national security side? 

34:10 – 35:38 

(CD): ‘Yeah, as much as I hate to say it, it sounds like China is really moving fast and far ahead. I saw a presentation at the satellite conference that the Space Force’s Chief Lurch gave about the number of satellites they’re putting up. We’ve seen China do, docking and geostationary orbit, a possible refueling there with the satellite that. Oh, by the way, a couple of years ago grappled a dead Bieduo satellite and pulled it out of GEO and moved it into a graveyard orbit. 

He talked about China developing satellites that use stealth that can’t be seen. They’re lunar and cislunar ambitions and the proliferated architectures that they’re putting up. By the way, the moon program, maybe not specifically, for the U.S. side, not a military program. But that doesn’t mean it’s not a national security program. And they’re moving toward the South Pole, the moon, and in cislunar space, they’ve got a rover on Mars. 

They may be able to return samples from Mars before we can. All of which spans from the hard core national security side and combat-like operations to the diplomatic soft power things that if they’re on the moon and we’re not, they’ll attract our allies. If they’re bringing back samples from Mars, the scientists from other countries will want to be allied with them. And so we see a comprehensive space program that they have. And it’s, in my opinion, a real race and the stakes are very, very high.

35:39 – 36:20 

(MD): And so some of that is scientific, some of it’s economic and the security piece. Actually, General Saltzman, the chief of space operations, I just heard him talking and say that making a historical analogy that everywhere that economy has gone, right? The U.S. Navy, it ended up protecting lines of communication and making sure those things could happen in a reasonable, normative way instead of just county option. 

Okay, so you were a business desk writer at The Washington Post. Big business news coming up in that SpaceX is headed for an IPO. And the numbers are incredible, right? $1.82 trillion valuation coming out. So what impact do you think that might all have on all of this? I mean billions of dollars getting freed up that might go somewhere else. 

36:21 – 37:34 

(CD): Yeah, and it just shows the the evolution and just the SpaceX is one of the biggest stories of American entrepreneurship of the last 100 years, moving from just being building rockets and spacecraft to a constellation of 10,000 satellites to now talking about orbital data centers and compute and working with artificial intelligence and xAI. You know, so, again, not just a rocket company, but an artificial intelligence company and internet provider, all of these things driving that. 

And I remember the old adage from it was only really like ten years ago when nobody wanted to invest in space, or the only people investing in space were just sort of hobbyists or very passionate people. And the saying, of course, was ‘the quickest way to become a millionaire in the space sector was to start out as a billionaire.’ 

And we’re seeing them drive enormous growth and attention – as to whether what are the downstream effects of that? Who can replicate it? We’ll see. SpaceX has shown that it is singular in a lot of ways, and that its success has not been able to be repeated. So yeah, it’s a fascinating time and then we’ll see what the stock does once it goes public. 

I mean, if there’ll be a spike or a drop or if it sustains over time.

37:35 – 37:46 

(MD): Do you think that the investor, the institutional, retail investors will rush to that stock, or will there be sort of a rising of all boats as people come to the space sector and pay more attention? 

37:47 – 38:37 

(CD): I do believe in the rising of all boats in that. I also think that as SpaceX has become so dominant from the U.S. government’s perspective, and this is NASA and the Pentagon. And the Pentagon, of course, has a much, much bigger budget, that there is a real desire for alternatives – that we cannot place all of our eggs into the SpaceX basket, and that we need New Glenn to work. 

We need Neutron from Rocket Lab. We need Stoke Space to stand up and all of these other companies to come to fruition. And SpaceX is just like I call it SpaceX University where they’ve graduated so many engineers who then go off and start their own companies or go to work for other companies and bring some of that SpaceX secret sauce with them and it’s proliferating. So I do think it’s the tide rises all boats.

38:38 – 38:51 

(MD): So we’ve already established that I am not a medical professional, but I think I know the answer to this question. Has the writing of these books and your TV shows, has that immunized you from the space bug or do you still got it? And if you got it, what are you doing next?  

38:52 – 40:04 

(CD): Yeah, no, I still have it. I am trying to broaden my horizons a little bit. I think it’s the Elon-Jeff stuff, which was sort of a theme of space barons or rocket teams. I’m moving on. I took a buyout from the Washington Post, as I know you know, but was able to stay on through the end of last year to finish a story about the Space Force and national security space. 

 And I’m really interested in delving into that deeply. I just don’t think the American public fully understands what the Space Force does, the importance of it, the great service that it does for our nation, the threats we are facing in space and the fact that this – it’s not new, it did not all of a sudden appeared in 2019 when President Trump created the Space Force. 

There’s a long history and I think it’s only going to accelerate in the years forward. I mean, you mentioned the huge increase that the Space Force budget is getting. I think there is going to be an acceleration of the threats, the proliferation of spacecraft, our reliance on them. And then, as you said, that next frontier, if we’re going to the moon or into cislunar space, we’re bringing American assets and the American economy and American values that the United States is always going to defend, and it will always defend all of that in any new frontiers. What it’s always done. 

40:05 – 40:46 

(MD): This allows me to close with and this is the origin story of Eara Nova, right? Those of us who were in this national security space world for decades and have been through all the changes and all the threats, as you rightfully talk about and when, when we are here to try to to help companies, to help the financial markets, to really all come together and continue to accelerate our capabilities and our ability to protect the nation and to be a leader on the global stage in space and the space economy. 

So I really appreciate you as an author and having read your books, they are very engaging and really easy reads because of the storytelling that you obviously from this podcast are so good at. Thank you for coming on the podcast again. We look forward to the next time we can do this. And I’ll leave you with the last word. 

40:47 – 41:12 

(CD): And I would just say that in the past couple of years, I think what you’ve done at Elara Nova is incredibly important. It’s a great service to the American industry, to the Pentagon and to the nation as a whole. I don’t think I was fully aware of that. Even a couple of years ago when you started out on this journey. 

And now that I am, you realize just how significant it is. So I would just turn back to you and say thank you for everything that you’re doing. It’s a great service and we’re grateful. 

41:13 – 41:53 

(SK): This has been an episode of “The Elara Epilogues,” a special edition series of “The Elara Edge” podcast. Elara Nova is the trusted global security partner delivering decisive advantage.  

As a strategic advisory firm, Elara Nova builds expert teams uniquely tailored for client needs to deliver actionable results. With the trusted insight to deliver your decisive edge, Elara Nova is your source for expertise and guidance in global security. 

If you liked what you heard today, please subscribe to our channel and leave us a rating. Music for this podcast was created by Patrick Watkins of PW Audio. I’m your host, Scott King, and join us next time at the Elara Edge. 

Episode 39: Space Force Initiates a “Campaign of Learning” to Develop its Objective Force

The Elara Edge

Host: Scott King 

SME: Mike Dickey, Founding Partner at Elara Nova (MD) 

Lt Gen (Ret) Bill Liquori, Executive Partner at Elara Nova (BL) 

00:02 – 01:12 

This past spring the United States Space Force published two highly anticipated, forward-looking documents: Future Operating Environment 2040 and Objective Force 2040. When Chief of Space Operations General B. Chance Saltzman unveiled these documents at this year’s Space Symposium, he declared the service’s intention for them was to “drive questions, not provide answers.” 

Now, the Space Force wants not only its guardians, but its international and industry partners to engage, debate and provide feedback on the ideas laid out in these two documents — in what can be deemed a ‘campaign of learning’ — to evaluate what the future space domain might look like and help define the Space Force’s future force design requirements needed to operate and succeed in a rapidly-evolving and unpredictable domain.  

Welcome to The Elara Edge. We have two guests today, here to share their perspective on how we got to this pivotal moment, the driving force behind these documents, and where the Space Force’s international and industry partners should go from here. 

First we have Mike Dickey, Founding Partner at Elara Nova and the former Chief Architect of the United States Space Force.  

Mike, welcome to the show!

01:13 – 01:17 

(MD): Hey! Thank you, Scott. These are always great fun and hopefully of great use for our audience.  

01:18 – 01:33 

Yes, thank you, Mike. And then also joining us today is retired Lieutenant General Bill Liquori, an Executive Partner at Elara Nova and the first Deputy Chief of Space Operations for Strategy, Plans, Programs and Analysis for the United States Space Force. 

Sir, welcome back to the show.  

01:34 – 01:44 

(BL): Hey, it’s great to be back, Scott. And it’s even better this time to be partnered up with Mike. He and I have done many partnering across our time in government, and we get to continue to do it in retired life. 

So this is good.  

01:45 – 01:57 

Great. Well, before we get into these two forward-looking documents, let’s take a look into how we got to this moment.   

Where did the need to look at the future operating environment in space – and make force design plans accordingly – first begin? 

01:58 – 04:40 

(MD): You know, if I had to put a stake in the ground of when this all started, Scott, I would pick April of 2015. Because in April of 2015, General Hyten, who was the Commander of Air Force Space Command at the time, where most of the military national security space activities happened.  

He went on 60 Minutes and he talked on that 60 Minutes program to the American public and to the world about the threats that were emerging out of near peer adversaries at the time, Russia and China, how important space was to the American military and American society and what the impact might be if those things collided. 

And it really brought into the public consciousness the place where we were at, which is now really needing to consider how to operate a national security space architecture in the face of a threat. So that kicked off this small group of people that went off and did a study. 

And in April of 2016, which coincidentally, is at the Space Symposium, ten years before the release of these documents, the 2026 version, they released something called the Space Enterprise Vision. And the Space Enterprise vision was a product of this small group of folks who thought about the threat and thought conceptually about how the military space architecture would need to evolve to continue to operate in the face of that threat. 

And that was really the start of what is a robust effort now, and has been increasingly robust across the previous decade. So the space enterprise vision set that tone. And really in the fall of 2018 was the first big programmatic change that really changed one of the legacy programs. And it was a missile warning in this case and changed it to a different architectures for the future to be more resilient to that threat. 

It was all based on how the architecture that is used to support the joint force, which is, you know, things like communications, position, navigation and timing, missile warning, how all those things that were being fielded would stand up to the counter space offensive threat that the adversaries were building. So that analysis then started to inform force design for the future. 

And in December of 2019, when the Space Force was formed after the president signed the National Defense Authorization Act, that force design activity became organizationally institutionalized. So there’s an organization called the Space Warfighting Analysis Center, and it’s got a partner organization called Space Security and Defense Program. And they became the center of doing the force design analysis for the new service. 

And one of the documents that you mentioned is first designed for 2040. In this document, then is really a compilation of the work they’ve been doing over the last several years in all the different mission areas that they describe.

04:41 – 07:56 

(BL): If I was to add anything to what Mike said, I mean, he captured it very well. These two documents could be described as a natural evolution of where we have been, but with an eye towards how different the environment is today versus if we go all the way back to when Mike talked about in 2015, the early force design work that the new service did. 

As the Space Force’s 5 and 8 on the staff. I had teams that were part of informing the inputs to those on the requirements side, and then certainly the budget teams that were working to build our first independent budgets used the analysis from those force designs to feed our early budgets. But I would say those early force designs were by mission area. We couldn’t do them all at once so the Chief of Space Operations prioritizes which ones to go after or our national leadership prioritizes some of those.  

But I would describe them as heavily hardware focused. In other words, what were the on-orbit and ground system capabilities required to deliver a certain mission area? I think what was unique in that era was that not only were we looking at capability and effects delivery in the mission areas, but also what is the cost to do that and what is the most resilient way to do that?  

These two new documents are now that forward looking natural evolution. They take a look at where will the threat and technology evolve? The objective divides it into three areas. Conceptually, General Saltzman talks about routinely. We have our fielded force. That’s all of the people in the hardware that are fielded today delivering capability on behalf of the nation. Then we have the programmed force, which is informed by the program objective memorandum that my old office develops now, and that’s where the president’s budget has said we will put money. But if you leave it at just that, that doesn’t meet all the requirements. 

And so these two documents combined together are helped to get us to that objective force. And that is, you know, the force that we need, we have the force that we have, we have the force that we’ve budgeted for, and then we have the force we need. That’s that objective force. And that’s kind of how he broke them out for purposes of moving forward with the service. 

The other thing that I think these documents do even better than we have done in the past, I mentioned the force designs by design, they were heavily hardware focused. What was the hardware both on orbit and on the ground, required to deliver these mission capabilities? General Saltzman, as the chief, and General Raymond before him and all of our senior leaders, even before a separate service, had to wrestle with, ‘Okay, those are the widgets, but it takes more than just widgets to deliver an actual effect to a warfighter or to the nation.’ 

What these documents do is really spell out, ‘Hey, it’s not just those widgets. They also focus on what is the infrastructure required to make those things successful? What is the staffing required? What is the test and training capability required to bring these to fruition?’ And so I think it’s a way for our second service chief as he benefits from what the first chief did to really tie all of these together in one place.

07:57 – 08:09 

General Saltzman openly solicited feedback from the Space Force’s international and industry partners. 

What will the process look like as the Space Force looks to incorporate the feedback it receives into future iterations of these documents? 

08:10 – 10:29 

(MD): Yeah, the Space Force, just in the last month or so, has made a move to institutionalize organizationally how they think about this future force in the way they’re going to do that is they’ve created something called the S9, which is the Force Design and Analysis group. It’s a directorate on the space staff. And what that S9 director is going to be made up of three parts is really sort of the life cycle of how you develop these force designs. 

And there’s already a group in the Space Force that thinks about lessons learned and military doctrine and concepts that are out in the future. And one example that comes up that I’ll just use to sort of illustrate the point is, what is the Space Force’s role as our nation and many nations head out to the moon? Should we be paying attention to the things that are happening there from a space domain awareness perspective? 

Is there a role to set up position, navigation and timing infrastructure out beyond the earth? Like can we have a GPS? Is there G.P.S. for the moon? So the concepts group thinks about these sort of big things and futuristic types of issues and make some recommendations, and maybe they’ll conclude that there’s a role for the Space Force. Maybe there’s not. 

But let’s presume they think there is a role. So now we start to think about what that role might look like. And it’s tested in war games and tabletop exercises. And that’s really the second part of this life cycle of the future force design. So is to do that experimentation. And before you’re spending a lot of money on it, you’re doing these tabletop exercises and games. 

Maybe you’re using computers and doing simulations to look at these different futures and different force structures, how they might help you satisfy the concept that you came up with. And then you get through that and then you’re at step three. So now we have a concept that we believe in and that we’ve tested through these war games. And now it goes to a force design activity in the Space War Fighting Analysis Center in the SWAC.  

And that’s really the third part of the lifecycle. And that’s to say what would that look like from a hardware perspective? What types of capabilities you need in space? What types of systems do you need on the ground? And once that’s complete, then we push it over to Bill’s old office and programing. And the programing folks then have to work the budget and put money in across the years to move towards the force that’s envisioned from the force design. 

So the S9 new organization on the space staff, made up of three subordinate activities that feed this life cycle of thinking about the future force. 

10:30 – 11:34 

(BL): Yeah, I think I would amplify the S9 certainly seems to be a likely place that will have a big hand in the assessment of how things are going, if you will. Specifically, in the intro to the documents, General Saltzman talks about how I’m paraphrasing. 

These aren’t the be all, end all answer, but they’re designed to posit what the future will look like and what the Space Force will need to succeed in that future. But ultimately, they’re designed to start a campaign of learning that the service will go through with its partners and others to truly shape what does that objective force look like? How does it modify over the years? 

Certainly the S9 team in those different sub elements will have a hand in that, but the entire service will have a hand in how is this going? Where do we need to evolve? As a matter of fact, there’s part of the document that specifically calls out for our planners, this is what you should be doing with this document. For our programmers, think about these things when you read the document for our capability deliverers and on and on and on.  

11:35 – 12:27 

(MD): And if I could amplify General Liquori’s amplification, these questions the document asked, and this campaign of learning and putting that out in the public for everybody to read and to see is not just for inside the service consumption. It’s also a signal there to the industrial base is going to have to create these things and the ability for industry to see what the service is thinking about, where they’re headed, and start to think themselves about where they want to put some research dollars, where they might want to involve capital markets, which of course is super prevalent now in the space industry, where they might need that capital come in and help create the capabilities that would achieve the concepts that are underpinning this. Look at the future in 2040. So those are super important questions that involve everyone that’s associated with bringing a future force to reality. It’s not just a service, it’s all the services. It’s a defense industrial base. It’s the capital markets and everything that goes into that. 

12:28 – 12:41 

Now, let’s dive deeper into each of these respective documents, starting with the Future Operating Environment 2040.  

What are your take-aways from this document? And how does the Space Force prioritize its needs based on the emerging threat environment in space? 

12:42 – 14:59 

(BL): I’ll start at the Future Operating Environment. Very well described. It’s designed to be forward looking out into 2040. But holy cow, what’s going to happen between now and then? I don’t think any of us has the exact crystal ball. And that’s kind of the challenge that every military service wrestles with is: how is the environment going to change for my specific domain?  

And the Space Force is no different. Our environment has been changing at a very rapid pace of late, and so that does make it a challenge. I think probably the most insightful line in the combination of the two documents, is in the intro that General Salzman wrote to the Future Operating Environment, and that was, “[t]he inability to predict the future does not relieve the Space Force of the requirement to plan for it.” 

I think that was a message to all of the people that will read this document to say, ‘If we wait for the future to be here, it’ll be too late and our government processes to be able to be prepared for it will be behind the power curve. right?’ 

So then you think of, ‘Well, gosh, there’s so many different things out there that could change between now and then. The threat continues to grow. Technology is changing. The political environment is changing.’ All of those things. And so what’s interesting here, they allude to it in the beginning of the document and it says that the service used this methodology where they looked at four alternative futures out there and had groups of people wrestle with each of those four alternatives and then go through and look at all the publicly available data that would inform the different elements of those alternatives. 

They tested the theories of each alternative, the limits of technology defined in each alternative, and then used that to identify trends both from a technology perspective as well as how the military may evolve. And then they workshopped each of those scenarios with a group of people. And those people included, as we were sort of talking about earlier military, civilian and commercial representatives, to get the full spectrum of how will the space domain evolve over time? And so I think that’s how the service has decided to tackle this uncertain future, but with an eye towards ‘Okay, we need to make some decisions now. What’s the best way to do that?’ 

15:00 – 16:22 

(MD): It’s interesting that in the document it talks about some of the future threats, you know, the machine learning and AI. There’s also a discussion about China having a 21,000 satellite constellation. Well, we talked about the history of where all this started. And ten years ago in the space enterprise vision and some of that early work, those two things were not part of the conversation. 

That was not on the threat picture. And so, you know, in ten years, it’s changed quite a bit. And then the next 15 years out to 2040, it’s going to change again in ways that you can’t predict. So what General Corey says is absolutely essential. And it’s why I think the Space Force has created this organization to really be able to think about the threats as they evolve and to make changes on a more frequent basis to the architecture that they field into the forces that they need to support that architecture. 

So, Scott, you asked about how do you begin to prioritize? And really, I think you have to prioritize with time. What’s the most pressing threat? What do we see right in the near-term future that we have to deal with? And that’s typically not a force design conversation, because the force designed by its nature, is supposed to be looking out into the future beyond the current 3 or 4 or five year time frame. 

But that is the lens you have to look at from the start, you know, what are the things coming up like? We’ve mentioned, like, I like large proliferated Leo constellations, and now we have to start bringing into these force design conversations. And so if we need to change the force structure or tactics or we have to shift where we’re investing our money. 

16:23 – 16:36 

Let’s turn to the Objective Force 2040, which was essentially presented as an answer to the Future Operating Environment 2040 document. 

What are some of the mission areas described here and are these mission areas an appropriate starting point at this point for the objective force? 

16:37 – 18:52 

(BL): Yeah, sure. I mean, I think the short answer is we’re doing missions today. Those are the missions that make sense to capture here as a starting point. So yes, but they’ve pinned them by the Space Force’s core and enabling functions.  

So the Space Force core functions of space control that has the mission areas of orbital warfare, electromagnetic warfare and cyber warfare. Then we’ve got global mission operations which has satellite communications, space based sensing, and targeting, missile warning, missile tracking, navigation warfare.  

And then there are the access mission areas as well, like satellite control. The requirement to be able to talk to your satellite and get data from it. Lift obviously, to put any of our satellites in orbit. And then in order to do that lift, we’ve got to have a launch range that we can control. And so all of those fit in there.  

But then it also captures the enabling functions of intelligence, cyber operations, command and control and space domain awareness. So we’ve got quite the huge subset of missions that the service has got to tackle and I do think this is the right place to start.  

I think one of the things that stood out to me is not so much mission area by mission area, because who knows, in 2040 we may have additional mission areas, but in the objective force design document, I think one of the things that stood out to me are the actual design principles that cut across all of those mission areas, right? 

And so things like warfighters first, hybrid by design. That’s some of the work that the early predecessors did that guided us into this hybrid approach for many of the current force designs and that continues. It’ll be interoperable by design, integrating partner and the advantages of commercial. We’ll get to resilience in multiple ways. But one of those that’s called out specifically is by distribution. 

Competition is kind of the new norm – that was another one that’s in there. Also, I’d flag something that we’ve been talking about since the service stood up and we said we were going to be a digital service first. Well data as a warfighting advantage is that next natural evolution of a design principle here and then distributed command and control, modularity and cyber resilience fits right back into that digital by design as well. 

So I think those design principles called out that are cutting across all the mission areas – that stood out to me. 

18:53 – 21:08 

(MD): I would say that this hybrid architecture approach is key and it comes across in both documents, especially in the objective force document of how diversifying missions across different orbits and different constellations, bringing in partners, bringing in commercial. That is a significant shift. And it’s one that is not easy to do, right? 

