Episode 22: Department of Defense Budget Must Realign to Space-Based Threats
The Elara Edge: Expert Insights on Space Security
Host: Scott King
SME: Gen (Ret) John E. Hyten, Senior Principal Advisor at Elara Nova: The Space Consultancy (JH)
Lt Gen (Ret) Nina Armagno, Executive Director of International Partnerships at Elara Nova: The Space Consultancy (NA)
00:02 – 01:43
The United States Space Force requested $29.4 billion for Fiscal Year 2025, a two percent drop from the previous year. The final budget, however, has yet to be passed as the federal government is currently operating under what’s known as a “Continuing Resolution.”
This is a reality the Space Force has become familiar with. For half of its existence – or about thirty of the past sixty months since the Space Force was founded – the military’s newest service has been operating under a Continuing Resolution.
The Space Force was founded in response to the threatening actions of near-peer competitors in space. But without the appropriate funding to build and maintain a strong and capable Space Force, the national and economic security of the United States remains at risk.
However, even the traditional Department of Defense approach to building and resourcing its force structure, which begins with the budget, leaves the Space Force with only a marginal amount of the funding it needs.
Welcome to the Elara Edge: Expert Insights on Space Security,” I’m your host Scott King. I’m joined today by retired General John Hyten, former Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and Senior Principal Advisor at Elara Nova: The Space Consulantcy, as well as retired Lieutenant General Nina Armagno, the first director of staff with the United States Space Force and executive director of international partnerships at Elara Nova.
Together, they co-wrote a recent opinion editorial, published by SpaceNews, stating that it’s time to re-focus the DOD budget away from legacy programs to resource against the modern, space-based threat.
General Hyten, Sir, welcome to the show!
01:44 – 01:46
JH: It’s great to be here.
It’s great to be with General Armagno, always.
01:47 – 01:49
And General Armagno, thank you for taking the time to be here today.
01:50 – 01:51
NA: Thank you. Scott.
01:52 – 02:14
As of our recording today, Congress and the DOD are operating under what’s known as a “Continuing Resolution.” This is in lieu of a passed budget for Fiscal Year 2025.
Now, many in our audience are likely familiar with Continuing Resolutions, but for those who aren’t, let’s set the table here:
What is a Continuing Resolution? And how does it affect the Space Force’s overall budgeting and planning process?
02:15 – 03:12
JH: So a Continuing Resolution real simply is the fact that we don’t have a budget for this fiscal year. Therefore, the Continuing Resolution said we will comply with last year’s budget limits and budget programs, which means no new starts can happen.
Which means any changes in budget can’t be done because we have to operate at last year’s budget level. That means any relatively new program that started the last couple of years probably has a required budget increase that is needed in order to deliver the capability. That budget increase can’t be executed because it hasn’t been passed by Congress.
Therefore, all of these programs are delayed. The inefficiencies waste of billions of dollars of taxpayers’ money, and most importantly, from our perspective, you can’t deliver the required capability that we need for the nation because we can’t fund the programs and so many space programs in today’s day and age, are in that – that category of we need additional funding in order to execute and we can’t execute them.
03:13 – 03:52
NA: And if you look at the Space Force budget in particular, you’re probably looking at about a $4 billion deficit, but that doesn’t tell the full story. The full story is the impact on the new starts as General Hyten just mentioned. And for a new service trying to consolidate capabilities from across the other services – that’s one thing.
But what the Space Force is really working on are new capabilities, using new technologies for new missions and the impact to delaying those programs is significant, not just for the Space Force, but the entire joint force and our nation.
03:53 – 04:23
JH: It’s kind of a little bit of a Catch-22.
We actually build our budgets assuming that Congress passes a budget on time. So that come the 1st of October, with the new budget, the new program is executed on the 1st of October. Here it is, the middle of February, soon to be March, and there’s no budget. That means the last six months we’ve been wasting time and money because of the law that says there will be a budget on the 1st of October, we build our budgets assuming that there will be there on the 1st of October. So it’s a little bit of a Catch-22 because they’re never there.