When you’re talking about interoperability, which raises issues and concerns about cybersecurity and how do you connect different networks to each other? But that is a key force design principle going forward that the Space Force and everyone that supports it is going to have to figure out: the idea of hybrid architectures with interoperability and command and control across that hybrid nature. 

And the other important thing that comes across is that this new proliferated Leo constellations. I mean, this is something, again, ten years ago, we weren’t really thinking about. So one of the mission areas that’s talked about is space based sensing and targeting. And that’s kind of a new area for the Space Force. There was always some element of environmental monitoring. 

But now we’re talking about moving missions that typically had been done in the air domain up into the space domain. So airborne moving target indicators. You think Awacs is the air version of that ground moving target indicators and J stars. These are things that have been done in the air domain historically, but the air domain is also more and more at risk and difficult to operate in the face of all the threats that that they have to worry about, too. 

And so those missions are coming to space and those proliferated constellations do the things that are best served by being close to the Earth. And those things are new to the Space Force. So that’s going to be an interesting evolution to watch. And really, I think the focus in a lot of these areas as it moves from the conceptual into acquisition is the military component, right? 

So the understanding of the information is not necessarily flying the satellite, but understanding information, the use of that information for targeting in this case less important is the management and day to day operating of constellations and keeping them in the right place. That’s something that’s done in the commercial sector. It’s done in the military. But I see a more and more a connection between industrial partners with letting the commercial market do those types of things, fly the constellation while the military people sit on top of that and make the military decisions that are based on information coming out of the constellations. 

21:09 – 21:34 

Now, the Space Force has made a clear and concerted effort to incorporate commercial partners and capabilities into its architecture over the past several years, namely through efforts like the Commercial Space Strategy and the Commercial Augmentation Space Reserve. 

So what does this hybrid architecture – made up of both government and commercial systems – look like in practice? And how does the service go about delegating which mission areas commercial partners can focus on first?

21:35 – 22:29 

(MD): Yeah. Good question. I think one of the most important things that you have to do is think about military essential functions. What are the things that have to be decided by military people, people that are in under a chain of command all the way up to the commander in chief, which is things like pulling a trigger. You never give a commercial provider the ability to pull the trigger on any kind of a weapon system. And that analogy fits here in space too. 

So what you’re going to do with that information, what decisions get made with that information. Those military essential functions have to be pieced out before implementing the things that you’re talking about of commercial can do some of this stuff. So commercial now provides a lot of information through electro-optical sensing and radio frequency spectrum sensing and that information is provided to the military and then military people decide what to do about that information.  

So it’s a well-worn path here. This is not something that is brand new. We just got to make sure we know where those bright lines are. And then aportion accordingly. 

22:30 – 23:54 

(BL): I would say my hope with the two documents, the forward looking nature of them and how they specifically speak to different partners, if you will, across the government and industry side of things, is that by publishing these and putting them out there and General Saltzman even talks about it in his introduction. 

He wants not only his guardians to wrestle with these ideas, debate these ideas, and argue these ideas. But he wants all those other audiences to do the same thing. And my hope would be that by publishing these, it enables those other partners external to the service, if you will, whether they be in government, in the joint force, in other parts of the executive branch, the legislative branch, commercial partners, allies, to wrestle with those things, so that ideally, when they come to engage with the service, they do it armed with the information that’s in these documents and knowing what the service is wrestling with, so that it’s earlier in our process that we begin to say, ‘Who’s got the best fit for this piece of a particular mission? How can we provide resilience or redundancy, or how can we be complementary? And I’ll do a piece of this mission and you do a piece of this mission.’ 

We’ve been getting better over the years, but I think by publishing these two documents and the level of details that are in them, it will enable us to do that even better and I think that’s required for success out in the 2040 timeframe. 

23:55 – 24:12 

Earlier we spoke to the forward-looking nature of these documents and how General Saltzman explicitly stated these documents are meant to, “drive questions, not provide answers.” 

What do you see as those major questions that these documents are driving towards? And what’s the value in posing questions, rather than just delivering answers? 

24:13 – 26:49 

(BL): Ultimately, the first one is written to define the environment, right? The second one is written to describe what is the force that we need. What is that objective force? So that’s the ultimate question it’s trying to answer.  

But as with many of the strategic level documents that both General Raymond and General Saltzman have published, again, the desire is that the workforce and our partners wrestle with the ideas, debate the ideas, because generally speaking, when you do that, you come out with a better answer than just a single person taking a look at something and saying, ‘Here’s the answer.’  

And I think the other thing General Saltzman wisely realizes is if he published a document that says ‘this is the answer.’ It was good for when he reviewed what he was doing when he wrote it. But then people just challenged the document. Well, he wrote a document so that that could happen and didn’t say, ‘This is the answer.’  

He does specifically call out some of the questions, like: What organizational constructs would best help the service deliver on these mission areas. It goes back to the point I was making earlier, that our force designs originally were highly focused on hardware and software, and now these documents recognize, ‘Hey, we’ve got to have organizational constructs that are going to be best set up for success in these mission areas.’ 

We talked about hybrid architectures. One of the questions that gets spelled out in here is: what are the hybrid ground architectures look like that give us our best set of resilience and how would we manage those? Is it a combination of government and industry architectures and who operates which parts of those?  

There’s another question on: how does the Space Force validate its readiness in each of these mission areas?The more diverse, the more hybrid a mission area becomes, the harder it becomes to define readiness. But that doesn’t relieve us from having to capture. Are we ready in this mission area in a contested environment? Or are we not? And so that’s a question that’s out there as the service continues to wrestle with these documents moving forward.  

And then the other one that is flagged in there specifically talks about what emerging concepts will offer the highest value opportunities for this service? This goes back to something Mike was alluding to earlier within that S9 directorate. And this idea of a concepts and technology arm of that organization, there’s probably a limitless number of concepts that people could come up with as they look at these documents and how the environment will unfold.  

Unfortunately, the budget is never limitless, so the service really needs to wrestle with, okay, if we have ten concepts out there that we’re tackling right now, which ones are going to be the most value added to our end user and to the nation when it comes to securing our nation’s interest?  

26:50 – 27:13 

(MD):Yeah. And by putting these questions out there in the public, you sort of unleash all of the think tanks and industry and practitioners in this environment who are going to have great ideas too, and who hopefully can pull those ideas into this campaign of learning and then the conceptualizing and the wargaming and the force designing or it it just becomes a flywheel and it just makes the answers that you get better and better. 

The more people that can provide input. 

27:13 – 27:24 

Now Mike, going back to the hybrid architecture approach that you talked about.  

Can you elaborate on the significance of having these types of conversations with commercial partners this early in the process? I mean, we’re talking 15 years in advance? 

27:25 – 28:28 

(MD): When you finally come to the point of wanting to apply taxpayer money against the problem, the more mature you’ve brought the concept and the technology, the better off you always are. And fielding a combat effective system. So as the industry thinks about what it means to be hybrid, what it means to be interoperable, there are technology things involved in that. 

There are policy things involved in that. There are things like intellectual property and business models that are involved with that. And those debates and conversations don’t get resolved overnight.  

And those debates and conversations don’t get resolved overnight. These are things that, again, you have to pressure test, debate and work through a number of different processes and then as the concepts mature, then you start feeling more confident that you can start to apply money against actually now building prototypes and building systems.  

So I think that’s an important aspect of this hybrid world is really understanding across all of those different vectors, the challenges that are involved in bringing dissimilar things together, things that are owned by other people together, you know, crossing international boundaries. This is all hard. 

28:29 – 30:07 

(BL): If I could build on what Mike was saying. So two groups of people that routinely engage with our Space Force, certainly at the senior levels, our allies and partners internationally and industry, and those conversations often start with on the Allied side, it’s, ‘Hey, if I could spend €1 more or one pick your currency more on a space capability that would help the United States and us together as an allied force be better. Where should we spend that money? That’s a question that comes up often. 

On the industry side. Hey, if I was going to spend some of my own internal dollars from the company, where would it be most beneficial to you as a service for me to do some research? Or what is the toughest problem you have as a service so that I know as an industry partner what capability to go build? 

Well, now there’s a set of documents that you can review before even going into those conversations, so that it starts that conversation in a more informed place and ideally gets us to the heart of the matter, which is, ‘Well, if we combine the Space Force capability with this particular allied capability, now we might really be somewhere, ‘Hey, let’s get some of our teams together and wargame this. Let’s get some of our teams together and explore this concept multilaterally. Or hey, let’s get a few industry partners together as we do this next force design, informed by the objective force and informed by the future operating environment. And see where the combined government industry solution can get us.’  

Does it put us in a better spot?  

30:08 – 30:32 

And Bill, you mentioned these documents get into some of the organizational steps the Space Force needs to employ to deliver on its mission.  

The Objective Force calls for the Space Force to double its personnel over the next ten years. But given the Space Force was originally designed to be intentionally lean and digital first from the beginning, is this doubling of personnel a contradiction of the founding vision for the Space Force? Or is that more of a natural evolution as the service matures? 

30:31 – 31:37  

(BL): I believe it’s absolutely a natural evolution of the force as it matures. There’s a lot of things that went into why that service was stood up as a lean service. I mean, I think for the foreseeable future, we’re still going to be the smallest service in the Department of War. But this idea that we need to double the force over the next decade is a natural evolution from the fact that of all the things that we talked about and all of the things that are posited in that future operating environment, there is going to continue to be increasing demand for space capabilities. 

There are going to be an increasing and more diverse number of threats, which means we’re going to need to have an increased amount of resilience and capability in those types of things.  

You don’t get those for free. And so there’s a natural evolution that we’ll need additional capabilities. We’ll need additional organizations to operate those capabilities, which will mean we’ll need additional personnel to be able to do that. We’ll need additional personnel to be able to train those capabilities. We’ll need additional personnel to be able to test those capabilities. So yeah, I look at it as a natural evolution.  

31:38 – 33:01 

(MD): And the country is asking the Space Force to do more than the country was asking the Space Force to do in December of 2019. There are new missions. 

 We’re talking about bringing airborne moving target indicator into space, ground moving target indications in the space. Golden Dome has a space based interceptor layer in space that has to be managed and operated.  

So a lot of new missions are coming to the Space Force. And sort of it at the base is also this counterspace mission, right? The ability to fend off adversary hostile actions and protect US assets and as that threat matures, that gets more complicated, that requires additional capability and additional force structure. 

So yes, absolutely. A natural evolution of what the country is asking the Space Force to do. And, you know, I’ll say it, you know, doubling the size of the Space Force still makes it the smallest service in the military, right? So it doesn’t relieve the service of doing things in manpower efficient ways. So there’s still absolutely an element of the digital piece, right?   

And so cyber is a huge part of this. The modeling and simulation, live virtual constructive training, the interoperable architectures and being able to design those in model-based ways before you actually start bending metal and committing big dollars. All those are still at the core of what the Space Force is doing. But the missions have expanded and therefore the personnel, resources and other resources have to expand. 

33:02 – 33:28 

There’s also the prevalent and well-known challenge of bureaucratic inertia that can bog down government agencies, including military services and the Department of War as a whole. 

So if the Space Force is actually able to scale and double in size over the next decade. How can General Saltzman, and his eventual successors leading the service, make sure they do so efficiently and effectively while also mitigating the risk of adding bureaucratic inertia and slowing down what the service can actually do? 

33:29 – 34:24 

(BL): That’s a great follow up question, Scott, because we talked about, ‘Hey, this service started as a lean service.’  

We still need to be a lean service. The Secretary at War has started a couple areas throughout the entire department that the Space Force has absolutely got to be a key piece of. And that’s acquisition transformation, transformation from the old JCIDS system. So requirements transformation. Those are all designed to get leaner, not just from the perspective of having less people do it and do it cheaper, but it’s about speed. 

The adversary is evolving their threat capabilities at incredible rates. We need to stay ahead of that. And the only way to do that in the 21st century and the threats that we face, is to be able to iterate on requirements faster, to iterate on capability delivery faster. And so we still need to be lean. But that doesn’t mean we have to stay at the levels that we were at when the service was founded. 

34:25 – 34:59 

(MD): Some of this is about empowering people in positions of leadership, too, right? And one example I’ll give is the Chief of Space Operations. That position has been named by the Department to be responsible for space requirements across all of the joint force. And so the CSO can break ties and make decisions on what’s going to happen to support the joint force from a space perspective. At some point somebody has to move that decision forward and in this case, the CSO has the ability to move space decisions forward in that role that’s been given to him by the Department.

35:00 – 35:24 

There was another recent announcement that will factor into how these documents move forward. The Department of the Air Force has submitted a record-setting budget request for the Space Force for Fiscal Year 2027 at a total of just over $71 billion — more than double what the service had in the prior year.  

What does that number, if fulfilled and appropriated by Congress, do for the Space Force in developing its objective force for the future?  

35:25 – 36:29 

(BL): As the former budget guy, I guess first I would start this answer with, I don’t think you will find a service chief or a service programmer that would ever say, ‘That’s all we need. Thank you.’  

Now, is that a great down payment on moving forward to where we need to go? Absolutely. And as the Space Force, very appreciative of that budget increase, whatever the final amount ends up being in the appropriations side.  

Absolutely. And then they know they have a responsibility to make the best use of that money going forward. But to the point Mike made earlier, the nation continues to ask the service to do more than it did originally, and I would anticipate that will continue.  

And therefore, in the future versions of these documents and the objective force that gets defined in the future, I would anticipate there will be a need for increased budget. Just like the Department of War’s budget has continued to increase over time based on the threats that are out there and the security that the nation requires.  

36:30 – 37:29 

(MD): I would say that the budget request is exactly that. It’s a budget request. So it’s the administration asking the Congress to appropriate this money.  

These two documents are key to that conversation. These two documents allow the Space Force and the Department of War to message to the Congress and to the appropriators what we’re facing in our space security arena, right? And the resources that are going to be required to really get ahead of the threat and stay preeminent in space security.  

So I think we can tie those two things together. These documents really sort of are laying out the challenges. And you can read it. There’s a couple hundred pages of material here, and you can see the challenges being faced and the decisions that have to be made, and the force structure that’s going to have to be created to achieve what the nation is asking the Space Force to do. 

So it’s absolutely a down payment [for] incorporating all these new missions and these threat challenges are going to require the Space Force to grow and they will have to grow and be sustained at some higher level than it is today. 

37:30 – 37:38 

What do you think is unique about the transparency underlying these documents? 

What does that do for facilitating engagement between the Space Force and its partners? Both in scope and in scale? 

37:39 – 38:29 

(MD): There’s a line at the end of the objective force document, I think that says that this set of documents need to now be sort of put into action. And I think that the conversation with international partners is a really important part of that. 

Combatant Commands, you know, live in geographic regions and are with their international partners all the time, but I think there’s an opportunity to make these international conversations more robust, more meaningful, more impactful that I hope the Space Force will grab on to and take that opportunity. Because there is, you know, with NATO committing additional resources to future space sovereign capabilities that they have or capabilities they can contribute to this coalition. 

We need to take them up on that and I would really encourage the Space Force to use these documents to have those conversations in a more robust way than they’ve been able to in the past.  

38:30 – 40:54 

(BL): Yeah, I guess my comment on the transparency, I think, like everything else with these documents, my guess is that was malice of forethought. It’s an acknowledgment that in today’s era, in the 21st century, there is far more information available than ever before. 

And so you combine that with – it was really only March of 2018 – is the first time that in an unclassified setting, we would talk about space and warfighting. Prior to that, prior to the publishing of the National Space Strategy in March of 2018, the conversation of space and warfighting had to happen in a classified setting. The challenge with that is it makes it hard for some of those that need to provide support to understand what it is actually that you need. 

Now, obviously, there are several members of Congress that are cleared, but the entire Congress isn’t. The general public obviously doesn’t all have a security clearance. But in 2018, we made the decision to say, ‘This has happened. We need to acknowledge it so that we can have a more fulsome discussion about the benefits that the nation gets from space, as well as the threats that are out there to contest that.’ 

And I think by publishing these documents to the level of detail that has been done, it’s a natural continuation of that, so that the support from the general public is there. So that all of our members of Congress understand the complete and comprehensive picture of exactly what our nation’s vital national interests in space are, as well as what are the threats that are out there to counter them? 

And therefore, what is the objective force we need to be able to succeed in that environment? As Mike alluded to, it’s infinitely easier to have conversations with allies if you’re in at least to start with in this unclassified setting.  

Industry – the same thing. Some of industry has clearances and some don’t. And so the starting point that I would imagine that the service wrestled with and said the compilation of information that we’ve captured here is unclassified, and we’ll move forward with that. And that will give us a very good baseline to start our conversations with.  

There will still be a need for classified systems, capabilities and conversations, and those will happen in the appropriate spaces. But these two unclassified documents give a great baseline to really move forward in this allied and partnered and hybrid fashion.

40:55 – 41:07 

So if you were to put yourself in the shoes of an executive at an industry partner or even a senior leader for an allied or partner nation — what are your takeaways from these documents and the messages and questions posed within them? How would you move forward from here?  

40:08 – 42:47 

(BL): Yeah, I think if I’m an allied, a senior leader that’s engaging with the Space Force in whatever forum that may be, if it’s an individual one on one meeting, if it’s a group forum. If it’s a series of workshops. 

I now have, at least again, as I described it, a really good baseline of how the United States Space Force thinks about the space environment and how it will evolve into 2040. And I also have a really good feel for what is the Space Force focused on in this objective force design on what they need to be successful in defining that objective force. 

So now if I’m an allied partner, I can take a look and I can say, ‘This is what they’re going after in the navwar area, or this is what they’re going after in the orbital warfare arena. What capabilities do I have that could either augment or help improve the resiliency, the redundancy, the ability to reconstitute those types of things?’ 

And so it’s: I’m not guessing any more about what I think the service is looking for, based on combing through every speech that’s given by every senior leader in the Space Force, they have now documented it for me in a baseline document, and I know they’re going to be updating it. So I have an opportunity to inform that. They specifically asked me to wrestle with the ideas and come forward with thoughts. 

So I just think it provides for a much more informed discussion. And I think you could make the same case for industry senior leaders as well. You’re much more informed going into the conversation so that it doesn’t start with two people across a table saying, so what do you need from me? What do you have to offer? It starts in a much further place down the road.

42:48 – 43:46 

(MD): If I’m the CEO of the startup, or mid tier or prime – it doesn’t matter, right? The document helps me to go to my investors, to my board of directors and to say, ‘Look at where the Space Force is headed.’ I need to put my company in front of that wave and here’s how we intend to do it.  

They’ve written down their challenges. They’ve written down their questions. We’ve got an answer to some of these questions. And we’re going to put some money against this. And then in the context of that document, in the context of the things that they said they need. Go back and talk to the Space Force about what it is we can provide. So many times, especially sort of in the tech world, they come up with a widget or a technology and say, ‘I have this technology, right?’ 

Well, okay, help me understand how you’re going to use that technology to solve one of my problems. Well, here’s the list of problems in these documents. And so you have a better chance of putting your solution in the context of something that solves a national security problem as you bring it forward and hope to get it adopted in some force design.

43:46 – 43:55 

Now that the Space Force has laid out this vision and looks ahead to iterate on the five, ten and fifteen year mark to 2040 — what does success look like for the objective force? 

43:56 – 44:58 

(MD): As I look back having been at the beginning of this ten years ago in 2016, I’m encouraged by what I’m seeing happen now. We’re starting to move in that direction. The things that we talked about in the Space Enterprise Vision, you can see being unfolded through some of the systems that are being deployed today, you see proliferated LEO architectures. You see  disaggregation of putting everything on one satellite that’s a fragile architecture. But breaking those functions up amongst a number of satellites, that’s more resilient, that’s happening.  

So some of these concepts and principles have begun, and that’s rewarding to see. Well, today, actually, you know, if I look up, I still basically see the same architecture we’ve had for a long time. But I think that is starting to move. It’s starting to pivot. 

And I think five years from now, if I can look up and see a more hybrid architecture, things that are dissimilar, things that are connected as we’ve talked about in this conversation. Solving that problem I think it gives us a step up in resiliency and capability and that’s one of the things I’ll be looking for five years on. 

44:59 – 46:08 

(BL): I would add ideally success means we continued this journey a few steps further. I don’t think any of us at the era that we were in the military space business was completely satisfied with where we were. And so these documents are a good indicator of continued progress, but success in the future years takes several forms. 

I think whoever the senior leaders of the Space Force are in 5 or 10 years from now, ideally, they’re enjoying more fulsome conversations with their allies and partner  and their industry counterparts.  

Ideally there will be some proposed answers to some of the questions that are posed in these documents. I say proposed because that’s the idea, right? Propose some answers, develop some concepts that go with those answers. Wargame them. Test them out. Maybe the first proposed answer isn’t the last one but ideally we’re moving forward and trying some things out.  

And then lastly I would say to the point of these documents being unclassified and out there for everyone. I believe success will be that our guardians continue to be more informed, more capable, and more recognized for what they do to secure the nation’s interests in, to and from space. 

46:09 – 46:22 

And where does Elara Nova factor into this?We have these documents that are now publicly released and available for the world to see.  

You’ve both already put yourselves in the shoes of international and industry leaders. So where does Elara Nova fit into this path forward? 

46:23 – 47:53 

(MD): Well our team at Elara Nova is chock-full of the leaders who have been involved in these conversations and debates and decisions since the conversation started a decade ago. I use as exhibit A my friend and colleague General Bill Liquori, who got his street cred as a weapons and tactics officer. Flew satellites for the intelligence community. Was responsible for space operations of basically the entire military space architecture. Helped write that National Security Space Strategy in 2018 from the White House and then was responsible for all the first independent budgets of a new military service. 

So these are the kind of people and people that have been in all of the six mission areas and the enabling functions and led those areas. Those are the people that we’ve surrounded ourselves with at Elara Nova and have all the scar tissue and the successes and the failures that they are ready to pass on to other people who are doing this work. 

And we continue to stay engaged in all aspects of this as we go about our work. You know, I’d say we’re all personally invested through our individual 20 or 30 or 40 year professional careers in the direction that the country is taking in space and how important it is for our security and our economy to get this right. 

So we can help our friends in the government. We can help strengthen and focus the industrial base, and we can help international partners contribute their own space capabilities, as we’ve talked about here today. And we can talk to the capital markets about where their investments ought to be focused to really be most impactful. So that’s how we founded Elara Nova that we can continue to contribute and we love doing that every day.

47:54 – 48:20 

(BL): Yeah, and all I would add is obviously the four co-founders, as they said, there’s a need for a space consultancy company and now even evolved beyond just space. They had the foresight to go out and find and hire a workforce that has an incredibly diverse skill set and set of experiences that certainly help inform the way forward, specifically with documents like these two as well as many others.

48:21 – 48:57 

This has been an episode of The Elara Edge. Elara Nova is the trusted global security partner delivering decisive advantage.  

As a strategic advisory firm, Elara Nova builds expert teams uniquely tailored for client needs to deliver actionable results. With the trusted insight to deliver your decisive edge, Elara Nova is your source for expertise and guidance in global security. 

If you liked what you heard today, please subscribe to our channel and leave us a rating. Music for this podcast was created by Patrick Watkins of PW Audio. I’m your host, Scott King, and join us next time at the Elara Edge.

Episode 38: New Enterprise Command and Control Program Office to Enhance Commander Decision-Making

The Elara Edge Podcast

Host: Scott King 

SME: Air Vice-Marshal (Ret) Mark Chappell, Executive Partner at Elara Nova  

00:02 – 01:20 

As emerging technologies like artificial intelligence are increasingly leveraged to streamline and enhance command and control, the Department of War is expected to announce a new program office that will coalesce and coordinate information and communication pipelines that will empower commanders to make more timely and effective decisions.  

While an official announcement from the Department of War is still forthcoming, DefenseScoop recently reported that the new Enterprise Command and Control Program Office will oversee current AI and data platforms like Maven Smart System and the Edge Data Mesh technology stack as part of a pending program of record for Combined Joint All-Domain Command and Control (CJADC2). Collectively, this “Enterprise C2 Suite” will provide the latest iteration of technologies and tools available for commanders to implement their command and control responsibility. 

Welcome to The Elara Edge! Our topic today is the Enterprise Command and Control Program Office and how it fits into the broader evolution of command and control systems. 

Our guest today is retired Air Vice-Marshal Mark Chappell. After serving for 36 years with the United Kingdom Armed Forces, he retired as a Senior British Military Advisor to U.S. Central Command.  

Sir, welcome to the show!

01:21 – 01:22 

Thank you. Scott. Great to join you.

01:23 – 01:33 

It’s great to have you.  

As we get started, there can be some misconceptions around the term “command and control” or C2. So can you start us off by first defining what we mean by “command and control?” 

01:34 – 04:11 

Yeah. Of course, Scott. So through my career, I’ve been able to witness the evolution of C2 systems on both sides of the Atlantic and how they are increasingly helping warfighters in what is an ever complicated battlefield. So I think you hit on a really important subject to just talk about straight away and that is understanding what we mean when we say ‘command and control.’ 

I still witness lots of people confusing what C2 is, mixing it with communication systems and domain specific distractions. I always joke that a day without an argument about C2 is a day wasted. So it’s important to break the two words I think. Command is the authority given to somebody to execute the mission. And it’s usually passed to the commander by a higher, often political level authority. The next bit, the control bit is the direction given by that commander.  

I don’t know why it’s so difficult. People do have a habit of over complicating this. And it depends – nation to nation. But, as I said, people confuse the definition of a commander giving direction, command and control, with the systems that carry the data. So I’ve seen papers written on command and control, but really they’re talking about the communication barriers. 

It’s nothing to do with the authority in the person and the direction that they’re giving. And sometimes that confusion between what C2 is and the systems around it, which enable command and control, can make for a blurry gray conversation. And as always, if you don’t agree with what you’re talking about at the start, you can go off in slightly different directions. 

Colonel John Boyd, who we’ll all be familiar with, primarily of the ‘Ooda Loop’ fame. And his command thesis thought, though, that the phrase C2 was unhelpful. 

He preferred to frame the concept as “analysis and leadership.” In essence, look at what’s going on – the analysis part and then give some direction – the leadership part. And really, what we’re talking about with this command and control is just another articulation of his famous ‘Ooda Loop.’ So within that, the JADC2 strategy is phrased almost in a similar sense as sense, make sense, decide, and disseminate, which is pretty much the same thing. 

And while these principles all still hold true, the proliferation of modern tech and the associated vast lakes of data that we’re seeing now, when that’s harnessed and processed effectively give the potential for first improving real-time understanding. And second, with the blend of improved training for commanders.And that’s really important. We need to talk about that a bit later on. With machine learning and AI advancements, the potential for better and faster decision-making is what’s emerging from this.

04:12 – 04:17 

And how has the practice of command and control evolved over time, particularly as technologies have advanced?  

04:18 – 07:21 

Yeah. So, I think history would tell us that, for example, before World War Two, wars tended to be fought within a single domain. So tanks fought tanks, ships fought ships, and aircraft fought aircraft. And that was partly due to a commander only really having awareness within their own domain.  

With the advent of blitzkrieg tactics. Arguably, this is where we first saw it. We saw the beginnings of a command and control change, and that was a blending and a morphing of multi-domain operations.  

First time, really, where we were using systems, sensors, radios, if you like, to help direct across domains such that we could exploit potential advantages that we may or may not have had, or in those cases that the German forces had. 

And that increased during the Cold War. Soviet forces presented us with a new problem, which was effectively being outnumbered. And to address this, the Army and Air Force proposed a new approach that truly combined air and land power for the first time by developing new technologies to identify enemy locations.  

This concept was known as the air-land battle, and its three dimensional approach sought to use the advantages in ISR. So intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance to see deep into the battle space and direct firepower onto potentially reinforcements.  

Those deep strikes then complemented the ground forces’ ability to concentrate firepower at critical places, and that limited the adversary’s numerical advantage. However, in order to execute this, you need to know what’s going on to a higher level of information or fidelity.  

The best way to visualize this is to break it down, really. And you can’t fight what you can’t see. That sounds quite simplistic, but our ability to sense what was going on in more than one domain and more than just with the eyeball became fundamental. So all of a sudden, the ability to see in different spectrums, different elements of the battlespace was key to this. 

It was the start point. Often in this world, whenever you have a system, it won’t often give you a clear yes or no answer. It’s always something gray and it’s always something difficult. So there’s a degree of analysis required even now in modern day systems based on contradictory results on whatever interrogation that’s been done.  

And then once you’ve got all of that together, it needs to be processed such that a commander or an individual can use that information effectively. And so to answer your question, our ability to see more and to process it, allowed the commander to make better, quicker decisions. 

And this resulted in the development of new systems just two are JSTARS and [sic]. And that brought with it the need for improved communication networks, which in turn brought the space and cyber domains into the fight for the first time.  

So with these systems, when they were combined, commanders were able to gain a quicker understanding of the battlespace and then improve the response time to direct fires onto the enemy forces.

07:22 – 07:34 

And so how did this changing operational environment create a need for the Joint All Domain Command and Control (or JADC2) strategy, which was released by the Pentagon in early 2022?  

And what progress has been made since the JADC2 strategy was first introduced? 

07:35 – 11:06 

Yeah, sure. So given the advances and changes in how we fight, it’s critical that all domains and services can communicate and interact with each other effectively. 

Unfortunately and likely through a fair chunk of sod’s law, each of the military services set off and developed their own tactical network, which was in part or completely incompatible with those of the other services, i.e. the Army couldn’t talk to anybody else, and neither could the Air Force and neither could the Navy. 

And with that in mind, the Joint All Domain Command Control JADC2 system, or concept, was brought together in the Pentagon to connect sensors from all of the military services into a single network across the 11 Combatant Commands while also using artificial intelligence algorithms to help improve decision making.  

So what we’re really talking about here is a matrix. For this to work then, numerous activities need to take place and they’ve been broken into some five logical lines of effort. 

The first one being the Data Enterprise. We talked about the large volume of data which is available now. Well, joint force and mission partners must be able to discover and access any data and information from all warfighting domains at all levels of warfare and this alone brings with it a significant standardization challenge.  

The second one, equally important, is the Human Enterprise. Militaries, and particularly the commanders within those militaries need to be trained to fully harness these capabilities. And this includes what, where, when machine learning and AI can assist, plus, very importantly, where these aspects may add risk. There’s a whole large debate going on now about where AI and humans should play within a targeting cycle, particularly when we’re talking about lethal force. 

The next one, I like to think of this one as the glue, is the Technical Enterprise. This is enormous. And it holds JADC2 to together and makes it work in the real world. And this LOE enhances, for example, the shared situational awareness, global collaboration, joint planning, visualization, which is usefully  termed sometimes as the single pane of glass, predictive readiness and logistics, and then finally, real time synchronization of targeting. Within the targeting LOE, commanders require secure world wide communications in a degraded and contested electromagnetic spectrum. 

And so LOE3 addresses the transport infrastructure of JADC2, and it provides the essential minimum features necessary to ensure continuous command and control – really.  

Four is nuclear command and control and communications. You know, if we’re going to build an all singing, all dancing system, it’s certainly sensible to include the nuclear enterprise within that. 

And then finally, number five, mission partner information sharing. If a war is going to be fought within a coalition, which it traditionally is, then all of that combined force will need to sense, make sense, decide and disseminate at the same pace. It would be farcical, really, to have some of the combined force making decisions from the single pane of glass on highly accurate information, while others are, potentially using PowerPoint slides with information on it, which is 48 hours old. It wouldn’t make any sense at all.  

And that would probably force us down a de-conflicted way of operating rather than an integrated – which is where we’d rather be. So I would much rather be fighting in an integrated fashion rather than a de-conflicted fashion. 

 11:07 – 11:15 

Now Sir, you used the expression ‘single pane of glass.’  

From your perspective, how do you define that single pane of glass in the context of this conversation? 

11:16 – 12:13 

Yeah. So the single pane of glass is interesting. I find it a really useful phrase to visualize what we’re talking about here. Often people can consider 3D holograms with things flying around. That’s not really where we are just yet with the tech. We’re talking about a computer screen or computer screens. But the fuzing of all of this, all domain, all source data onto that screen such that it makes immediate sense, is accurate and allows quick comprehension about what’s going on such that better decisions can be made. 

So within that, we might be talking about unclassified social media feeds right the way through to national technical means and everything in the middle. So really, how would all that information be appropriately presented? Not yet on a 3D hologram, but maybe in the future, how might that get presented? And the phrase ‘single pane of glass’ is there to sort of frame around: What are we talking about here? It’s really about how do you get it on screen or screens.  

12:14 – 12:36 

Can you elaborate on the role that AI and ML technologies have in JADC2? And can you bring us up to speed on the U.S. military’s historical relationship is with these emerging technologies? 

12:24 – 14:26 

The new clubs in the bag are certainly AI and machine learning. The background to this is it’s widely available on the web, but around 2017, a small team was put together under a Marine Colonel in the Pentagon. And he was tasked with accelerating AI adoption through what is known as or widely known as Project Maven. 

The central motivation for all of this was, being out-thought at a quicker pace by adversaries who also embraced AI-enabled warfare. So China would be the best example for that. So the mission was to use AI where possible, to process the massive volumes of applicable data that we have all gathered, and we continue to sense quicker than a human could do that. 

I can give you a fictitious example, where if there was a square of unprocessed ground which we needed to target, arguably it has to be ten kilometers by ten kilometers just for argument’s sake, and we put a team of analysts on it. It would take them a certain period of time to derive the majority of the targets within that ten by ten kilometer square. 

With the advent of AI and machine learning, it’s possible to do that task in a much, much faster time. It is, however, really important to understand, and it’s improving every day. But where the AI and machine learning is liable to make mistakes, can make mistakes. And so the blending of the two goes into human oversight into the much greater and faster processing capabilities of AI and machine learning. Together, there’s a real synergistic effect just there. 

Like I say, the AI is getting better, as is the machine learning aspect of that as well. But at the moment, it’s the ability to put the two together to make sure: one, we’re targeting what we think we’re targeting, but two, to harness the capabilities of the system. So AI is able to process information at a much clearly a vastly quicker rate than anything a human can ever do. And so that was the start point of all of this, Scott. 

14:27 – 14:35 

Now what are some of the ways that we can ensure that human oversight is there so that the data that the AI is running on is accurate and secure?

14:36 – 15:54 

I mean, that’s a great question, Scott. There are numerous policy papers have been written about the moralistic issues surrounding AI and the implementation of lethal force. What is important, though, to understand, is it sort of depends, as it does always. And it depends on the type of fight a country is in. 

Again, hypothetically, if one was in an existential fight for survival and time was everything for that fight, one might consider allowing machines to make more of the decisions than in a separate scenario where the fight wasn’t existential and we needed to ensure that what we were targeting, was therefore, exactly what we thought it was rather than what we thought it probably was. 

And so that leads you to where do and how much input does a human have from within the loop? So, the targeting loop as it’s called, and sometimes it’s referred to a human in the loop, and sometimes it’s referred to as a human on the loop.  

And that’s sort of semantic. At some point within the decision-making before lethal force is employed. Then in some scenarios, it’s wise to have a human to provide oversight over the decisions or the proposals is a better way to describe it that the AI is making, in this instance, a targeting suggestion. 

15:55 – 16:13 

There are two AI-related initiatives being developed by the Department of War in collaboration with its industry partners.  

The first you’ve already mentioned, Project Maven, which today is now known as the Maven Smart System.  

Can you explain how Maven Smart System became the next iteration of Project Maven and what does it do differently today?  

16:14 – 17:22 

Sure. Yeah. I mean, and it’s all related, isn’t it? The Maven Smart System, came from a development, where Maven itself was using an AI tool that detected objects, really? So stuff on the battlefield, vehicles, people, structures, and then it tagged and triaged huge volumes of that data to support human INT analysts working in the targeting flows. So effectively using AI to process vast amounts of data. Whereas today, Maven Smart Systems is a scalable and deployable AI system which works across multiple missions and data types. 

So MSS or Maven Smart Systems has embedded AI across the entire kill chain now. So rather than just be an assistant to an INT analyst, it now embeds artificial intelligence across the whole enterprise.  

A good example might be for example, in that logistics space, it’s possible to use artificial intelligence now to predict where logistics challenges might become apparent and therefore give suggestions that might help us get ahead of that problem before it actually materializes.

17:23 – 17:28 

And Sir, just to clarify your use of the term “kill chain,” what does this mean in the context of command and control? 

17:29 – 18:41 

Yeah. I like to see them as separate in that – going back to our definitions of what we understand command and control to be, the commander is given that authority, the control is the decisions that he is making. Some of the decisions that he is making, maybe, to use lethal force. 

So really, command and control is way broader than the use of lethal force. But it’s certainly something in modern warfighting where mostly commanders will be engaged in. But it won’t be the entirety of what he or she is making those command type decisions upon. So it’s a significant part, but they’re not one in the same. There’s sort of, lethal force is a subset of the authority placed in a commander for the job he’s doing.  

So, for example, it might be a commander is not delegated the authority to execute lethal force. And that might be a high level commander is given that authority, but he hasn’t chosen to delegate that down. 

That doesn’t mean that the subordinate commander isn’t executing command and control, it just hasn’t been delegated in this instance for our discussion, the ability to employ lethal force. Sometimes that’s held right at the top and sometimes that’s delegated a long way down and it usually depends on where we are in the spectrum of a particular conflict.  

18:42 – 19:00 

Thank you, Sir. 

And the second initiative is the Edge Data Mesh technology stack (or EDM). The Pentagon’s Chief Digital and AI office completed the first successful demonstration of EDM in an exercise last year.  

Can you share more about this technology and its relevance to command and control in a modern warfighting environment? 

19:01 – 21:01 

Yes. This is really important. So for the system to function properly at all levels and particularly at the tactical frontline is referred to as “the edge” more increasingly at the moment. So when it says ‘edge,’ it means the frontline really.  

The warfighter needs to access all of this great AI/ML and the derived, much vaunted single pane of glass. It’s all well and good having it in a headquarters, for example, a CoCom, but at the edge where the warfighter is potentially engaging with the enemy, they need that as well.  

What we’re talking about here is access to a cloud-like environment where the processing and the results of the processing is available. And in order to make it resilient, that cloud has got to be accessible through multiple routes.  

For example, there’s no point having it purely on a Satcom link, because if the Satcom link gets taken out, you’re no longer using the benefits of it. So we might consider a Satcom link, a 5G link. A low frequency transmission, but a whole different selection of transmission systems to allow us to get around the likely jamming and disruption of passing the information backwards and forwards.  

And given the sensible assumption, though, that warfighting is going to be conducted in a heavily degraded environment, the Edge Data Mesh or the EDM is experimenting on how that might be delivered. So sending the single pane of glass, as an expression all the way down to the edge, in an environment where it’s likely to be significantly degraded and it’s being done at the moment using multiple nodes, hence the phrase, meshes. 

And it’s through multiple mediums and multiple formats and that provides the redundancy and scale, which in turn provides the necessary resilience. That’s really, really important because otherwise, I think we would be in danger of building a system, which is fine in theory, but it doesn’t actually function in the real world, which will be contested and degraded.

21:02 – 21:13 

Let’s dig into the contested and degraded environment a little bit.  

In what ways does electronic warfare, to include jamming and spoofing, complicate the threat assessment and decision-making process for a commander? 

21:14 – 23:13 

Yeah, I would say, Scott, that’s certainly not new. And that’s probably gone back since people started fighting each other. I think what we’re talking about here is the principle of deception. And really jamming and spoofing is using that principle, but putting it not just in this instance in an electromagnetic environment. 

So electronic warfare is using, the principle of: if we know the signal that’s being used, how it’s being used, how it’s being transmitted, how it’s being received, then it’s entirely possible to either mimic that signal or overpower that signal or give it a spoof signal, such that, it makes either the picture unworkable or actually not exactly what it really is. 

Now, in the basic sense, that can be a simple modulation of the signal altered and sent back to whatever’s transmitting it. But in more contemporary times, you can see electronic warfare taking far more subtle forms, spoofing, mimicking, making things appear where they shouldn’t appear, where they’re not, or increasing the size of something which isn’t there. So it’s much more complicated than it was originally. But that makes sense because our processing and computing powers have gotten much better. 

And the danger with all of that is, you know, bravery and discipline will never compensate for flawed understanding at a command level, whatever that command level is. So because of a flawed picture based on, in this instance, jamming, a commander makes a decision which is a bad decision, then it doesn’t matter how brave or disciplined you are, you’re probably in trouble.

22:52 – 23:16 

Now recent media reports indicate that the Department of War is looking to launch the new Enterprise Command and Control Program Office. I’ll preface this by saying that this has not yet been formally announced by the Department of War. But some reporting has indicated that an announcement toward this end is forthcoming.  

But can you speak to the purpose behind the formation of an office like this? And how will this office bring about faster and better adoption of C2 technologies?  

23:17 – 25:18 

Sure. Yeah, I’ve heard about that, too. And in reality, it doesn’t surprise me at all, because despite what I would describe as yeoman efforts. To date, you know, we’ve struggled to put into place effective governance and architectures. They’re well-meaning that’s my point about yeoman efforts right, well-meaning formations, parts of the DoW have set their own path to deliver capability. 

It’s all entirely well-meaning and it’s all been done to great effect. But there’s a point where those fragmented, experimentations, prototyping of things, does need to be brought back to the central tent. Such that we can sort of structure these things properly. 

The danger is, we will almost go back a bit to the early days, where each service. Sort of for an analogy, we could find ourselves in a place where different parts of the all domain, military warfighting structure, they wouldn’t all be able to talk to each other if we don’t sort of bring this back to like a coherent start point. So with this new Enterprise C2 program office, I think the intent is to tighten down on the more fragmented elements of the program and therefore improve coherence in its outputs. 

It’s also going to place CJADC2 and AI-supported warfare strategies onto a program of record with what all of that entails: so structure, funding, etc. How will that bring it forward? So if we can consolidate the disparate elements into a cohesive framework, the military is going to be able to significantly enhance its operational effectiveness in what is an increasingly complex world. 

So the focus on real time analysis and AI integration sets the stage for a more dynamic and responsive military strategy in the face of what is a proliferation of more complex, more challenging modern threats. And if you like, that all takes us almost back to the start. This is talking about better decisions at a faster pace.  

25:19 – 25:27 

And how is the integration of AI technologies, combined with the consolidated oversight of this new Enterprise C2 Program Office, improve a commander’s decision-making process?

25:30 – 28:33 

It’s not an insignificant task to understand the complexity in all of those environments, and to understand what capabilities are available within those environments. And then to command and direct them effectively. And we still do, in part, delegate down to a domain command, depending on how we structure our forces, but it’s usually overseen by a Joint Commander and he or she has a big task on. 

So, training of that commander, his experience or her experience, the complexity of the task. And that’s where artificial intelligence really comes to the fore. It allows sensible proposals, if not decisions, to be taken based on that really broad landscape of disparate bits of data. So it’s not an insignificant task, anything that can be done to allow the commander. 