04:24 – 05:02
NA: And so guess what the entire Pentagon has been working on assuming the new budget’s going to be passed? They’re already working on 2026. I mean, that whole thing’s probably being blown up by new presidential priorities, of course. But traditionally the approach is it’s typically carved out to be a third, a third, a third. A third goes to the Army, a third goes to the Department of the Navy, which includes the Navy and the Marine Corps. A third goes to the Department of the Air Force, which is Air Force and Space Force, roughly. But the newest service in town only garners about three percent of the overall DOD budget and has been flat over the last year. This is harmful.
05:03 – 06:06
JH: And the other piece of that puzzle that really hurts the Department of the Air Force is that the Air Force in their budget, is the only service that has a pass-through element of the budget.
That pass-through element I think in the 25 budget was roughly $45 billion. That goes straight to the intelligence community. That doesn’t come to the Air Force. It was put in the Air Force a long time ago when that budget was hidden from the world. Nobody knew that budget exists. Everybody knows that budget exists right now. In fact, we can pull out the Air Force budget, and look at it.
So when you go one third, one third, one third, the Air Force one third includes $45 billion for somebody else. So we actually don’t have, we the Department of the Air Force, don’t have one third. We have about one fifth and when you actually are trying to build an Air Force, that’s why we have ancient airplanes. I mean, the newest B-52 is like 63 years old.
We can’t build our new space capabilities because they’re paying other people’s bills, and it’s almost untenable. But you basically can’t have an Air Force and you can’t have a Space Force unless you change that fundamental structure.
06:07 – 06:29
Funding for the Space Force has increased year-over-year since its inception. The outlier, however, is the latest budget request for Fiscal Year 2025, which came in at about $600 million less than the previous year.
If passed that way, this budget request would still put funding for the Space Force at around $29 billion. But even so, is that enough?
06:30 – 07:33
NA: No, it’s not enough. What is the actual number? Well, I don’t have it. But I’m sure it’s not enough. This is a service that’s barely five years old. Every indication is that it needs to grow.
I hear today there’s a ceiling on the Space Force budget. We are flat-lined and I know decisions are very difficult within the Space Force and within the Department of the Air Force.
But I don’t believe that flat-lining the Space Force should have been one of those decisions. I know Secretary Kendall has said right before he left that the Space Force budget should probably double, but perhaps he had an opportunity to, at the very least, put some more funds into 2025. There are nuances. I know there’s a story behind the story, I get it.
But the service hasn’t been around long enough to have those deep relationships with staffers on the Hill, or within the Pentagon. And I think some of that lack of experience contributed to this flat budget.
07:34 – 08:51
JH: To me, the defense budget should be all about ‘How do we respond to the threats of the world? Right now, the most significant pacing threat that we have is China. China is basically building air and space capabilities and strategic capabilities to challenge the United States in the Pacific.
The second one is Russia. Probably even more concerning in the near term. They’re building the same thing. Why have they been building those things? They’ve been building those things because they realized the American way of war depends on air and space capabilities, period.
Therefore, seems to me like the threat demands an increase in air and space capabilities, an increase in naval air and deployment capabilities. And the third priority would be the United States Army. If you look at the numbers, it’s actually the reverse, which means, and don’t get me wrong, the Army is critical in the Middle East, will be critical in anything to do with Russia.
But if we’re going to deal with the threats we have to do, you shouldn’t see a declining budget. You should see an increasing budget.
And so it bothers me when the threat does not drive our requirements. When it’s all about the threat. I would expect to see a robust capability to defend the capabilities we have on-orbit and deny adversaries the use of capabilities against our forces on the ground, at sea, and in the air and I don’t see that.
08:52 – 09:04
And with respect to the role of space-based capabilities in joint military operations, how might an under-resourced or under-funded Space Force adversely affect its ability to support the other services like the Army and the Navy?
09:05 – 09:53
NA: Space is used in every operational mission. Certainly every joint operational mission. Every single day, the other services use capabilities from space. Just think of satellite communications, GPS, weather, missile warning. These are fundamental capabilities that all of our operations, our plans. We rely on the fact that they’re going to be there. With a flat budget and other priorities coming down, especially now from a new administration.