And this is central to the whole discussion, really. Anything [that] can allow the command to make better, faster decisions is really what this is all striving towards. A part of that is how AI is going to assist that commander, but part of it is who that commander is and what experience and what training and truthfully how good that commander actually is. 

But I think he’s going to have a better tool at his disposal. My assumption is, and quite rightly, if the program office can resolve some of the challenges within this, then back to our single pane of glass, what’s on that pane of glass? 

The distillation and dissemination of all domain information is going to be better, faster, of a higher quality and will give the commander better proposals about courses of action available to him. One of the challenges is it’s not always immediately apparent whether or not a certain course of action in the commander’s mind is still available to them. There could be, for example, a fuel contamination incident could occur to take out a whole base somewhere. 

That will eventually filter to the commander.  

But if he doesn’t know that, he could be assuming that that particular air wing is available to conduct a particular tasking and it’s not, with AI very quickly that would be brought into play. And indeed, it might be able to make new suggestions about how to overcome the temporary reduction because of the fuel contamination. It is a simple example, but it gives you probably an example about how broad this thing can be, but also how AI can really assist in making the commander make better decisions. They’re not easier decisions. But they’re going to make better decisions. 

And some of those decisions over time might be delegated to the machine. It would be fascinating to see how that develops. So whether, for example, in an air tasking order, if there is a better suggestion for a particular asset to take up a line within the ATO, then that might be something which is in the near term even delegated to a machine. And there’s just a human on the loop giving broad oversight to that particular decision or bit of execution.

28:34 – 28:56 

In recent months we’ve had a unique test case for what command and control means in the modern operating environment.  

As of this recording, there’s been a temporary ceasefire to what has been an active military operation playing out in the Middle East with Operation Epic Fury. 

Can you kind of speak to how the technologies and systems that we’ve been discussing today, might factor into the command and control procedures for the operations in Iran? 

28:57 – 30:06 

Sure. Yeah. I mean, it’s a really good one, isn’t it? You know, we’ve heard in the media about the rate of target development and the execution tempo, how quickly we’re prosecuting those targets. 

And in what has in essence, been? As I would describe as an air tasking order war or an ATO war. No doubt that artificial intelligence has been central to numerous elements that make this possible. The speed at which things are being completed, is a good indicator of where AI is helping at the moment.  

For example, decisions on where the targets are, how most effectively and efficiently to prosecute them and what asset is going to be a direct consequence of digitizing the battlespace and its C2 infrastructure. 

If we took it from the single pane of glass in the other direction, really, the amount of information which is being displayed on our single pane of glass, really, that comes from processed information. But we’ve got to collect that information first. That is the expansion, and the ability to process that has come from digitized data. So from the collection point right through to the visualization of it, that’s when digitized C2 has come to fruition and borne all of this fruit.

30:07 – 30:18 

And Sir, earlier you also spoke of the risks that may come with AI and how ensuring there is a human in the loop, or on the loop, can help mitigate those risks.  

Can you elaborate on that in the context of the operations in the Middle East? 

30:19 – 31:40 

Yeah, I think two that came to mind, were amongst many. 

But the first one probably being how and where we might put a human in that decision making loop. That’s certainly not resolved yet. There are times and places for different levels of involvement of a human. And we just have to be conscious of that. All the very benefits that come from automation and AI within warfighting as a whole, also comes with the degree of risk and we just need to make sure that we understand that and manage that risk properly. 

And the second one, again, we glanced off of this one Scott, but data integrity is key to all of this. I remember being in a lecture about the difference between the data, which might be kept by JPMorgan, which is broadly a bunch of ones and zeros, and the data which is going to be collected during Epic Fury. And that won’t be a bunch of ones and zeros. 

It’s going to be noisy there. There will be things in there which are sort of not quite right. And so being able to assure that the data is accurate is going to be one of the biggest challenges in that. And I think that’s going to be key within the program office to ensure that’s part of the whole. 

Because, I think that has to be built into the system as a whole. If we’re starting to make, again the same principles and if we’re making decisions on flawed information is usually a bad idea. And again, there’s a risk in that as we automate this increasingly.

31:41 – 32:11 

Now earlier, we talked about the inherent complexity of a Commander going from a requiring situational awareness within a single domain to now having to incorporate how other domains factor into their area of responsibility.  

But there’s also an added complexity of integrating allies and partners into this command and control process. And Sir, you may have a very unique perspective on this, having been the Senior British Military Advisor to Central Command.  

So can you share more about the opportunities and the challenges with integrating an ally or partner nation into the command and control decision-making process? 

32:12 – 34:33 

Sure. Yeah. The thing about fighting in a coalition or with a coalition is, as you’ve highlighted, it brings different challenges and facets with it. 

So there will be potentially different capabilities that are brought to the fight. There’ll be different policy permissions. And what I mean is that what are those assets are actually allowed to do as they get delegated by a government?  

One government might allow a certain type of activity, while another one won’t. And then there’s actually how we operate, actually, is there something completely different about how a particular military does a certain task compared to another task? 

So all of those things are essential to understand and the best way that we can address those issues is to exercise together to operate together, using the systems that we’re going to fight with because what that does, you can do as much theoretical work on this as possible if you like, but, you know, until we flush it out. 

And the best way to do that is as close to the real world as possible is in exercises. Then you can understand where people bring capability, bring limitations, so policy restrictions, scale issues, logistics challenges, all of those things really need to be understood.  

And it’s therefore I would suggest essential, that we keep exercising together and over time, the experience of the commander, not least of which he will be supported, for example, in CENTCOM with people like me who can advise him on where a particular nation might be able to bring something or have a limitation. Then the combination of the two is how that’s usually executed.  

It is difficult, and it takes lots of effort and lots of work to make sure that you can be effective working in a combined sense.  

But you will have noticed that over the course of the JADC2 journey, it’s morphed into Combined JADC2 because of the inevitability, of fighting as a coalition with other nations meant that whilst JADC2, when it was conceived, was quite rightly conceived as a US-only concept, it just changed its name slightly to to Combined JADC2 to give the nod to the fact that one of the challenges is about how you would integrate a different nation and that’s going to be the ongoing challenge of how we share releasable information at the speed of relevance. And if it’s not done properly, that can lead us down to some really inefficient ways of fighting.

34:34 – 34:48 

So given the need for command and control in a modern day operating environment, what should industry’s takeaways be from this conversation about the significance of command and control and the complexity of implementing new technologies into the command and control process? 

34:49 – 35:46 

We’ve always needed and will always need some form of system to assist the commander to make good decisions, right? It’s a fundamental requirement for how we fight – if you look at the principal challenges of that in a digitized world, then standardization is going to be key. 

If we, from an industry perspective, develop systems and products which can’t talk to each other, then we’re already starting, from behind the eight ball, really. So that’s something that would have to be sorted out. So key in all of this is to make sure that what’s being built has a degree of in-built resilience as well, because we aren’t going to be operating in a permissive environment. 

And I really think the Enterprise C2 program office is exactly the approach that is needed, because it’s going to provide the direction the industry wants and needs. And it will give the funding to keep the thing moving along as fast as possible. So I think that approach is exactly what is needed. We’re hoping that as more information comes out about it, it does exactly that.

35:47 – 36:04 

And Sir, you are an Executive Partner with Elara Nova’s Aeronautics & Mission Systems Sector. So from that perspective, what role can Elara Nova’s AMS sector serve in being able to bridge the gap between industry and government, as they seek to together bring these command and control capabilities to fruition? 

36:05 – 37:02 

Yeah, the team that Elara Nova’s Aeronautics and Mission Systems sector are uniquely placed to assist both industry and governments to maximize the potential that comes with digitized C2 and that vaunted ‘single pane of glass.’  

We’ve got a vast amount of experience operating in modern day, complex, all domain environments. And so we know firsthand, the challenges and often the opaque decisions that are being faced every day by that warfighter. 

So within AMS, we can guide industry partners in the development of their systems. And similarly, we’re able to assist governments in developing their digitized C2 policies, architectures, and ultimately the TTPs or tactics, techniques and procedures that go with it. So there’s a really experienced wrap-around package available within AMS to assist with the development of what is going to be the future or at least a significant part of the future in warfighting. 

37:03 – 37:39 

This has been an episode of The Elara Edge. Elara Nova is the trusted global security partner delivering decisive advantage.  

As a strategic advisory firm, Elara Nova builds expert teams uniquely tailored for client needs to deliver actionable results. With the trusted insight to deliver your decisive edge, Elara Nova is your source for expertise and guidance in global security. 

If you liked what you heard today, please subscribe to our channel and leave us a rating. Music for this podcast was created by Patrick Watkins of PW Audio. I’m your host, Scott King, and join us next time at the Elara Edge. 

Episode 37: Foreign Military Sales Reform to Strengthen International Cooperation

The Elara Edge Podcast

Host: Scott King 

SME: Brad Head, Managing Director of International Partnerships (BH) 

Heidi Grant, Executive Partner (HG)

00:02 – 01:20 

When a foreign partner seeks military technology from the U.S. defense industrial base, there’s two ways for them to acquire that capability: Direct Commercial Sales (DCS) and Foreign Military Sales (FMS). In Direct Commercial Sales, the foreign country negotiates directly with the contractor. But in the Foreign Military Sales process, the United States government manages the sale and transfer of that technology with additional training and sustainment support in a way that strengthens international cooperation and the collective security of the United States and its Allies. 

However, a recent surge in demand for hardware and software technologies alike is challenging the current FMS process to keep up, resulting in two recent executive orders and a series of organizational changes to reform and modernize the Foreign Military Sales program.  

Welcome to the Elara Edge. We have two guests today to discuss the opportunities and challenges of the current Foreign Military Sales process and the motives driving the effort to reform the program. 

First is Heidi Grant, Executive Partner with Elara Nova. Heidi is the former Director of the Defense Security Cooperation Agency and the former Director of the Defense Technology Security Administration. 

Heidi, welcome to the show!  

01:20 – 01:21 

(HG): Thank you.  

01:22 – 01:40 

Also joining us is Brad Head, the Managing Director of International Partnerships at Elara Nova. Brad is a retired colonel with the United States Air Force and previously served as the Chief of Defense Planning at the US Mission to NATO and later served as the Director of International Affairs at Space Operations Command.  

Brad, welcome to the show! 

01:40 – 01:41  

(BH): Great to be here. 

01:42 – 01:50 

Let’s begin with the traditional approach to Foreign Military Sales, or FMS. What purpose does it serve? And how is it designed to work? 

01:51 – 03:03 

(HG): Yeah. So I’m going to give a little more background so people know why I’m interested in doing this interview. So I was in the Pentagon on 9/11. Shortly after that, I went and worked at CENTCOM, and that’s where I first met all these international partners that were there to support the U.S. operations. And I learned then that a lot of countries around the world, while they would love to be a valued partner, they didn’t have the capability or capacity to be a strong military partner with the U.S. 

Following working at a couple of combatant commands. I went on to be the Deputy Undersecretary of the Air Force for International Affairs, and as you mentioned, kind of culminated my career in the government with the Defense Security Cooperation Agency. 

But a lot of people don’t have a clear understanding of what is Foreign Military Sales? A lot of people think it’s the US taxpayer dollars financing. That’s not what Foreign Military Sales is. Oftentimes, nations pay every penny of the cost of a sale. It’s a government to government process that’s used and it’s administered by the Defense Security Cooperation Agency and you have U.S. government experts managing the sale with a foreign government.

03:04 – 03:51 

(BH): Yeah. I mean, so I’ll add one job that I’ve had in my life that you didn’t highlight in the opening was I ran the Office of Defense Cooperation in Brussels at the embassy, supporting Belgium, Luxembourg, the European Union and NATO. 

And I think part of the conversation we’ll have is about that system. But that’s really the front lines interacting with the foreign nation’s military. So, for example, when I was in Brussels supporting the Belgian military, they bought F-35s and MQ-9’s and we did some space cooperation with Luxembourg. 

So space security cooperation is a fairly new thing. And I think that is part of the conversation we’re going to have today is understanding the overall Foreign Military Sales process and procedures and then kind of where some of the challenges are that make it fit for purpose for doing the space security cooperation mission in particular.  

But yeah, so just I think that’s a good context. We’ll get started. 

03:52 – 04:53 

(HG): One other thing I wanted to highlight about Foreign Military Sales, because I always get this question like: ‘What’s the difference between Foreign Military Sales and Direct Commercial Sales?’ And it depends on several things. The maturity of the country, whether they can manage the sale on their own, and maybe they don’t need U.S. government involvement in the sale. Or if there’s technology security reasons where they’re required to go through Foreign Military Sales.  

But one of the advantages of Foreign Military Sales is the US government looks at it as a package approach. So it’s not just a sale of the equipment, but when they do the sale in the package, they’re going to ensure that the training is in there, the sustainment is in there. 

So for the lifecycle of that capability, where oftentimes if you go Direct Commercial Sale with a U.S. company, they’re not required to do the sustainment piece of it. Oftentimes they do, but it’s not a requirement where this is a requirement that the U.S. government has is this total package approach is what they call it for Foreign Military Sales.

04:54 – 05:23 

(BH): That’s a good point. I mean, this isn’t just about selling specific pieces of equipment. It’s ensuring that a partner nation has the capability that they’re really trying to get after. And the totality of that, including the sustainment over an extended period of time. There’s a lot of countries we could sell things to that would be interested in buying those things, but they may not be able to use them, sustain them, or operate them. 

And so this total package approach, which the government insists on as part of the Foreign Military Sales process, is really focused on that, making sure that we’re delivering capabilities to our allies, partners and friends.

05:24 – 05:34 

So say that I’m a representative from an Allied or partner nation. And I want to buy a certain technology or capability from a U.S.-based defense contractor. 

How do I go about doing that?  

05:35 – 06:35 

(HG): In each of our embassies around the world, the U.S. has trained security cooperation officers that are located there in the embassy in their country. And that is their first point of entry, is to go and talk to the person locally there about their interests, and they can then connect them into the company or into the U.S. government and help advise them which way is the best to go. 

But it’s not going to stop them from talking directly to industry if they want to go and learn a little bit about the technology, direct to industry or direct to one of the services. But oftentimes a country isn’t sure: is it Army? Navy? Air Force? Who would manage the case for them? Our country’s unique that we have such a broad defense base here that there might be several companies that offer the same capability. 

So that’s why I would say it’s best to go into our embassy, who has a broader view of all of the capabilities out there and which U.S. companies offer what they’re looking for.  

06:35 – 09:42 

(BH): Yeah, the Security Cooperation Office is the office that I ran in Belgium and other Combatant Commands called them different things. Now they’ve all solidified around the term ‘military group,’ but at the time I ran the Office of Defense Cooperation and that office was responsible for Foreign Military Sales and then the Commerce Department, would be working if it turned out that you wanted to pursue something through the Direct Commercial Sales route. 

So you didn’t want the total package approach with the U.S. government involvement, and you just wanted to go buy the piece of equipment directly. Now there are certain times that that’s not a viable option for restrictions on certain types of technologies. But those two offices, again, the Commerce Department, if you’re looking for a Direct Commercial Sale or the Security Cooperation Office now called, ‘milgroups’ for the Foreign Military Sales. 

And here I’ll just highlight one of the challenges that we face right now when the space security cooperation enterprise in particular, is the lack of guardians or even space-smart people in a lot of these positions on the front lines. So if you look out at various embassies around the world that are having heavy conversations with their host nation, that’s responsible for building their air and space force team but they don’t have a guardian or even somebody who has any deep experience with space on their team, which makes it challenging. I think it’s even more complicated because the U.S. doesn’t have a catalog of things that they’re actively trying to sell.  

So, for example, when I was in Belgium and Belgium was in the process of replacing their F-16 fourth-gen fighters, they were looking for something more advanced and potentially a fifth-gen fighter. And it just so happened to be that the F-35 was the primary option that was for sale in the world, and they evaluated a couple of different options, but that’s the one they went with.  

But because I wasn’t a fighter pilot, an F-22 pilot or even a real subject matter expert, I think one of the challenges that we’re running into right now, as nations are looking to the U.S. and trying to buy those sorts of capabilities and build those sorts of forces, is that in the absence of those trained experts on the front line and a list of things that we have for sale in the space world, we’ve got WGS, which is a satellite communication network that some countries have decided to partner with us to build for their satellite communication needs. 

But other than that, we have a couple of systems that we can talk to other allies, partners and friends about. Everything else is kind of a handmade wooden shoe. You have to sit down with somebody, have an informed conversation to define very specific requirements that would then get translated through the system to DSCA and then on to the implementing agencies, whether that’s SAF/IA on the Air and Space Force side or other services. 

And so you either need a list of things that you’re actively selling or you need experts on the front line. And we currently don’t have either one of those. I know Deanna Rhyalls and her team in the space division of SAF/IA are actively working on what does that list look like that we want to sell allies, partners and friends? And I know DSCA is working on the human capital side to make sure we’ve got trained experts out there, whether they’re on the front lines at the embassy or on the C field com and their S five teams or the combatant commands, even at that level in the J five teams. So that’s one of the challenges that we’re kind of working through during this period of time right now.  

09:43 – 11:16 

(HG): Yeah. So I don’t see it actually any different than other domains that we have. I think it starts with from a U.S. perspective, what kind of capabilities would be helpful to strengthen the coalition for our international partners to step up to make our capability capacity together stronger? 

Talking about the wooden shoe that Brad just brought up, it’s very similar to fighter jets – where if you look at F-16s around the world, you probably don’t find two that are exactly alike, because countries have the right to ask for unique things based on their sovereignty. 

So that’s one of those things where it’s made Foreign Military Sales very difficult or more challenging, because in the past, the U.S. used to operate things and then we’d say, ‘Okay, now let’s transfer this to an international partner.’ Where in today’s environment, we’re finding that our international partners want it at the same time, we’re getting it.  

Like Brad mentioned, the F-35 as we were just training on the F-35, some of the partners in the F-35, they were also needing training. So they’re asking for things either sometimes even before we get them – non program of records. So that’s why you know you hear this all the time that ‘Oh the Foreign Military Sales process is so slow or it’s broken.’  

I do not agree with that statement. The Foreign Military Sales process is not broken. There’s always room for improvement. But there’s a reason oftentimes for oversight and accountability why things go slow.

11:17 – 13:10 

(BH): Yeah. I would add there’s a couple of different control regimes to protect U.S. sensitive military technologies. There’s the International Traffic and Arms Regulation, ITAR, there’s the Export Administration Regulations, EAR. And then there’s actually one called the Missile Technology Control Regime, MTCR, that are all relevant when you get to space in particular. And if you go back even just five-ten years ago, space was the exclusive remit of a handful of nation states. 

And now we see, with the commercial space sector moving quickly and the price of launch coming down, that more and more nations who historically would never have thought of themselves as a space faring nation now have a realistic pathway to getting involved in some of those areas that they haven’t historically. And so we find a demand signal that’s just growing out there for nations as they think about getting involved and understanding that space is the critical component of any multi-domain operation. 

And you see that in Ukraine and we see that in Iran today, that space is a critical player in that whether it’s the missile defense, missile tracking piece or if it’s the satellite communications, navigation timing, the overhead imagery, or even some of the offensive systems that maybe it use to deny those advantages to our adversaries.  

Nations are seeing the need for those things, and they’re actively pursuing those, and so as they engage the U.S. system, they run into some of these control regimes that would force them to go the FMS route, as opposed to, in some cases, being able to buy those technologies from the industry partners directly. But there’s nothing, as Heidi indicated, it’s not that they can’t sell those things.  

It’s just that there are mechanisms by which we ensure that we make a sound policy decision that’s fully integrated across the whole of the U.S. government, from the State Department and the Commerce Department and the Defense Department in a variety of different agencies to ensure that we’re making the right decisions on the types of technologies that we are willing to sell and export to other nations.

13:11 – 13:18 

And what are some things industry needs to be thinking about to better provide a technology or capability through the FMS program? 

13:19 – 14:53 

(HG): Right. So, a country can buy directly from a company. It’s the company’s responsibility if it’s what we call a dual-use for both commercial and defense to go through and get the licenses needed through Commerce and make sure it’s coordinated with the State Department. So there’s a process, as long as the company has the marketing license to be able to export, the country can go directly to them. If it’s something exportable. 

You know, one of the things I found when I was Director of Defense Technology Security Administration is I think a lot of people weren’t aware of their role looking at the sensitive technology making security Department of War decisions on whether that technology poses a risk. 

And their motto was ‘Keeping the U.S edge.’ And so they review all of these requests from companies to be able to export to make sure that the U.S. does keep the edge. And, you know, that’s a sensitive topic to bring up when you have international partners hear that, but I’ve talked to international partners and they want the U.S. to have the military edge. So they are supportive. We need to keep the edge and that’s what DITSA does.  

One of my biggest recommendations. Now this is more to companies is they need to sit down with the Defense Technology Security Administration early in the process and often because it will avoid them over-promising technology release to different countries. It’s just important to get that knowledge ahead of time before something’s promised to be able to export.

14:54 – 15:15 

(BH): One thing that’s it’s an interesting thing is that you could have an entire complex system that is releasable to another nation, but there could be a single component, a guidance chip or a cryptography chip that’s embedded in there that is restricted in a certain way that would prevent that sale or restrict that sale from a certain country or partner without changing something about the way that thing is built or configured.

15:16 – 16:56 

(HG): I would say there’s several things that the U.S. looks at when they decide, is this a technology that we want to export or not? And one of the first things you’re looking at: is there a legitimate need for this export? And I’ll give you an example, is titanium. And we would look like somebody wanted some unusual amount of titanium. 

Well, titanium is used to make golf clubs, but it’s also used to make weapons. So you got to review that and say ‘Okay, why are they asking? Is there a military need for this? And you also look at does this transfer contribute to regional stability or does it trigger an arms race? 

So you want to look at that. You want to look at human rights. I mean, so there’s a whole checklist of things that you’re going to look at. And one of the biggest things is are they going to be able to secure this technology and protect it. And so it doesn’t get in the hands of terrorists or adversaries. And overall, is that transfer in the strategic interest of the U.S.?  

And this is where as a DTSA director. There was a committee that I used to sit on where it was an end-user review committee, where the DTSA director sits on it. There’s a representative from Department of State and Department of Commerce, and there might be some times where I would say, ‘Well, I’m concerned there’s some risk about the security piece,’ but then the State Department’s looking at it through the lens. Well, this partnership is really important and then commerce is view is like, ‘Well, this is really important to our economy.’  

So oftentimes these three agencies get together. And if at the director level, if you can’t come to an agreement, it can go all the way up to the President and the Cabinet on whether we should transfer our technology or not.

 16:57 – 17:21 

Now there was a recent study that was published by the Bruegel a think tank based in Brussels that showed foreign military sales purchases from European nations jumped from an average of $11 billion a year from 2017-2021 to $68 billion in 2024 alone. 

So given that surge in demand from our international partners over in Europe, how might that be creating a burden on industry to meet these growing demands? 

17:22 – 19:19 

(BH): A little explanation may be helpful. So when I was in Belgium and the Belgian government signed an order for 34 F-35s, in practice what happens is that order comes through The Security Cooperation Office makes its way back through DSCA and ends up in SAF/IA, which is the implementing agency in that case for an F-35 sale. 

And then what practically happens is SAF/IA. In this case, it’s the JPO, the Joint Program Office, because F-35 was handled differently. But that office picks up the phone and calls Lockheed in Fort Worth and says, ‘Hey, you know how you’re already building 1300 F-35A models for us. Well, I want you to add 34 more slot them here, here, here and here.’ 

Put this specific configuration on them. And when they come off the end of the line, slap a Belgian tail flash on the end of them. Then the U.S. government takes ownership of it. And then we transfer it back over to the Belgian government. So we’re essentially, when other countries buy, it increases the scale of the buy that the U.S. government is getting so the fixed cost associated with developing things comes down.  

But again, some of the delay in delivering these capabilities is the fact that if you wanted some of these systems and we see this playing out right now in Ukraine and some concerns in Iran, and I think the President actually had some of the leading defense industry leaders come to the White House talk about needing to ramp up production to the extent that the system itself does everything it’s supposed to do as quickly as it wants to do it. 

And you put in an order for a Patriot battery or whatever the system is, and the industry says, ‘Oh, it’ll be seven years before I can deliver that.’ That’s on the industry side. And so they’ve got to have predictability in the demand signal and a guarantee that they’re going to have the authority to sell those sorts of things to those other nations. 

But there’s an industry component to this that contributes to the frustration and delay. It’s not all on the U.S. government side. And so our industry partners, having the willingness and the ability to lean forward and to take some of those risks within the parameters and authorities that they’re authorized, I think is an important element to add to this. 

19:20 – 20:41 

(HG): Yeah. You bring up a good point, Brad. And I can tell you I was not as sensitive to the industry side of this until I worked for industry. And what happens is, in an international partner’s mindset, the first time they start talking about wanting a capability, they start the clock. ‘I told you ten years ago, I want that capability, right?’ 

But in industry I mean, they have shareholders. They can’t start moving out on it until they actually get an order. You have to be careful how much a company is willing to put in their own funds, not knowing what the order is going to happen or not. 

And munitions is a great example of what we’re seeing now. Allies have been encouraged to put in their weapons order for decades, and now all of a sudden, everybody wants munitions. So, I just, this is something where they need to put in the order to justify companies to add another production line. But if you look at a lot of our major defense primes, the majority of their focus has been more on the U.S., which is really important. 

But I think there needs to be a lot of companies who aren’t set up to do international sales. If you look at where the money is right now and where the need for the growth in military capability, it’s in our international partners as spending increases globally on military capabilities.

20:42 – 22:27 

(BH): When I was at NATO doing defense planning, we were trying to get everybody to get to their 2% metric and the NATO 2% pledge, which was agreed at the Whales Summit in 2014, basically said Allies that are above 2% should stay 2%, allies below 2% should aim to move towards 2% within a decade. 

And then the last little bit in there, the why was in order to fill their NATO capability targets and to alleviate any NATO capability gaps. And then we saw last summer, they’re now committing to reaching 5% of their GDP on defense spending and a subset of that will be in space.  

And so again, I think this demand signal is coming. And so having the conversations early and often to understand what is in the range of the possible. When Allies come and say, ‘What can we do to add value?’ being able to clearly articulate that. 

And then for NATO as NATO, to get to a point where they can clearly articulate to each other how much of what types of things that it will take to deliver the coherent set of collective capabilities that they need to fight the space fight that will be part of any multi-domain operation going forward. 

And then as a subset of that conversation, you then look at, ‘Okay, well, how much of that is going to be a sovereign-national system that I might need to pursue through the U.S. Foreign Military Sales process? And how much of that could I get from a commercial provider? And so as the U.S. anticipates this demand signal coming in the very near future, positioning itself to provide that message on the front side: What’s the clear demand signal?  

If you’re asking, making sure that industry is ready to deliver on that, it will help streamline the process to get to decisions earlier so that the government approval process isn’t the delay. There may still be delays in fielding capabilities, but it won’t be because the system is taking too long and is broken.

22:28 – 22:52 

This brings us to the crux of our conversation today, which is two executive orders aimed at reforming Foreign Military Sales program. And I’d like to take a moment to dive into each of them specifically. 

The first executive order is Reforming Foreign Defense Sales to Improve Speed and Accountability and was signed in April of 2025. So now, we’re coming up on a year since its release. Can you speak to what this executive order set out to achieve? 

22:53 – 24:25 

(HG): That one is largely – it’s about fixing what we would call the machinery of the process. What they’re required to do is create a priority partner list and an end item list. It’s something I know in the Air Force we had already done. But what’s great about this is these partner priority lists will go all the way up through the State Department. 

I mean, we’ve got to remember that the State Department really is the lead agency as far as foreign policy. So anyway, I think the priority partner list and priority end items is a big one. Export-ability by design. Again, something we’ve talked about within the Department of War, but this will be a broader initiative that industry needs to keep in mind export-ability from the very beginning. And this is really I think this is very significant for the space field – the technology there.  

The third thing is streamline congressional notifications and streamline it as normalizing the process through Congress, that’s going to be helpful and consolidated inter-agency approvals will be part of that. 

And then they’re looking at electronic tracking system where it’ll get better visibility not only to the U.S. industry, but to foreign buyers and the transparency in the process will be helpful, and then the other Missile Technology Control Regime restrictions are going to be reviewed because there is some question what is included under that regime maybe should not be and moved out of it and so they’re looking at some barriers for that one. 

Those are the kind of the main things that were in that executive order, which are huge – if we can remove some of those barriers.

24:26 – 24:34 

I’d like to dive a little deeper into the export control element. What’s the significance behind reviewing and revising the Missile Technology Control Regime? 

24:35 – 26:57 

(BH):  When the Missile Technology Control Regime was created, it was, you know, we’re not going to sell ballistic missiles to country X, Y, or Z. 

But now, given the way it was written, there are things that fall into those categories, including those missile systems, ballistic and cruise missiles, but also things like UAVs that weren’t really on the radar when those regimes were invented. And so there’s different categories within there that again, we’ve got to work through and so what I would argue, and this is a point that I think is worth highlighting. 

So as Heidi said: ‘is the system broken or is it just it’s built to be delivered of it?’ So it is slow. One of the things that the service has done, particularly SAF/IA under Deanna Rhyalls team, is what’s called the star baseline. And so the baseline is a process by which the SAF/IA and the service have sat down and figured out what types of things would we be willing to export to certain countries by mission area and very specific subsystems? 

And they’ve got nations in tiers and ways that they think about those things. And what they’ve done is they’ve essentially decided ahead of time. This is not a shopping list. It’s a classified document and is restricted in its distribution. So it’s not intended for Allies to get it and go, ‘Oh okay. Let me go buy that then. Because they said I could have it.’ 

It literally is intended to say short circuit the process. It decides ahead of time that we are willing to, from a matter of policy, export something to a country so that when a request comes in, we can go, ‘Yep, we’ve already decided that this doesn’t need to delay that process any further.’ Now, just because something isn’t in the existing star baseline doesn’t mean that a country couldn’t ask for and potentially be given that. It would just require what’s called the top line. 

So if a country comes in and asks for something and SAF/IA goes and looks and says, ‘Oh, that wasn’t something we envisioned, or we had not decided ahead of time that we were willing to sell that country that type of technology, they would do what’s called a top line review, which would take some period of time, weeks and months to make a policy decision across the whole of government from the United States perspective, to then move that thing forward. 

So again, is the system broken or does it not move fast enough as some of the executive orders have hinted at? This is a concrete step that Deanna and her team at SAF/IA have taken to try and help expedite that process and keep that policy review from taking too long.

26:58 – 27:07 

There’s also a second executive order that came out in early February of this year: Establishing an America First Arms Transfer Strategy.  

What is this one about? 

27:08 – 29:12 

(HG): Yeah. So that one’s a little more at the strategic level about looking at foreign policy and the industrial strategy. This one, they’re calling for a prioritized sales catalog. And again, that was supposed to happen within 120 days between the Secretary War, State and Commerce, which I mentioned to you, were kind of the three main agencies to publish this catalog of what they would like Allies to buy. 

Now, keep in mind, these are all sovereign nations, and they’re going to buy what they want to buy. But this is something where we would say, these are what we would be interested in them growing their capability, what we’d like them to buy. So think of it kind of as a menu reflecting the industrial and strategic priorities of the United States. So that’s one.  

And then the second thing is kind of Promoting American Military Sales – a task force. It’s a new and it’ll be interagency again, which is awesome. And it’ll be led by the National Security Advisor to oversee the implementation and then quarterly performance metrics is another. They’re going to look at all the FMS case execution data and publish publicly for the first time. So that again Allies, industry, Congress can all use it – is the intent.  

And then looking at partner prioritization – favoring allies who have invested in their own defense and hold strategic geography for U.S. operations and contribute to U.S. economic security. 

So when people say, how can I be a valued international partner? Well, are you participating? Are you allowing access? These are the people that are going to be prioritized for the export of some of our best equipment. And again, these are not new concepts. There’s something that for the last couple decades that we’ve looked at, but it hasn’t been integrated and driven from the top of the U.S. leadership and that’s what I think is exciting, is bringing all the agencies together with very clear alignment and focus on international partnerships.  

29:13 – 29:48 

Now, beyond the executive orders, the Department of War has also announced an organizational change – or realignment.  

The Defense Security Cooperation Agency is the government agency that manages the Foreign Military Sales process. The Defense Technology Security Administration is the agency that determines which technologies can be shared with Allies and partners.  

But at the end of last year, the Department said it was moving both of these agencies from the policy directorate of the Pentagon, to the acquisition directorate.  

Now Heidi, you’ve held leadership positions with both of these agencies. So what is your takeaway from this realignment? 

29:49 – 31:18 

(HG): Yeah. So the Defense Security Cooperation Agency and Defense Technology Security Administration, they both worked under agencies and reported directly to the head of OSD policy because, as mentioned, Foreign Military Sales has historically been used as a foreign policy tool. 

Now, as we see a little bit of it’s still going to be a foreign policy tool. You still need Department of State involved, but you’re seeing a shift now more to look at the impact to our industry and using Foreign Military Sales. It’s an important part of our industrial base. So having it aligned under acquisition is where it has shifted. 

So the head of acquisition will be now held accountable for expediting Foreign Military Sales. And looking at it, I think it’s going to be helpful because they’re going to look at it to say, ‘Does it help our industrial base, our supply chain opportunities, or looking at it through a lens of industrial and foreign partnerships?’ So it’s a combination of both, but holding the acquisition community accountable for the timelines contracting process. 

Sometimes you might have to take a trade-off and it’s under the same leader where you take a trade-off that you are going to expedite equipment to the U.S., or are you going to expedite the equipment to a foreign partner? Well, you need to look at that and have those conversations with operators, with policy to make sure that’s being done and aligned to the best interests of the U.S.

31:19 – 33:37 

(BH): And if I could just piggyback a little bit on the realignment. So DSCA is moving out from under the policy side of the Pentagon to the acquisition side of the Pentagon, which I think highlights: the current administration talks a great deal about burden-shifting and burden-sharing.  

Now, the U.S. historically does not like to talk about having gaps and seams, and I get that. But at some level, it just is reality that we’re not going to have enough of the right types of systems everywhere we need them to be able to do everything we’re going to do.  

So for example, when I was in Belgium and they were looking to replace their F-16s with something, and their war plan that they have for the defense of Europe says ‘We need X many fifth-gen fighters,’ and we knew that the U.S. had a certain number they were going to be able to bring to bear, but some are going to be held in reserve for the Pacific Theater, and others are going to be held in reserve for the CENTCOM AOR, and therefore we needed allies and partners to fill in those gaps.  

And so, again, we were very sensitive about talking about those in any kind of detail. But the idea that we’re going to leverage allies and partners as we think about what do these global architectures look like and it kind of gets to that International Partnership Strategy with the service. 

We talk about integrated by design or allied by design. I think the U.S. is acknowledging that it can’t do everything, everywhere that it needs to do. And so as it thinks about building these systems, there are going to be requirements for Allies, partners and friends to contribute to these constellations. A good example would be the Golden Dome, right? As we think about whatever that architecture is ultimately going to look like.  

If, for example, you’re going to have sensors on the ground to look up and monitor things, they’re going to be in other people’s countries. So you’re going to have a mechanism by which you’re having the conversation, ‘Hey, can we put this in your country? But you could just as easily have a conversation to say, ‘Hey, would you be willing to buy and field this system?’ 

So whether it’s ground-based or space-based, as the US builds that out, they look at allies, partners and friends to figure out what they could do. And then to the extent that those countries are going to buy those systems to contribute to those architectures, those processes would run through the overall FMS system. And it fits perfectly with this realignment of the Defense Security Cooperation Agency, which oversees this whole FMS enterprise, from under the policy side to the acquisition side. 

33:38 – 33:50 

And what are some other actions the United States is taking or should take to facilitate better engagements on the front-end of the Foreign Military Sales process, particularly as space becomes a more prevalent as a warfighting domain? 

33:51 – 34:56 

(HG): Yeah. I think what’s happening now is one, as Brad mentioned earlier, is educating more people on the space domain and space capabilities that are needed, but almost like normalizing space as a domain. It’s no different than any other domain. We need to exercise together. We need to be integrated together for deterrence, and then if needed for war efforts. 

We need to get more guardians educated on security cooperation and through the pipeline, there’s a specific training program that you go through to be that person at the embassy where you become – it’s called a Foreign Area Officer. So we need more guardians to become Foreign Area Officers that have space expertise. 

I mean, we’ve got people that are fighter pilots, we have logisticians, we have intel officers. So each of our different communities are represented. And then you kind of place them where we think we best need them in embassies, where maybe the space capabilities are going to be more prevalent. So that would be the one thing on the human capital side that I know that SAF/IA, they’re working, and looking for the resources to do that.  

34:57 – 36:44 

(BH): Yeah. The specific program there at one point was called the Regional Space Advisor, which was the Space Force’s version of a Foreign Area Officer. I haven’t heard much about it lately. When I was in the government, they were talking about having the first class out there and fielded. 

And it’s just I think, as Heidi indicated, it’s a matter of priority. We don’t have enough people to go around for all the things we have to have them for and so trying to figure out where we would carve out the bodies to fill out this program. 

I think another area that’s related to this is in the FMS world, there’s this thing called the surcharge that. So you’re buying a certain amount of stuff, but then there’s a surcharge that’s on top of that. And that surcharge actually goes to sustaining the entire security cooperation enterprise for the United States all over the place.  

And so, for example, when we were in Saudi Arabia, they were looking and they said, ‘Hey, we don’t have the right space experts, uniformed military bodies who are coming over here.’ But a way to do that is to take some of that Foreign Military Sales money and use that to go get some contract support where you can go identify people who have the relevant experience and bring those people in.  

One of the challenges in the space security cooperation world right now is that there are cases in the pipeline that are making their way through, but there aren’t that many space FMS cases at this point that are generating that kind of revenue that would then go to sustain the system. 

And so I know General Purdy at SAF/HQ and Deanna at SAF/IA, have been trying to identify a pot of money to kind of provide the seed corn to get the momentum going or prime the pump to get that system moving and I think they’ve had some success recently. 

And then Mr. Mike Miller, who’s a the current head of DSCA, and he was acknowledging the same thing where we got to get the space side of the security cooperation enterprise from a human capital perspective, up and running at a level that will then become self-sustaining over time.

36:45 – 39:41 

(HG): And I use analogy again, this is kind of normalizing conversation that we went through the same thing when we were selling F-15s to several countries where trying to get uniformed F-15 pilots to go help with international training. We didn’t have the capacity. We needed pilots in our own cockpits, so we ended up having to do contracted training instead of sending our uniformed trainers internationally. 

So there’s oftentimes it’s kind of looking at like we need like our guardians right now working U.S. priorities and how do we build enough of them then to work on the international business, which is really important too, to build that capability capacity of our partners. So it’s kind of this pull; this tension right now.  

But like I said, I think you’re always going to have complaints about the process taking too long because there’s a lot of people in the process that are trying to get to ‘yes.’ And sometimes it takes time to understand how to put the right security measures in place in order to get to ‘yes.’ The catalog of yes list. That’s easy. The catalog of no, that’s easy.  

It’s this in-between gray area where people are trying to figure out how do we get some of these capabilities to our partners but put the right security measures in place, that oftentimes takes a little bit longer.  

And there’s been FMS reform initiatives for the last decade at least. But what’s unique now and exciting right now to see is executive orders come in from the President’s office, not just to the Department of Defense or the Department of State, but it’s across all agencies to reform Foreign Military Sales. 

But Foreign Military Sales, it’s important to understand, is on the backbone of our acquisition process. So if you don’t reform the acquisition process, you’re not going to reform FMS. So that executive orders came out to reform both at the same time from the very top is really exciting.  

And not only these executive orders, but I think the work that the Space Force is doing and SAF/IA is doing to have this catalog and looking at ways to expedite and implementation plans, working with our partners on that.  

And then there’s also been organizational changes at the Department of War. They’ve moved Security Corporation and Technology Security Administration underneath the acquisition process. So that senior leaders from other countries have one point of entry. 

They don’t need to go to OSD policy and acquisition.All of this is goodness, but like anything, it’s new. Space isn’t new, but opening it up to international partners is still fairly new. 

You know, the hope is that those reforms and this reorganization is going to be able to streamline some of the processes. Those are the big, exciting opportunities that are happening right now that the partners should be watching closely. 

39:50 – 39:53 

And then in your respective capacities as leaders of Elara Nova’s International Partnerships sector, what role does Elara Nova potentially have in this actively reforming Foreign Military Sales process? 

39:54 – 41:32 

(BH): Yeah. I think a couple of things. I mean, one, when we think about who our customer is for Elara Nova on the International Partnerships front: support of the US government, where it’s not adequately postured to execute the mission, which could include people being on the teams that are out there on the frontlines that fill those gaps.  

Two is engaging with allies, partners and friends directly to help them understand and define what those requirements are and understand how to navigate the process. We’ve got people like, I worked in an embassy run by the Security Cooperation Office. Heidi was SAF/IA, DTSA and DSCA like there’s nobody else who’s got that kind of resume. And we’ve got other people with deep experiences at a variety of levels that can help people understand and define those requirements and then map its way through the process. 

And then the third: helping U.S. industry trying to understand and trade those foreign markets and understand how do I navigate the landscape: whether it’s ITAR, EAR, Mission Technology Control Regime? How do I position my capabilities so that Allies, partners and friends are aware of it and would be interested in building that? 

And again, as we have conversations and talk about what’s your architecture, what’s your priority mission area, what’s your balance between sovereign-national and commercial? And to the extent that its sovereign-national and you’re buying your own systems using that exploit-buy-build model, if you’re going to go buy our systems, how do you define those and how do you effectively engage? 

And so we got people who can help on all of those fronts. Whether you’re designing the architectures and helping refine the requirements on the front side, navigating the process or shaping the demand signal, if you’re an industry partner, we’ve got the ability to do all of that, in a fairly unique way, particularly as relates to the space domain.

41:33 – 42:02 

(HG): It’s been great to be part of the Elara Nova team and just see the demand that’s come in from the international partner for Elara Nova expertise again across all domains, which is exciting, but specifically in the space domain. But the architecture where Elara Nova can be helpful is connecting the different domains where there are expertise, but it’s an area where there are not a lot of expertise in the international environment. 

So Elara Nova is positioned and ready to help close that gap.

42:03 – 42:37 

This has been an episode of The Elara Edge. As a strategic advisory firm, Elara Nova is the trusted guiding partner that builds tailored teams to illuminate unseen opportunities and deliver impact across every domain.  

With the trusted insight to deliver your decisive edge, Elara Nova is your source for expertise and guidance in national security. 

If you liked what you heard today, please subscribe to our channel and leave us a rating. Music for this podcast was created by Patrick Watkins of PW Audio. I’m your host, Scott King, and join us next time at the Elara Edge. 