And I’ve seen those hard choices. I’ve seen the Space Force and the Air Force have to make very hard choices about those capabilities. You know, what gets funded? So you certainly can’t make everybody happy. But it’s even worse when you’re not even starting on a level playing field.
09:54 – 10:49
JH: So you kind of put two and two together and you see it as up to three.
And the reason is because the bills that General Armagno just described for PNT, comm, missile warning, all of those bills have to be paid and they have to be paid upfront because every military service requires them. Now we’ve moved into a contested world in space where we have to worry about somebody threatening us in space, threatening those capabilities that I just described that are the must-pay bills.
And so the Space Force lays in the capabilities that are needed to go do that offense, defense, fires however you want to describe it. They lay in those capabilities. And then we can’t get a budget, because Congress won’t pass a budget and so all of that money that is programmed can’t be used.
And then the waste in the Space Force budget is astronomical, no pun intended, because of that same issue. That’s why when you add two and two, you get three because you have the must-pay bill and then you have the inefficiencies put in, because we don’t have a budget.
10:50 – 11:04
And, Sir, you mentioned the need for the DOD to pay their bills upfront – which leads into my next question.
Can each of you elaborate on the role that Congress plays in this process, and how can the DOD work with Congress to streamline these efforts to receive the funding that it needs?
11:05 – 12:54
NA: The budget gets sent over to Congress. But then what Congress says, and I think to this day, though, they will tell you – they get the president’s budget and they throw it in the trash and they start over with their own priorities. The president’s budget is not literally in the trash. I mean, it is the foundation of what the executive is posturing for and supporting and trying to get Congress to align.
Then come posture hearings where the Department of Defense and all the other, most senior leaders of our government, come to the Hill and it’s a parade of briefings.
Following that is lots of engagement and what I found in trying to fight for programs and advocate for budget, for the space programs in the Air Force when I was part of AQS. General Hyten and also led AQS earlier in his career, the acquisition for space, essentially in the Department of the Air Force. I found that bringing them in early, bringing the staffers into program briefings, your acquisition strategies and plans to help them understand what you’re going after.
I found that to be very helpful. We did it very deliberately with a program called “Silent Barker,” which is space-based space situational awareness. So satellites in-orbit that can also monitor that very domain and I found that this was a program that the Air Force and the National Reconnaissance Office were working together at the direction of Congress.
The best thing we did, was we went to the Hill, talked to staffers before the program was even announced, or certainly approved, and they certainly felt like – and they were – part of the program from day one and part of the decision-making.
12:55 – 14:51
JH: So Congress’s number one job is the power of the purse to pass a budget. That’s their job, not the president’s job, not the Supreme Court, the Congress of the United States, the Senate and House of Representatives together have to come up with a budget.
Now, they’re supposed to come up with a budget by 1 October. So they lay in a series of briefings. General Armagno called them “posture hearings.” They lay those posture hearings, usually for a Combatant Command like STRATCOM or Space Command or Central Command or Indo-Pacific Command. They lay those posture hearings in usually early March. You have the Secretary of Defense usually comes in the posture hearings in late February or early March kind of leading the way.
Then you have the Combatant Commanders after that, then you have the services come in. And the job of all those people, the SECDEF, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, the Deputy Secretary, the Vice Chairman, all the Combatant Commanders, and then the services is to defend the president’s budget to Congress. The schedule is the schedule. You’re going to go ahead and schedule those things.
I can’t tell you how difficult it is as both a major command commander, then a Combatant Commander, and then the Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs to have to go testify to Congress on the president’s budget when no president’s budget was submitted to Congress, because the schedule is going to be the schedule, and everybody thinks the budget’s going to be there other then it’s not, then you have to stand and answer all their questions on these future programs when you have no budget. So when the budget does come over, then you basically have to do it all again.
What General Armagno described is a great way to do it. You bring the staffers over, you educate them as fast as you can, but you’re behind the game trying to get to October 1st, and then you do this every year.
So the waste that goes to the taxpayers is horrible. But the education of the Congress, which is the job of the Department, I mean, we don’t lobby, but we have to educate Congress on what we need – that is damaged tremendously when the leadership of the Department can’t talk about their priorities to Congress because they don’t know what they are yet, because the president hasn’t decided. So it’s, it’s just a raw mess.