Episode 36: Digital Infrastructure Modernization to Lay Foundation for Zero Trust, AI

The Elara Edge Podcast

Host: Scott King 

SME: General (Ret) Tim Haugh, Senior Principal Advisor at Elara Nova, former Commander at U.S. Cyber Command and Director of the National Security Agency 

00:02 – 01:34 

When we think of the word “infrastructure,” things like roads, bridges, and the power grid often come to mind. But there’s also “digital infrastructure,” which the National Institute of Standards and Technology defines as ​​”the ability to store and exchange data through a centralized communication system.” 

The Department of War kick-started the year with a series of steps to enhance the resiliency and reliability of its digital infrastructure that underpins military operations. In early January, the United States Space Force announced it will be overhauling computer networks at each one of its bases, according to a $12.5 billion task order through the Base Infrastructure Modernization program.  

Also in January, the National Security Agency released the first two products of its Zero Trust Implementation Guideline, while the DOW launched its Artificial Intelligence Acceleration Strategy. Altogether, these actions demonstrate the growing imperative to prepare the military’s digital infrastructure to take advantage of emerging technologies and counter evolving threats. 

Welcome to “The Elara Edge” here to discuss the modernization of the Department’s digital infrastructure is retired General Tim Haugh, Senior Principal Advisor at Elara Nova. With over three decades of military service with the United States Air Force, General Haugh previously served as the Commander of United States Cyber Command, Director of the National Security Agency, and Chief of the Central Security Service.  

Sir, welcome to the show!  

01:35 – 01:36 

I’m excited to be here. Scott. Thanks for having me.  

01:37 – 02:03 

We’re excited to have you and looking forward to the conversation today. Let’s begin with a look at the role of digital infrastructure in modern day military operations. Perhaps one of the best ways to understand this is by taking a look at the relationship between the space and cyber domains.  

From your perspective: how do the space and cyberspace domains interact when it comes to military operations? And how did this relationship factor into the early days of standing up the United States Space Force? 

02:04 – 03:48 

Yeah absolutely, Scott. They are inextricably linked. When we think about what it looks like to warfight space, the foundation of that is also what’s happening terrestrially on the ground: how we control satellites, how we leverage technologies in space to sense, to communicate, and to fight. All of those are tied to how we operate within cyberspace, both to leverage those capabilities on space, to be able to control them, but also to ensure that they’re secure. And foundationally, when we think about what space does as part of our warfighting doctrine across all domains, having security in cyberspace is absolutely essential. 

At the time, I was the 16th Air Force Commander and in support of Space Force leadership, as they stood up the service. And one of those decisions was how will the Air Force provide support to the Space Force in terms of the Air Force network and then being able to support space operations? 

And as the choices were being made, one of the most critical were what were the sets of expertise that the Space Force would need? And one of those choices in terms of the career fields that were identified as essential to the future of the Space Force is cyber and clearly building out expertise was critical and that will only become increasingly important.  

As we’ve seen in the recent conflicts that have occurred, particularly within Ukraine, the contest for the ability to have assured command and control, through both terrestrial and through space – absolutely essential – and that really drives towards what infrastructure that then needs to be built, sustained, operated and defended to have assured operations in both space and cyberspace. 

03:49 – 04:01 

The Space Force task order to modernize its digital infrastructure follows a similar task order to do the same for Air Force bases across the Pacific.  

Can you describe what the Space Force and Air Force are looking to do here? 

04:02 – 07:02 

In this case, and what the Space Force wants to modernize in their digital backbone is all of the infrastructure that allows every Guardian to be able to interconnect, whether that’s to the Internet, whether it’s the services that are available inside of the Department of War networks or the ability to connect and operate through the domain, through both unclassified and classified networks, and then making sure that infrastructure is well positioned to be able to provide the right capabilities to the Space Force and every Guardian – in terms of routers and switches that interconnect networks and interconnect bases to the broader network – is an investment that’s clearly being made through the Base Infrastructure Modernization program.  

It is also the computing infrastructure that every Guardian and Airman leverage every day when they come to work. It’s also the infrastructure that runs our hospitals and runs space operations and runs air operations on a flight line. 

So all of those require the ability to have relevant technology to be able to drive not only the capabilities that are required to fight and win, but also provide a user an experience that allows them to come to work, log on, get to work and be successful and that requires investment. 

And the investment and the priority to be able to ensure that infrastructure is in place is also going to be the foundation for how capabilities like artificial intelligence will be integrated and the compute power that is required at the network edge to be able to operate and do that, particularly as we think about contested environments. 

At first, it needs to provide the foundation to be able to meet the mission needs of the Space Force and the Air Force for the contract in the Pacific. So it has to be sized, it’s got to be capable enough and then the support to be able to operate and ensure the maintenance of all of those systems – uptime and resilience to be able to make sure those missions run – has to be one of the first priorities.  

The second component is ensure the architecture is defendable and is in compliance with the direction that the Department of War is taking in terms of the policies of how we modernize networks, how we secure them, and ultimately how we build them using a zero trust-based approach, because the adversaries are relentless in cyberspace. 

What that looks like today, whether that’s China, Russia, North Korea, Iran all bring different subsets of capability. But particularly China is focused on being able to take away strategic capability from the United States and having resilient infrastructure is the foundation to ensure that can’t happen.  

And I think the approach, as we talk through today of that mixture of improving the underlying base infrastructure, building out in zero trust principles and setting a foundation for the integration of AI, it really does start with the foundational infrastructure that is secure and defended.

07:03 – 07:20  

We’ve heard General Stephen Whiting, the Commander of US Space Command, previously refer to cybersecurity as the “soft underbelly” of military operations. 

What do you think makes cybersecurity and digital infrastructure particularly vulnerable to either state-backed or adversarial attacks?  

07:21 – 08:40 

There are a number of factors, that particularly within military services that have brought vulnerability. One of those is lack of investment. So at key times, if we don’t upgrade these capabilities, you can fall into a situation where the vendor no longer supports them and that technology debt brings risk. It also brings less functionality. So these investments are critical.  

The other is how do we integrate weapon systems into these architectures and ensuring that there is coherence in how the services think about the interaction with the defense industrial base and set a clear set of standards on what is expected as we build and field new capabilities and ensure that they can immediately integrate into an architecture that doesn’t create seams. 

And then finally, we’ve got to be able to build this in a way that can adapt to the threat environment and in how we secure things like the identity of every individual and every agenetic AI capability that we intend to deploy. We’ve got to be prepared for a changing architecture in demand signal based off of the emergence of these technologies and ensure that they can be integrated in a coherent way that maximizes the opportunity and doesn’t bring additional risk. 

08:41 – 08:46 

I’d like to emphasize that idea of risk. What would an attack on the digital infrastructure of military bases look like? 

08:47 – 11:50 

Yeah, I think at that point, first and foremost is we have to be able to have situational awareness in both our space and our cyber domain in a way that’s commensurate with what we’ve learned in air, ground and the maritime. That is the first thing a commander needs. They have to have situational awareness so they can make good decisions about risk. 

The second component in this discussion is around resilience because we’re certainly going to be targeted in an area of tension and in crisis. We’ve got to be resilient and expect that there are going to be very aggressive attempts to compromise our networks and compromise our partners, both in industry and our foreign partners and Allies.  

The approach that China has taken to targeting the critical infrastructure of the United States is a really good example of the types of things we would see targeted on military bases: things like water treatment, energy generation, critical functions inside of telecommunications or networks. 

They have shown that if there are vulnerabilities that they will continue to attempt to enumerate those vulnerabilities and take advantage of them if they exist. And then once in a network, they will look to compromise the identity of key system administrators that have privileged accounts that allow them to move laterally and ensure that they would be able to have deep access if we ever are in a crisis. 

We’ve seen that in our critical infrastructure. It’s been well articulated in various reports done by the intelligence community and by Homeland Security and those are things that we understand that methodology and how to defend it.  

One of the key things that they would attempt to exploit are vulnerable aging systems and so upgrading those is critically important. And then the ability to implement zero trust would be the area that would defeat or make more difficult the ability to take on different identities within organizations and networks. So we will see adversaries looking at every one of these networks. They’re going to be looking for vulnerabilities now enabled increasingly by artificial intelligence and they will take advantage of them if they see them. And that is the environment we live in every day would only be accelerated in a crisis.  

We’ve learned a lot of lessons in our support to Ukraine about what does resilience look in a modern warfare environment. And we have to know that we can scale, because certainly all of the domains rely on space to be able to deliver situational awareness, communications, particularly in extended range environments and so we need to ensure that the ground segment, the terrestrial component, the cyber elements of spacecraft are secure and resilient because they will certainly be aggressively targeted. 

And I think these types of initiatives that we’re seeing, in terms of foundational investment and direction on AI and zero trust are going to be things that are going to be really important to implement aggressively to buy down that risk.  

11:51 – 12:06 

Now, the task order was designed as a quote “Enterprise IT as a Service” solution to be delivered through an Indefinite Delivery-Indefinite Quantity or IDIQ contract. 

What exactly does this mean and why is that important? 

12:07 – 13:47 

The idea behind enterprise IT as a service is being able to leverage the strengths of the industry to bring current technology and resources to be able to build and maintain networks. In essence, be able to say, take an area that previously would have been maintained by an Airman or Guardian, bring in expertise from industry, and allow them to both operate and sustain that base infrastructure to allow Guardians and Airmen to be focused on other types of operations that are critical to our warfighting missions. 

And this is a further expansion of what the Air Force has done at a number of bases. Now building it out at each of the Space Force bases, and also bases across the Pacific for the Air Force. This is an extension of that approach. It’s giving them flexibility in terms of the number of potential vendors they could leverage that they’ve already identified as qualified to do the work against a pretty high ceiling of $12.5 billion. 

So it’s a commitment to building out the infrastructure, putting the resources behind it, and then having a bench of vendors that are qualified to do the work to ensure that as the Air Force and the Space Force expand this approach, that they’ve got the right expertise. The opportunity within the contracts is to also clearly state what the cybersecurity standards are and what’s expected of the day-to-day of how the network should be configured, how it should be defended, and then also what happens when an incident occurs. 

And I think the build out of this model based off of the previous work, should allow for a deep understanding of how to do that. Now it’s going to be about scaling, underneath this particular contracting approach. 

13:48 – 14:06 

At the same time this modernization effort is underway, the National Security Agency, released the first two products of its Zero Trust Implementation Guideline.  

At a basic level, can you define for our audience what zero trust means and then walk us through these two initial implementation products: Primer and Discovery phase? 

14:07 – 16:51 

Zero Trust is an approach to security that does take time to implement and is complex.  Previously, when we thought about defense of a network, we thought about the perimeter, the network edge. What zero trust brings is an assumption that that perimeter is going to be breached. 

And how do you defend your network, your data and your users in an environment where you give least privileged access – only giving access to data, applications, tools, infrastructure for the things that an individual is authorized to do and only for the period of time when it’s authorized. This approach, when implemented, gives an opportunity to make sure that not only are you secure at the network edge, but you can be secure internally against very aggressive threats. And if one member of your team is compromised, you don’t lose the security of the entire network.  

And what NSA has done in terms of implementation guidance is to break that down into five parts for services and commands to implement zero trust. 

In the first release is a Primer – helping organizations understand what all goes into organizing as a zero trust architecture, and which modules make most sense for those organizations to begin with and lay out how to implement and mature those areas to be able to meet what the expectation is from the Department of War. 

The second component, which is part of the first phase of implementation, is what NSA has identified as discovery – create visibility and understand the data, applications and the assets that are within your architecture, and then begin to set policies that implement authority guidance for every function in the network. It really does set a baseline for how zero trust can be implemented, and then sets the conditions for the phases that follow to meet the Department of War expectations. 

As the implementation guidance is put out as the DOW CIO continues to clarify exactly what expectations are, there are opportunities for individual programs and vendors to be lead turning these and thinking about ensuring that they put the baselines in place that will allow for implementation and integration of capabilities, platforms, technologies, applications into these networks using a zero trust approach. 

And that’s going to require continued discussion between industry and government. But clearly setting the roadmap for where zero trust goes. There’s an opportunity for industry to follow. 

16:52 – 16:55 

And what will zero trust ultimately look like in a military operation? 

16:56 – 17:51 

Well, what we’d see in an effective zero trust operation? As an example, if a vendor is going to provide an update to a capability that’s on a base – today, that in different programs and different bases, they might have different authorities.  

Under zero trust their authorities would be very narrow and would only be authorized during the window of time that they are upgrading that system or doing some form of maintenance function. Very similar to how in if you’re maintaining a system on the flight line, you’re going to tag in and tag out. You’re only going to be operating on that aircraft in certain windows when you’re authorized.  Zero trust provides the same type of approach that you only have authority to manipulate that system in windows of time and within your span of authority. That reduces risk to the overall architecture, but still allows that system to be updated and maintained. 

17:52 – 18:08 

This brings us to the third element of our conversation, and that is the Department of War’s recently released Artificial Intelligence Acceleration Strategy. 

Certainly AI become a major talking point in national security circles in recent years,  but generally speaking, how does AI factor into this conversation about digital infrastructure? 

18:09 – 21:39 

I think it’s really at the forefront. The Department’s strategy to accelerate implementation of artificial intelligence requires capable infrastructure that is secure and needs to continue to grow the compute capacity that fuels the implementation of artificial intelligence.  

The idea behind what artificial intelligence can do, the running of algorithms, the use of agents, the autonomous use of capabilities, all of that needs computer power to operate. 

And depending on the scope and scale, the amount of data and the expanse of simultaneous things that you’re going to ask those agents and capabilities and algorithms to do requires an increasing number of computing power. And you can get that computing power through a couple of different ways. One can be on-premise, computational power that are investments in servers and data centers that allow for control of that. 

The other can come through any of the number of cloud providers that are a part of the architecture and how you choose to organize that really becomes important in terms of what’s available to every Guardian and Airman in terms of computational power to run models and algorithms and agents and it also is an incredible bearing on cost.  

If portions of the infrastructure are going to be inside of the military services, then you have to have all of the infrastructure from data centers, the ability to cool those data centers and ensure their operations have power, water, cooling, to be able to operate. So that’s an additional infrastructure that has to be sustained. 

If it’s chosen to leverage our large, managed service providers and cloud providers for that computing capacity, you’re going to fund them. But they have to build out that architecture and sustain it. So those are choices that don’t have to be made completely. It’s likely a balance of the two that will ultimately be relied upon.  

But if we’re going to build out more infrastructure, there will be more requirements for things like water, cooling, power that will be critically important and have to be sustained and defended inside of the Department’s architecture. 

And increasingly, that’s going to have to be at the network edge, not just at the center of a network. And this will be an evolution of how we’re able to make that compute available to every Guardian and every Airman, regardless of the type of contested environment they’re in. This is really foundational and these are areas that are going to be really important as the Department determines what those investments look like.  

The document really sets out aggressive intent from the Secretary of War to first move out on pace-setting projects that are really about setting conditions to in terms of ensuring that the infrastructure is in place, thinking about the data that is required, the models and the policies to accelerate the use of artificial intelligence across warfighting, intelligence, and the broader enterprise within the Department. 

This will certainly drive investment. It’ll drive planning, and then it will drive the services to think about where artificial intelligence will be most effectively integrated to enhance capabilities within their respective service.

21:40 – 21:52 

Thank you, Sir. And I’d like to go through the three pace-setting projects laid out in the strategy: warfighting, intelligence, and enterprise.  

Let’s start with the first one: warfighting? What is this one about?  

21:53 – 22:44 

I think the big picture of this – this is really about where does artificial intelligence fit in the ability to execute the warfighting missions across the Department? And this will be very foundational when we think about how we gain situational awareness, how commanders make decisions, how we communicate those decisions, and the autonomy that we give to platforms and weapons. 

And this pace-setting project will really bear out in terms of what are those areas that also now need to be invented in terms of how we test these capabilities and that partnership between industry and government as the acceleration of artificial intelligence isn’t just done inside the services, but inside vendors and inside of capabilities that will be delivered.

22:45 – 22:51 

And how about the second pace-setting project: intelligence. Can you elaborate on what the Department of War is aiming to do here? 

22:52 – 23:44 

The Department is setting some clear benchmarks to think about how intelligence will be integrated closer to the edge as a warfighting capability. This is an area of a tremendous advantage for the United States: our ability to sense and make information available to commanders around the globe. The challenge set forth by the Secretary is not only to do that in real-time operations, but also to accelerate the work that brings together that intelligence and capability development. 

So two major, I think, directions will be how to make different sets of intelligence fuzed for commanders at all echelons. And the second being, how does that intelligence really get integrated more quickly in capability development earlier for individual capabilities to be able to be enhanced and infused with artificial intelligence as a core capability.

23:45 – 23:47 

And how about the third one: enterprise?

23:48 – 24:25 

This is thinking about how does the entire department come together and leverage these sets of capabilities and building out the not only just the ability to have the infrastructure available, but it’s how do artificial intelligence bring more capacity and capability to the broader enterprise of warfighting that occurs across all of our military domains, and to be able to capitalize on that and do it faster than an adversary in a very contested environment. 

So I think these three areas of warfighting, intelligence and enterprise, are a clear set of a foundation and intents laid out by the Secretary of War.

24:26 – 24:34 

So now that this strategy is out there – what happens next? What steps are being taken to implement the strategy and then, ultimately, what does success look like? 

24:35 – 26:43 

Well, I think first is each service and command has been given some clear direction to build plans to establish AI integration leads within their organizations and then evaluate their mission for where artificial intelligence makes sense and can be rapidly infused in the areas the Secretary has outlined.  

The next phase of that is in those areas – where will dollars go? What will the investment look like? And that investment will have to span across the ability to generate the requisite compute, the ability to ensure that the right data is available and is accessible at the right level for models and algorithms, and then ensuring that the Department and each service has the talent to execute it. And I think those areas are going to definitely require investment and they’re going to require significant collaboration with industry. 

Given the fact that many of these technologies are still being invented and the rapid evolution of models and what agents are going to look like, there’s a tremendous opportunity for investment in key areas. The Secretary laying out the set of priorities will now begin to get into individual projects, as services and commands start to identify their key requirements and the areas that would most benefit by infusing artificial intelligence. 

Inside those opportunities are places for investment. There’s places for experimentation and then aggressive implementation to ensure continued advantage. So I think you’re going to see those emerge and then success looks like the ability for us as a warfighting organization to be able to deliver capabilities at speed, to be able to integrate data for decision, and also to have weapons that have new capabilities across all domains that we can ensure operate consistent with the overarching intent and policy and guidance that exists across the Department in terms of warfighting, consistent with our laws and our values.

26:44 – 26:57 

Our interview today covered three elements pretty comprehensively: digital infrastructure, zero trust, and AI.  

The Department of War is actively taking steps toward these ends. So what do these actions signal to industry? 

26:58 – 27:54 

I think each of these provides an intent, and I think that’s the best thing that the government can do is clearly articulate intent and share that with industry. So in this case, whether it’s here’s the intent for the future of the architecture. Here is the intent for what it will look like in terms of how the government wants to secure that architecture using zero trust principles and with an expectation that all capabilities are going to be infused by artificial intelligence. 

They’re setting the roadmap and that is probably the most important thing that, in terms of the public private partnership, is a clear understanding of intent. And that intent should only become more clear, as the Department articulates priorities inside of Golden Dome, inside of other major programs that are going to be driving and implementing those things that are consistent with the National Security Strategy and the National Defense Strategy.

27:55 – 27:57 

Can you elaborate on how Golden Dome ties to this conversation? 

27:58 – 30:12 

Where the Golden Dome program needs to start in terms of the types of priorities that the President has given them, and then building in the resilience and speed necessary to be able to make those decisions within really incredible timelines. 

The challenge of being able to identify, any and all threats, to the homeland and then to be able to act on those threats. 

 It’s all about speed and the ability to identify the threat, understand it, give orders, and then have capabilities that can respond with requisite speed to be able to mitigate those threats. We have known how to do this as a nation and been prepared to do it in very specific scenarios. But now those scenarios are so diverse and growing in terms of the threat and the speed of the threat.  

It really does demand a command and control structure that is always on, always available, and integrated with the right data sources to have situational awareness that can provide the right data to the decision-maker, and then the ability to execute command and control in a way that can be executed very quickly from decision-maker to shooter, and to be able to assure that not only can you track and have custody of of every one of those threats, but you also understand your effectiveness in real-time to mitigate those threats.

So I think speed is one of the clear tenants that comes from the demand signal. The other is, of course, it’s got to be secure. These will be foundational capabilities in defense of the homeland. It must be built on a bedrock foundation and then it’s going to also require just incredibly resilient communications to ensure its availability.  

The digital infrastructure is what ties it all together: every sensor, every base, every shooter, every command and control node in a way that gives that situational awareness and gives that power to be able to make decisions, create outcomes, and understand the results of those operations. And the resilience and the capability that are provided through that infrastructure can be an accelerant to the command and control for Gold Dome. 

30:13 – 30:25 

Thank you Sir, and what opportunities exist for commercial and industry partners to contribute solutions to anything we’ve discussed today: whether that be digital infrastructure, zero trust, AI, or command and control in Golden Dome? 

30:26 – 31:25 

There’s a menu. A large part of this is thinking through resilient communications in many different ways. That’s leveraging different parts of the spectrum. It’s leveraging different technologies. 

It’s about being innovative at every vendor to implement quantum resistance. It’s about how we think about the applications that are required to knit it together. And then what’s the underlying compute that allows it all to operate at speed?  

Those are all opportunities that allow for ensured resilient communications in ways that we can continue to evaluate, whether that’s in the space segment, whether that’s within traditional RF bands or if it’s leveraging a diversity of our managed service providers in terrestrial networks. All of those have to be meshed together in a way that assures command and control and assures availability for the leaders that are going to be empowered to make those decisions. 

31:26 – 31:37 

Now, in addition to serving as a Senior Principal Advisory at Elara Nova, you’ll also have a guiding hand in the firm’s new Cyber, Data & Communications sector. 

What should our listeners know about its new CDC sector? 

31:38 – 32:35 

Yeah. I think everything we’re thinking about now is how do you integrate capabilities faster? How do our domains interoperate and how do we ensure within the defense industrial base and with broader industry, how do those capabilities be brought to bear in a way that they can be effective from the outset and meet the demand signal that’s coming from the Department and from each of the services? 

Elara Nova brings a really deep portfolio of cyber experts that have served across all elements of our intelligence community and the military services and when combined with all the other expertise that exists in air and space that both have served in the Department and are current in state of the art of what’s happening in industry is invaluable to be able to accelerate that work in a way that will produce an outcome that really brings back the best capability for the nation. 

32:36 – 33:10 

This has been an episode of The Elara Edge. As a strategic advisory firm, Elara Nova is the trusted guiding partner that builds tailored teams to illuminate unseen opportunities and deliver impact across every domain.   

With the trusted insight to deliver your decisive edge, Elara Nova is your source for expertise and guidance in national security. 

If you liked what you heard today, please subscribe to our channel and leave us a rating. Music for this podcast was created by Patrick Watkins of PW Audio. I’m your host, Scott King, and join us next time at the Elara Edge. 

Episode 35: Department of War Seeks Solutions for Emerging Counter-UAS Mission

The Elara Edge Podcast

Host: Scott King 

SME: Lt. Gen. (Ret) David “Abu” Nahom, President of Aeronautics & Missions Systems sector at Elara Nova (DN) 

Col (Ret) JP “Spear” Mintz, Managing Director of Aeronautics & Missions Systems sector at Elara Nova (JPM) 

00:02 – 01:40 

A series of escalating events in recent years has demonstrated the growing prevalence of drones in surveillance and military operations. In 2024, unidentified drones flew over a military base in Langley, Virgina. In 2025, Israel used drones to take out Iranian air defense systems in a coordinated attack, while Ukraine launched “Operation Spiderweb,” using drones to damage and destroy aircraft deep within Russian territory. 

Now, a new report from the Department of Defense Inspector General uncovered a series of challenges for defending the United States’ military installations from similar drone incursions or attacks. The report coincides with updated guidance from the Joint Inter-Agency Task Force 401, an Army-led organization tasked with the counter-Unmanned Aerial System (or UAS) mission. The updated guidance requires military installation commanders to prepare their own counter-UAS plans within the next 60 days. 

As part of this effort, the Department of War is actively seeking new and innovative solutions for the counter-UAS mission. 

Welcome to “The Elara Edge,” we have two guests today, joining us to discuss the inherent challenges of the emerging counter-UAS mission, as well as some of the solutions that are being considered. 

First, we have retired Lieutenant General David “Abu” Nahom, President of Elara Nova’s Aeronautics & Mission Systems Sector. General Nahom previously served for 36 years with the United States Air Force, culminating in his roles as Commander of Alaskan Command, the Alaskan NORAD Region, and the Eleventh Air Force. 

Sir, welcome back to the show! 

01:41 – 01:42 

(DN): Great to be here, thanks again Scott.  

01:43 – 02:02 

Also joining us is the Managing Director of the AMS sector, Dr. JP “Spear” Mintz. Recently retired from the Air Force, then-Colonel Mintz commanded in the Air Force’s Spectrum Warfare Wing and also served as a Special Advisor to multiple senior leaders including at NORAD and US Northern Command, among others. 

Sir, welcome to the show! 

02:03 – 02:05  

(JPM): Thanks Scott. Appreciate you setting this up for us. 

02:06 – 02:24 

Thank you both for taking the time to join us today.  

Now, when it comes to Unmanned Aerial Systems, or UAS’s, the United States Air Force already has a well-established means of identifying and categorizing these drones – specifically by Group Numbers. 

Can you walk us through these group numbers and how we understand the differences between them? 

02:25 – 05:36 

(JPM): Yeah, you bet. So the group classification here, at least as it references Group One to Group Three. It’s based on, a couple of things: size, weight, it’s operating altitude above ground level. So a Group One drone, 20 pounds or less, flies at less than 1200 feet above ground level or AGL. What you’re thinking about really here is your hobbyist quadcopter types, the kind of things nearly anybody could buy off the internet. 

The next group, Group Two, the size is up to between 21 and 55 pounds, flies up to about 3500ft above ground level. And that’s your mid-sized drones thinking of things like a ScanEagle, etc. These are usually going to be things that have a military or state-backed flavor, because although some of the hobbyist ones could potentially reach this category, the cost and proliferation of these Group Two drones is not nearly as much as it is with Group One.   

And then Group Three, which is up to 1,320 pounds and up to a flight level of 180. So you really think of these as smaller unmanned aircraft and not normally what you might think of as a drone in traditional parlance.  

And these groups matter here because of a number of things. So one is size. So at least from a radar cross-section perspective, it’s a lot easier to detect a larger UAS, a larger drone than a smaller one. And then of course, the larger the UAS, the more fuel and payloads they can carry over a much larger distance.  

The second what matters is the altitude at which they fly, because in radar, the closer it is to the ground, the more interference you have from things like trees, ground clutter, buildings, etc. and not only that, but you might also reduce your ability to actually detect the UAS just from a purely line of sight perspective. And then also, operating altitude is important because at higher altitudes you generally have higher speeds, right?  

And then third weight matters when it comes to the collateral risk of engagements with these things. Because a larger UAS, a 1,300 pound drone laden with explosive crashes into a populated area, it’s very different than a 18 ounce quadcopter that has nothing on it except for a camera. 

And so all of these factors matter. Also, in terms of identification. [If] you want to identify a UAS. You do that in order to make some assumptions about its intent. Is it a large one traveling at high speeds, pointed at a target you might consider critical on the blue side? So you think maybe it’s weaponized?  

Or is it a child operating their quadcopter they got for the holidays around an airbase because, you know, he or she loves the Air Force, that it just wants to fly or curious about what’s at the base or wherever it is. 

And this identification and intent are important because you have to decide what you want to do about it. Do you want to use a weapon against it? Do you want to do nothing about it? Do you want to make a phone call? And when you think about engaging this with a weapon, something that could take out a smaller Group One drone may not be effective against one of the larger Group Three drones and vice versa. 

And the inherent challenge lies here in a similar situation of a car driving along the side of an airbase, right? You don’t know who’s in there, what’s in there, what they’re doing. It could be just some people showing up to the base, some tourists looking at something they’ve never seen before, or you could be developing a problem there. 

So you can’t always assume intent from simply the size or shape or speed or even position of an aircraft. So you have to be ready to respond and I think that’s a really important topic to get into.

05:37 – 06:11 

(DN):Yeah, [with] the types, what’s interesting, too. Is that how you control them, too. These smaller ones that are less, they’re less sophisticated. They may be line of sight where the person actually controlling it is in some kind of visual of the actual system. 

When you get to these larger ones, these could be beyond line of sight, whether that is through some kind of a satellite feed or some kind of other network that has been established. 

And usually as you go up the groups, you’ll see more of the beyond line of sight and the ability to control these things at further away distances. But I actually have to have somebody inside of the quadcopter itself for the Group One.

06:12 – 06:15 

So how can the Air Force respond to a drone incursion or attack? 

06:16 – 08:45 

(JPM): Well, Scott, there’s a couple of ways to think about this. And it’s not as simple as a scaling problem. Just thinking about the number of shots you have to take or how you might engage this to defeat one or more of these, including a swarm. You have to take into consideration what laws are in place. Policy and regulations are needed to make sure that these UAS’s aren’t proliferated out into the wild, and so anybody can get their hands on them at any time. 

 Some of those are clearly civilian dual-use technology, so you can’t put limits on that. But some of the bigger ones of course, you can. You want to have some of those technologies retained for military use. 

Another thing to consider is defending forward. So if this were a standard military operation in which you were protecting a base or a location from an air attack, you’re going to conduct intelligence operations to try to figure out who’s out there, do a threat assessment of why they want to attack you, how they’re going to do it, what are their capabilities to do so, etc.. And what can you do really, is to defend against those threats forward. Can you take out their capabilities forward, whether that’s kinetically, non-kinetically or in some other way?  

There’s also, of course, what you would think of as deterrence. You can deter your adversary from doing something by showing them they’re not going to succeed in their drone attack or their drone swarm operations, or at least if they do something, it’s not going to be effective or cost effective to them if they go ahead and conduct this operation.  

 I think the cost-effective nature of this is really important, too. If we have these small, cheap drones making attacks or incursions into our airspace, it’s not cost effective from our perspective to expend exquisite expensive AMRAMMs, Patriot missiles, etc. to take them out. Those weapons are best used for the targets they were designed for. 

That’s why they’re so exquisite and expensive, because they’re very good at what they do. But if we have something like the APKWS which can be modified to achieve the same results at a much lower cost without having to waste our expensive weapons, that’s a real benefit. So there’s also non-kinetic means of responding, but we can get into that in a bit. 

But what I wanted to say is that it’s you’re not just going to go straight to shooting something. You have to detect and then determine intent, right? You detect, identify you have to determine intent. You have to make a decision on what you’re going to do about that, and you’re going to pair an effector to it, meaning to match a shooter and a target. 

If you decide you are going to shoot it, then you have to actually use the effector, right? You have to shoot whatever you’re going to shoot or however you take this down. And that all takes time. And that whole process from detect to shoot and even assess whether or not your shot was effective, is part of what we think of as a command and control structure that needs to happen and put all of those things together. 

Sir, do you have anything to add on that?

08:46 – 10:26 

(DN):One thing Spear hit on is the command control piece is going to be one of the hardest pieces. And you think about what Golden Dome and Joint Task Force 401 and some of the things that are coming forward right now in terms of homeland defense.  

But when you look at that command and control piece, think about what the size that Spear talked about for a type three. It’s not much different than a small general aviation aircraft. And how do you discern between one and the other? 

And so that piece, that’s where that command and control is going to be so key about what is a threat? What is not a threat? And be able to do that in a timely manner, where then you can pair the weapon like Spear talked about and take offensive action if that’s what’s needed. 

I think in my experience and my background of working with NORAD. I think that’s going to be the hardest part. And especially in a homeland about that command and control piece, discerning what is a threat and then getting after it in a timely manner.  

And I’ll tell you, the other part of that, too, is policy piece, too. What can you do in the homeland? If it’s just a hobbyist just trying to stir things up. What is America willing to put up with, with collateral damage when you start shooting weapons over an American city and shrapnel and things start falling down? What can we do? What can we not do? I think these are important things. 

And then when Spear talked about the non-kinetic piece. A lot of the non-kinetic, is also going to have an effect on air travel and other things we do, like cell phone service and a number of things that we rely on every day as a society. 

What are we going to be willing to do without, in terms of the electromagnetic spectrum? Whether that’s G.P.S.? Imagine in a city we shut down GPS to avoid a swarm. Well there goes all the Ubers and the Waymos, and you think about everything else we rely on every day in society. 

So, these will be important questions moving forward. Spear back to you. 

10:27 – 13:27 

(JPM): Yeah. Thanks, Abu and so, Scott, to kind of move on to your question about defeating these systems, we do have non-kinetic mechanisms, like Abu suggested: things like denying GPS, potential cyber attacks against whoever is controlling the drones, [it] could be responding in the RF spectrum or even network hacking these systems. Abu also mentioned the Joint Interagency Task Force 401, or JIATF 401, and it was just announced that, JIATF 401 contracted for two of these DroneHunter F700 counter drone systems. 

These DroneHunters can deploy a tethered net to go capture a drone or UAS, intruding in airspace in a way that minimizes the potential for collateral damage. And oh, by the way, they’re reusable. So in some situations and again, some drones, that will make a lot more sense than firing an AMRAMM or a Patriot missile. 

And then when you think about non-kinetic effects, one of the benefits is because there’s also less collateral damage on those. You don’t have two systems out there exploding and then causing debris to fall on civilian populations. But you also have to consider who has the authorities to use these particular actions anyway? And this is because the counter-UAS problem, especially in the US, but in many countries, is a problem that lies in the seams of law enforcement and military operations. 

Traditionally, lines are very well codified in law and for good reason about what the military can do and what law enforcement needs to be doing. And we want to make sure that the appropriate authorities are being used to detect, identify and respond to whatever potential threat that we’re talking about here so that you can achieve the desired outcome, while making sure that we’re protecting our civilian populace in the ways that the Constitution intended. 

So if you look at the kinetic side, there are times when you will need to use the kinetic side, because you either may not have a non-kinetic option, or the non-kinetic option may just not be as effective. And in some cases, you may get an indication that an attack is coming until the very last second. So you have to find ways to absolutely make a stop to whatever’s coming into your airspace. 

A kinetic effector you can think of as a gun that could be a handheld shotgun to an actual military style weapon, like a 20 millimeter that is carried on an aircraft, 30 millimeter aircraft. Or it could be a modified rocket like the APKWS. And there are other emerging technologies like we just talked about, can be sent out to go in and not only take these things out, but also just track them down and figure out what it is that they’re doing. 

And then there’s another solution which kind of spans what I’d say is there’s a seam or gap between the idea of a kinetic solution and a non-kinetic solution, and that’s directed energy which is now starting to come into its own. There are lots of systems out there that use RF energy, microwave energy, or even laser energy to shut these things down or damage them, right? 

But even those come with really important collateral damage considerations. And so while in some ways they may be better than launching a big heavy explosive missile over a populated areas. And in other ways, they’re not. Because if you think about the air traffic that might be behind your target flying, you know, behind it. And if you’re trying to lase a drone and accidentally lays the pilots of an airliner passing overhead, that could have some serious negative implications. We don’t want to be doing that. 

So you also have to consider how directed energy has potential collateral damage as well. So as these technologies develop, we’ll continue to see those things emerge.

13:28 – 16:01 

(DN):Yeah, I think the good thing is an industry is being unleashed on this problem set. And you’re seeing solutions every day come about that, even a couple of years ago, I would have never imagined. We’ve realized as a nation what a problem this is. 

We’ve certainly seen some of the cases. I know, Scott, you said you want to get into later on, talk about what went on with Ukraine with that complex attack using small UAS’s. But there’s also been a lot of cases in America that garner attention, like the swarms that were over in New Jersey, not too long ago. We certainly had a problem at Langley Air Force Base a few years back as well, with drone swarms.  

You’ve seen other small things where airliners have hit drones and done damage, and that’s garnered some attention. You saw where you had the California wildfires last year, and they had two very effective Canadian firefighting aircraft. 

One was grounded for a long time because it hit a hobbyist drone, and the drone was just watching the wildfires. And so people are starting to realize that these are a problem, not just for military use, but the proliferation, actually you can get on the internet or go down to Best Buy, and buy this type one UAS’s for almost nothing, and you can fly them just because you’re curious, and you could be a huge impediment to a firefighting operation or a police response with helicopters or, any number of things. 

And so I think, now that it’s getting a lot of notoriety, I think that’s good. And I think, industry is responding, and I think the technology will be there.  

Some of the response of those UAS’s in New Jersey. I mean, they’re right in the approach corridor of Newark Airport. What do you do at that point? And I’ll tell you from the ground, especially when it’s nighttime and you look up – you don’t know the difference. You see a red light. That could be a drone 100 yards away, or that could be an airplane ten miles away. And that light will look the same.  

 Again, it goes back to that command and control about what is the threat. And then what do you do about it? Because some of the things Spear went into, are absolutely spot on. When you look at the homeland, it’s such a complex area, but I think a lot of the areas we’re going to operate in are going to be equally as complex, whether that’s a European theater. 

Certainly, many of the South Pacific areas, when you’re talking about in Japan and Korea Guam and some of these places that have quite dense populations and busy airports. These will be challenges that the technology is going to have to solve because, it was very easy to put these quadcopters up there. 

And I think even easier to make these swarms and some of these things that are so impressive. You see, it’s amazing when you’re watching swarms where there is at halftime of a football game or whether that’s in some kind of a military operation, like you saw that the Ukrainians use and the Israelis use in their complex attacks in Iran, but now it’s time to figure out how to counter that one when necessary and I think that’s where we are. 

16:02 – 16:11 

I’d like to dig deeper into the emerging role of UAS’s in military operations. Can you elaborate on this role, particularly with recent examples like Ukraine’s “Operation Spiderweb?” 

16:12 – 17:17 

(JPM): Yeah, absolutely. I mean, Operation Spider Web, from what we can gather from open source reporting, was a June 2025 surprise drone attack on Russian air bases using small UAS’s. And by using special operations forces, the Ukrainians were able to position these small one-way attack drones near the edges of these Russian strategic air bases and then launched attacks on the aircraft there while they were on the ground. 

You look at this from a cost perspective. You get a number of small, relatively cheap one-way attack drones that took out several strategic Russian aircraft, probably hundreds of millions or billions of dollars. And from an asymmetry perspective, there’s a lot to be gained from that.  

The other thing that’s really important, that operation, and I sort of alluded to this earlier, but it’s this idea of reduced tactical warning time. If you position these drones around the edges of an airbase, you no longer have minutes, much less hours to react, to detect, to identify, determine intent, facilitate the command and control we talked about, select the effectors and then time to even make the intercept. You have seconds to react at best. And so now we need to find ways to close that entire kill chain in the counter UAS mission so much more rapidly.

17:18 – 20:37 

(DN):One other interesting thing to get from the open source. If you look at where these attacks were, these were not airbases right around Ukraine. These were air bases in the heartland of Russia, very, very far away from the fight. Where more than likely they thought they were fairly safe from any kind of attacks from the Ukrainians because they weren’t really going that deep. 

So, I think it was a huge surprise, a huge wake up, not just for the Russians, but I think the rest of the world, too. Where you can think you have these airbases with very expensive, exquisite equipment that you’re sheltering there and they became vulnerable very quickly.  

And you look at what the Ukrainians, attacked. They attacked nuclear capable strategic bombers. And they damaged and destroyed quite a few of them, which is significant to the Russian strategic defense of their nation. To me, what I took from it was a wake up call. 

And like Spear said, maybe you put something, a critical element a couple hundred miles from your border because you think you’re safe from attack. But next thing you know, you have a swarm of drones that comes out of a garbage can or a truck, right outside your gate. And seconds later, you’ve lost some really key element to your defense or a key power grid or something very critical to your nation. 

And so I think as you look at the defense against these swarms, again, they don’t carry much weaponry or if they’re small, but put it in the right place at the right time could be very significant. And I thought even though Spider Web was an amazing example of what the Ukrainians were able to achieve.  

I still think the Israeli example about how they use small UAS’s, in conjunction with more conventional forces like F-35s and, and F-15s and other was very unique because these small UAS’s were able to really enable a very complex attack very far from home.  

In the case of Israelis, you really had a complex operation that involved something as simple as a quadcopter and something as complex as an F-35 really in the same operation. And I think they really showed how effective these could be to do, some things as part of an operation, like maybe take out an air defense system or take out a key communication node, or take out maybe a city power grid, something that you could do with a swarm of small drones, especially if you can get it in close. 

And I think that’s what both the Israelis and the Ukrainians were able to achieve. They were able to figure out using, frankly, special operations to get these things close into the fight and actually have them be part of the more conventional fight and I think that’s something we’ve got to be very attuned to.

Now, it may be different in the Pacific because the distances are different with all the oceans, but it doesn’t mean you couldn’t float some of this over on a ship. There’s plenty of ways that people who say that these don’t apply to the Pacific, I think, are missing some of the broader point. This was, to me, was a display of how you use something that you wouldn’t expect to be part of a complex operation and really enhance what they were able to do. 

And in the case of the Israelis shutting down the air defense systems that the Iranians had and then they were able to bring in much more conventional firepower in because, you know, as effective as these swarms can be, as impressive as they look, these small quadcopters, these type one UAS’s don’t carry a lot of firepower. 

But in the right place at the at the right time can be quite effective because in the case of the F-15’s that came in pretty quickly after with a lot of firepower, were able to get through and do quite a bit of damage, neutralize the air defense systems and allow Israel to achieve their objectives pretty quickly.  

If you think about the distances from Israel to Iran and what they’re able to achieve. It was just nothing short of amazing.

20:38 – 21:29 

(JPM): Yeah, I mean, this really comes down to the asymmetry in air warfare. If you think in the past there’s an air base that has aircraft that can just take off, fly for minutes to hours to get to their targets, then perhaps go attack another airbase. There was a lot of parity there in terms of operational timelines, but what we saw in Operation Spiderweb is that the decision time was reduced to near zero. 

If you have minutes or hours to prepare, you can detect, you can identify, determine intent, you can harden your defenses. You’re going to reposition aircraft and you can launch. But when you only have seconds to respond, it underscores the absolute importance of a number of things [that] we talked about the speed at which you can detect this threat, determine what it is, assume or determine the intent behind it, and then being able to command and control, match effectors to targets, and then use them with the appropriate authorities to make that response happen in a fast enough manner. It’s really challenging the current air defense paradigm. 

21:30 – 21:55 

Okay, so let’s get into some of the solutions. At the end of last year, the Air Force put out an RFI, or a Request for Information, for technology that would modify an Advanced Precision Kill Weapon System (or APKWS) that would be capable of taking down Group 1 to Group 3 drones. 

Spear, you referenced the APKWS earlier, so maybe you can start us off with this: what is APKWS? And how has its use evolved over time?

21:56 – 22:20 

(JPM): Yeah, so the APKWS, or the Advanced Precision Kill Weapon System, it’s a laser guidance kit that converts a 2.75in rocket into a precision guided munition. It was originally developed as the AGR 20 for US service, and it’s got a laser guidance section. And then the rocket, motor, warhead and fuze are drawn from existing inventory. So you think of this as like an add-on kit that can use an older, cheaper weapon in a new way. 

22:21 – 24:38 

(DN): I was actually in the desert back in 2016, 2017, 2018, in Qatar, working at the [sic], when we started using this on our aircraft and really, what it boils down to is the ability to get after targets in a very, very cost effective manner. We call it “the right side of the cost curve.” 

You know, when you’re taking out a target that the enemy may have built up. You’re talking about maybe a $10,000 car, and you’re using a $2 million missile to take it out. This got us on the better side of the cost curve where we could do things very cheap and at mass. You could put quite a few of these things on an aircraft, and you could load them very quickly. 

And we found them to be very accurate, especially in low risk areas, where the aircraft could get pretty close to their targets, which was at the time when we were in the counter-ISIS fight, with what was going on in Iraq and Syria and Afghanistan at the time. These were extremely useful, in that air to ground. 

What happened over this time as we’ll get into the RFI, is we figured out that you can use these things and other things that are moving slow like UAS’s. You know, when you look at what you’re defending and you think about the ground, it just completely makes sense.  

Let’s get away from Europe or the homeland. Let’s start talking about the Pacific, where what we’re defending is air bases and other key nodes and islands and other places around the Pacific. 

We know what the enemy is aiming at. We know where we got to be with our defensive systems. And that’s on the ground right next to these air bases and other locations that we’re defending. It’s the hockey analogy. We know the opposing team wants to put the puck in the net. So you put the goalie in front of the net.  

So if we can figure out how to use something like this, that low cost, many rounds, low collateral damage, because even on these islands [there] are collateral damage issues. If you think about some of the places that we are stationed around the Pacific, there are cities and there are quite a bit of urban sprawl in some of these islands. So you are concerned with the low collateral as well.

If you could figure out how to do this on the ground, this would make a lot of sense for getting after that and not having to launch a very expensive Patriot missile, for instance, against a very low cost UAS. Rather, save the Patriot for a theater ballistic missile or something that it was truly designed against coming at your airbase or your area in the Pacific.  

And again, very, very inexpensive UAS’s, and we were using very expensive missiles on them. It’s that cost curve that we’re never going to win against. This really helps us get after that. 

24:39 – 26:11 

(JPM): I mean, if you think about it, APKWS it was originally designed not to target airborne threats, but now it’s being used to target those new low-cost airborne UAS threats. There’s a couple things that are really important about this. We talked about the cost of these both high end exquisite weapon systems like the AMRAMM versus the APKWS. 

But think also about the opportunity cost of using those AMRAMMs, or Patriots other exquisite weapon systems to target drones. When we think about inventory and replacement of those shots. Like, I would rather have my fighter aircraft save their AMRAMMs for what they’re really needed for to target other fighter aircraft or other large aircraft. So in addition to the cost differential here, there’s an inventory advantage as well. 

The other thing this does is it provides as a new launcher opportunity. So instead of a fighter aircraft carrying these APKWS, we might have a different form factor available, like a ground base launchers, including ones that the RFI is asking about.

And then finally, this presents an opportunity for a lower collateral damage weapon. So instead of something large, like an AMRAMM, especially if you’re near a place where there’s a higher risk for civilian population, something like an APKWS, would be lower collateral damage, certainly not zero. 

But if you’re in an empty area where there’s no civilian population around or population around at all, then collateral damage considerations might be a little less important.   

But as we know, there are a lot of these kind of UAS incursions around very populated areas and airports, houses nearby, etc. so providing a lower or zero collateral damage weapon is extremely important to the future of countering these sort of threats. 

26:12 – 27:19 

(DN):The first time I saw this technology being used in the Middle East, it was amazing. Because if you look at the rocket technology that they’re using, other than the guidance packages, which Spear, talk to you earlier, I mean, the technology that goes back to the Vietnam War. 

We’ve been having rockets and the launchers that use it very similar to that for a long time. It’s just something we had never thought of. And it really was a mix of operators and engineers coming together, figuring out a very effective, a very cheap way. And the cheap is important, because, again, when the enemy can put up thousands of these targets, we can’t be shooting millions of missiles at all of them. 

At some point, we’ll run out of those missiles and we will run out of money, too. It was such a huge thing to get into our aircraft for air to ground and it was really the innovation to bring it in air to air, by some test pilots and engineers in the test world, and then operationally, it was proven out in the deserts in Syria. 

And now you look at a ground-based version of it. Then again, what’s the next thing for APKWS? Maybe there’s something that we can go even further to enhance our base defense and our and eventually our homeland defense as well. 

27:20 – 27:22 

And so what makes an RFI like this important? 

27:23 – 28:47 

(JPM): So let’s talk just for a second about what an RFI is. It’s a Request for Information. It’s an exploration of what’s out there and what’s in the market. What it’s not is a request for proposal. It does not signal that there is a direct impending contract coming out of this. But I think that’s important because it’s asking about the same precision guided, 70 millimeter rocket concept for a ground launch and then aimed at Group One and Group Three UAS’s. 

So these small drones think DJI quadcopter all the way through tactical UAS, which are really just small aircraft. And now the RFI just came out in November and the responses were due at the end of 2025. So I think right now the Air Force is chomping on the information that they received.  

So I think this RFI is important for another reason, which is that it’s signaling that the Air Force is coming into its own about this idea of base defense and investing in air base defense. 

And I think that’s important and good in a way, because the counter-UAS fight is really an air superiority problem. And while a lot of history would show that air base defense is a very small part of that, clearly this new UAS threat is proliferating and causing that particular style of threat causing threat to air bases is so much bigger part of air superiority now. 

And of course, the Air Force has air superiority is one of its core functions. And this conversation goes to show that air superiority is not just fighter jets fighting over a large swath of water 50 miles away from each other or more. It goes all the way from small UAS’s all the way up to hypersonics, ICBMs and beyond. 

28:48 – 31:44 

(DN):Well, there’s other reasons too. If you’re going to defend a base – to be airborne, you can’t be airborne forever. You have to actually get the airplane in the air. It’s going to have to be in some kind of a position where it can intercept. If you can do it from the ground, it is much more efficient to do that.

If you know we have a critical base let’s say on a South Pacific island and we know that that is vulnerable. We put what’s defending it on the ground. We don’t have to have the airplane airborne, with gas and with tankers.  

We put it on the ground and it’s a cheaper, more efficient way to actually defend a point. Now, the difference is what if I have to defend a very large area. That’s why you’re going to want things airborne as well. There is a mix of that. 

When you look at the air base defense piece and what Spear’s alluded to is we’re going to be in many places. And I keep going back to the Pacific fight because that’s certainly a fight we center on in how we look at investment across the Air Force. We’re going to be in many places.

We’re going to be getting there very quickly. And we may not be able to rely on anyone else to provide the air base air defense. So we may have to bring something in and we can bring in light quickly. Very effective. Defend these locations against all myriad of threats. And, the type one, two and three. 

So a relatively small aircraft right on down to the quadcopter. You can go buy it out at Best Buy or Walmart. These things can and very, very cheap enter into this world, as you’ve seen in the Middle East and other places, and the ability to mass these things in locations that can be very not helpful to air operations, even whether they have offensive weapons or not. 

You put a swarm of these things near an air base. It’s really hard to operate airplanes. We have problems just with physical birds, let alone birds that are made of metal like this around an air base. And so as we move throughout the Pacific and we move quickly, thinking about the ACE concept and how we’d actually operate, the ability to defend our own air bases, it’s going to be more and more important as we get further and as more of this proliferates. 

And it’s not just about a small non-state actor using something like this. It could be a state actor. And this is a part of a more elaborate, complex attack using very small UAS’s, and at the same time maybe theater ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, and other things to use in concert with each other.  

And you certainly see that in the homeland. You’re going to hear them talk about critical infrastructure and what needs to be defended in the homeland as we go further down this Golden Dome conversation. So it will be important to have some kind of ground-based interceptor system like we have around the National Capital Region right now.  

But at the same time, America is very large. And you’re going to have to have systems like this that have the ability to get up and move and go from point to point very fast, to defend large swaths of our nation. Certainly when you start thinking about Alaska and the Pacific, Hawaii, Guam and all the areas that we would have to defend, we couldn’t just be on the ground. It would be very difficult. That said, we know there’s the critical places we’re going to have to defend, like the National Capital Region or other critical locations for our nation. 

31:45 – 31:58 

The rising need to address the counter-UAS mission also coincides with the United States’ renewed emphasis on homeland defense, namely through the Golden Dome initiative.    

So what role and relevance do drones and UAS’s have to the Golden Dome conversation? 

31:59 – 33:55 

(JPM): With Golden Dome, if we back up for a moment, this idea of defending the homeland against air and missile attacks is something that has a long history in NORAD and in U.S. Northern Command.  

And the systems that we have now, were because we produce capabilities. So the threats that existed at the time and the priorities that we had in terms of funding and the technologies that we had available. If you go back and read the executive order for Golden Dome, it’s now an idea of how do we focus not only on ballistic missiles, hypersonic missiles, advanced cruise missiles, next generation aerial attacks, and as a homeland defense type of initiative? 

And so the counter-UAS flight is absolutely relevant to Golden Dome, but it’s certainly not the entirety of it.  

 But there are really there are overlaps. And these overlaps are really important because Golden Dome will be a layered system or system of systems, and not just from a physics perspective in terms of what areas you might be defending, but also how you might do this, because you’re going to need capabilities that will overlap in terms of what we talked about earlier in the detection, identifying, determining intent, command and control, selecting and responding with effectors is going to apply across the board there.  

Even if those detection mechanisms and the effector mechanisms may be very different depending on the type of threat. And so what you’re going to need are systems that can be integrated together, or a system that can detect hypersonic threats and ballistic missile threats, as well as systems that can detect these small UAS drone threats, in order that a greater and more integrated command and control system can help the authorities and operators decide. 

What should we do about this? What can we do about this? What timelines do we have?, What authorities do we need? And then of course, at the end game, what are we going to do against this thing? Is this going to be a kinetic kill? Is it going to be a hand off to law enforcement? Is it going to be something else? 

So as we look at this, some of the questions that Golden Dome is going to have to ask and answer and is asking about authorities, about collateral risk, collateral damage systems, they’re going to apply to this counter-UAS mission. And I think it’s going to require a collaborative approach among all the teams that are looking at this problem set.

Sir, over to you. 

33:56 – 34:57 

(DN):Yeah. I think I’ll just kind of narrow in on the that the C2 aspect, the command control aspect, and it really is great to see that the Joint Interagency Task Force, JIATF-401, is working with the Golden Dome team in terms of the command and control, because it’s going to have to be seamless across all domains. 

Where I think Golden Dome really, again, go back to the executive order. We’re thinking about ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, hyper glide vehicles, some of these even space weapons coming from and emanating from space. There are attacks that could be more conventional. Right on down to, even cyber and really any domain, and if we’re truly going to be safe as a nation – what Golden Dome intends.

The counter small UAS fight could be something just that specifically, or in the case of if you go back to, we talked about, the Israeli case in Iran, it could be part of a complex attack on our homeland and so the command and control structures are going to have to be seamless across and I think that’s a great indicator to industry, about where they focus their technologies because they’re going to have to have to be able to be seamlessly integrated across all domains. 

34:58 – 35:05 

Now, moving forward, what should industry’s takeaways be from the growing relevance of counter-UAS as part of these homeland defense conversations? 

35:06 – 36:33 

(JPM): Yeah, that’s a great question, Scott. I think the biggest thing that industry should take from this – is this is a real need. It’s not just a passing fad. It’s an emerging threat that’s not only causing real problems today, but it’s going to continue to emerge and evolve.  

And so looking not only at this RFI, but the wider Golden Dome initiative and what’s going on around the world, industry should take this time to start investing in and exploring ways that they can contribute to the counter-UAS flight, and whether that be in detection, in identification, command and control, or some kind of effector as well.

And there are a lot of new technologies out there. And I think that’s what’s interesting about this mission set, is because of the small, cheap, proliferated nature of these threat drones themselves.  

What you’ll find is that a lot of nontraditional companies can and are putting offerings into this space where in the past they didn’t or couldn’t compete because traditional air defense technologies were very expensive, required a lot of R&D just because of the nature of the threat, needing a missile to go many, many, many miles and detect high fast targets. 

But now this new threat in this new space allows for greater and faster innovation from smaller defense companies, and also nontraditional and nondefense companies. Because, again, it’s not just a military challenge. This is also a law enforcement challenge. So it’s a civil air space. It’s a public safety challenge. And so there’s opportunities for companies both in the U.S., outside the US for defense and non-defense, large and small, to be working on these technologies. 

And they’re not working on a military technology. Maybe they’re working on a law enforcement, public safety technology because they’re going to need this as well.

36:34 – 38:57 

(DN):I think the challenge we have for some of these companies, too, is that, as they develop technology, is how you bring this into some kind of a program where they, these small companies can have the steady stream of money that they’re going to need to stay in business. 

You know, many companies are coming up with an amazing technology. But if it doesn’t get adopted, that company can’t stay in business if they’re not able to sell it. So I think that will be a challenge, of the government, finding the right technologies and bringing it into a program where you can keep these companies moving forward. 

 And then in many cases, some of these small companies will merge with larger companies are merging their small companies. That’s so they can continue on. But that’s where the Valley of Death is very real when there is actually money and small business innovation efforts, SBIR I, SBIR II, other places, STRATFI, that small companies can find money to continue to develop their products. 

But then to get to that point to some kind of a program award, sometimes it’s a very large leap. It’s very hard for these small companies. So I think that’s something for us to watch. I think that’s something where Elara Nova can be quite effective as we help some of these companies manage that Valley of Death. 

 And whether that’s pairing up with a company or whether that’s looking for other avenues for funding so they can stay alive and then making sure that the government sees their technology and sees how applicable that can be to this fight because, the secret sauce is really going to be in some of these small companies and some of it’s just amazing technology as we bring it forward, it’s not always going to be a large companies.  

But in many cases, the large companies, like the Lockheed Martin’s and Northrop’s, the BAE’s and others are very important because they do have the ability, to extend the funding and have the structures to not only, to continue to develop the technology, but then to scale it, at the necessary speed that the Department of War is going to need moving forward. 

 And I think the industry is so far, doing a pretty good job responding and so I look forward to more indications from the government of exactly what they’re looking for, so industry can stay focused. We do have the best industry in the world. And we will figure out how you can make this command and control, where you have a handful of small UAS’s around an airbase like we had at Langley a few years ago, and we’re able to quickly identify where they are, who they are, and then apply the countermeasure to neutralize it if it is truly a threat or if it’s not a threat – let it go, or if it turns out to be a manned general aviation airplane that just wandered into the wrong airspace, you let it go, and then there you deal with it in terms of a civil matter. We’re not there yet, but I think we’re getting there very fast and it’s great to see that the country is focused on this.

38:58 – 39:09 

In what ways does the dual-use implications for counter-UAS mission, also present a unique opportunity for the government to establish a public-private partnership that would accelerate the development of counter-UAS technologies? 

39:10 – 40:50 

(JPM): Yeah, so I think if you think of this as a dual-use technology or a dual-use technology space, there’s of course the military applications. And particularly in the U.S., we’ve seen opportunities to spend money on countering this threat, both for US air bases, for U.S. air bases overseas, etc. but that’s still a relatively small subset of what this problem space could look like. 

If you think about every police department in the country, every police department perhaps in the world needing something like this system or something to counter threats in this space from both local and national safety objectives. I mean, just from a counter-UAS perspective, the need to detect, identify and determine what you’re going to do about it is not simply a military application, right? 

You need to do that in law enforcement and public safety, as well. And so this need is going to be proliferated across the globe if it’s not already there. And any place where these drones could cause problems. And there’ll be different ways of handling them as well. We don’t need to get into this discussion about whether every police department’s going to have something that can shoot down a drone because they may take a different approach. It’s not really us to say what’s going to be, but they are going to need something to detect, identify and then make a decision on what they’re going to do about it.

But it also does beg the question about what types of law or policy we need that are essentially the equivalent of a police officer pulling over somebody that’s speeding, right?A drone not where it’s supposed to be or approaching someplace it’s not supposed to be. It’s kind of like somebody’s speeding. So what’s the counter-UAS equivalent of a police officer putting their blue lights on to pull somebody over.  

So as the U.S. technology evolves, policy evolves and norms evolve. How we think about these aircraft and how they operate in the national and international airspace, we’re going to have to rethink how we work together from a civil and military perspective, so that we can take advantage of these new technologies while also keeping our population safe. 

40:51 – 42:25 

(DN):I think the dual-use is actually really going to be very effective because for the same reason Newark Airport is not going to want to have small UAS’s flying around the final approach corridor. They’re going to want a way to detect those small UAS’s and get them away. 

And whether that is some kind of a non-kinetic effect where they can actually move them away, or whether they physically take the things down, because there is a need in both the commercial and military sector, I think the technology is going to advance that much quicker because, on the commercial side, they come up with a way to keep UAS’s away from a busy airport in a downtown area like Newark Airport, New Jersey. 

Then we probably can use that very similar technology at Anderson Airbase in Guam. And for an offensive drone swarm there’s probably some various similarities in that technology.  

So I think that’s probably a good thing that this is a problem both in military and civil area, and you saw that, last year with those devastating wildfires in LA County, when they had that problem with drone swarms, some of them were good because they were police departments and others. Others were not. 

They’re just a hobbyist wanting to see the fires. And next thing you know, you were having impacts with small drones with aircraft and causing a lot of damage to those aircraft that were trying to fight the fires. And you’re also seeing in places like say the Super Bowl. 

Well, they’ll put a TFR or a Temporary Flight Restriction over the Super Bowl. So, aircraft don’t fly near it for security reasons. We’ve done that since 9/11 with large events like that. What about the drones and the hobbyists? And then and all the other things that are taking place around an event like that. And so I think the dual-use nature of the dual-use problem is going to help us solve this quicker for both sides. Spear, anything else on that? 

42:26 – 43:08 

(JPM): Yeah, I mean, if you look at similar technology advances, there were times when, for example, the Global Positioning System, the GPS, and specifically the receiver that you needed to figure out where you were, it used to be huge. And then you have organizations like DARPA that miniaturized it to make it more usable on the battlefield. But since then, I mean, you’ve got GPS receivers on everything to include your watch, your phone, etc. so the continued miniaturization of that, due to the commercial applications of GPS, the military now gets to take advantage of the fact that those receivers are now so much cheaper and so much smaller.  

And I think the same thing is going to happen with a lot of these technologies. So it’s really beneficial to the military and the civilian world that there’s a dual-use nature to this because it’s going to help accelerate, bring down the cost and size of all of these things.

43:09 – 43:18 

As the respective leaders of Elara Nova’s Aeronautics & Mission Systems sector, how can Elara Nova support the development and acquisition of counter-UAS technologies? 

43:19 – 45:04 

(DN):Our intention for the Aeronautics and Mission System, the AMS side of Elara Nova is to help these companies navigate, not only the government side of things and working through the innovation efforts as well as getting into programs. 

But as well as helping them tell a story about if they have a technology, where that can be used and how – present that technology, whether it’s to another company. If they’re going to be paired up with another company, or if it’s to the government or to an international partner as well. 

I think that’s one thing we do well, in AMS – is we have a lot of operational experts, and we can help them tell that story really well. We can also help them navigate, whether they’re looking for that SBIR I effort, that SBIR II effort they’re looking for. How do they get in front of the right person at the Department of War or whether that’s one of the Combatant Commanders? 

Who is that right person you need to get in front of? And when they get in front of that person, what story should they tell? And I think that’s something we’ll be very effective at.  

And then looking at the larger piece of the Golden Dome, we’re very involved with Golden Dome. I know a lot of it is on the space side. General Guetlein and his team, many of them came from the Space Force, but it is an all-domain effort. When you look at how you’re going to defend the nation and much of Golden Dome is going to be outside of the space sector, we talked a little bit about it right here about the integration with JIATF 401, the command and control networks, etc. 

Many of these small companies are coming to us with questions about Golden Dome, about how would they fit in? How could they become part of a broader consortium as part of this large-scale effort to defend the homeland? And I think we’re putting ourselves in a great position to help these companies tell their story, figure out how they can integrate, figure out how they can get funded and ultimately get into some kind of a program of record, and then proceed from there. Spear, anything else on that? 

45:05 – 45:34 

(JPM): Yeah, absolutely. I mean, this counter-UAS mission poses a great question for us to figure out how the Aeronautics and Mission Systems sector can provide complementary expertise or a high quality outside look to these companies developing these technologies. I mean, these companies are already staffed with brilliant people that developed awesome technologies, and they have great operational depth. And the answer we believe that AMS can provide them with expertise that can complement and leverage the strengths they already have within their company to ultimately get capability into the hands of those that need it. 

45:35 – 46:14 

This has been an episode of The Elara Edge. As a strategic advisory firm, Elara Nova is the trusted guiding partner that builds tailored teams to illuminate unseen opportunities and deliver impact across every domain.  

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If you liked what you heard today, please subscribe to our channel and leave us a rating. Music for this podcast was created by Patrick Watkins of PW Audio. This episode was edited and produced by Regia Multimedia Services. I’m your host, Scott King, and join us next time at the Elara Edge.