14:52 – 15:07
Here I’d like to lean into each of your respective careers and experiences working with the budgeting process.
Starting with General Hyten, Sir, can you share some insights from your experience as the former Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff?
How can we overcome some of these budget challenges?
15:08 – 16:15
JH: The first thing I’ll say is that as a whole, Congress has become dysfunctional the last ten years. But the amazing thing to me that surprised me in all my three four-star jobs, Space Command, Strategic Command, and Vice Chairman was how much each member of Congress, Senate and House of Representatives were interested in educating themselves and trying to do the right thing to build the budget that they have to do.
And when you take the time to go talk to the members and talk to their staffs on a frequent basis, they will work hard to do the right thing for the country, and things will end up in the bills that you think are impossible, because they really it’s just this tight margin between the Republicans and Democrats in Congress.
It makes moving things as a whole very difficult. But if you take the time to actually go across the river and explain to Congress what you’re trying to do, they will do their absolute upmost best to include those things in the budget, and you can move these things forward. We could actually move fairly quickly, if we could solve this overall problem of passing the budget on time.
16:16 – 16:22
Thank you, Sir. And to take it one step further – is there a particular program or specific experience that really encapsulates this effort?
16:23 – 17:34
JH: An initiative that we had when General Ellen Pawlikowski was Commander of Space and Missile System Center. I was AQS, head of acquisition of the Pentagon. Our desire was to buy more than one satellite at a time in production and that was against the law. The law said, if you go to production, you have to fully fund that program.
Well, fully funding a satellite program back then, it was a multi-billion dollar satellite. And I’ll just make up numbers. And it was for the Space-Based Infrared System, the Advanced EHF system. If we paid for one, it would cost roughly $2 billion. If we paid for two, it cost us $3 billion.
In other words, a billion and a half dollars a satellite. So we could save the taxpayer $1 billion each on both of those programs. So we could save the taxpayer $2 billion if we could just spread the funding out to buy two. But that would cause a change in the law. But General Pawlikowski and I, we spent tons of time on the Hill educating both the staff and the members of Congress.
What would happen if we did that? And son of a gun. When the law came out, they changed the law to allow us to do that for those programs. That was remarkable.
17:35 – 18:05
NA: Another example, last Secretary of the Air Force, Secretary Kendall, worked with Congress on the law that says there should be no new starts under a Continuing Resolution and he was able to get an exception.
There was a new program the Space Force wanted to start. I think it was a Replacement GPS or some smaller program, and that was being used to kind of test out the new exception to the law and more of that kind of work needs to happen, because laws can be changed.
18:06 – 18:47
JH: That’s the thing to remember, because the Congress writes the law, the president signs them into action. Any law can be changed. People think the acquisition program is inflexible, that there’s only one way through the process. This is the way it’s going to be.
If you actually read the Federal Acquisition Regulations, which are basically the compilation of all the laws that have passed over the last number of decades, on how you buy things, pretty much every way you want to buy something is included in the law.
And oh, by the way, if it’s not, all you have to do is get Congress to change it, which means the right person, or the right military leader has to go over and explain. And then Congress can and does on many occasions change the law for the benefit of the country.
18:48 – 19:01
Now, General Armagno, you served as the first director of staff at the United States Space Force, where you had a hand in crafting the very first Space Force budget.
So, Ma’am, what perspectives can you share from this first-hand experience?
19:02 – 21:06
NA: Well, it was really difficult to build the first Space Force budget because there was really nobody in the Pentagon yet. General Thompson was leading a team of maybe 30 of us.
I was asked to come over as a two-star to help him and everyone else, all of our expertise, all of our ‘budgeteers,’ if you will. Was back at Air Force Space Command in Colorado Springs. So we really had to communicate well. It starts with a strategy. You start with trying to fulfill your overarching strategy and goals for the service.
Brand-new service. A lot of that wasn’t yet defined. As a service, you start with budget guidance. Now, we did get that guidance from General Raymond. You take the guidance and then you realize when you’re done with this process, there’s way more that you want to pay for that you want to do than you could ever possibly finance it.
So there’s a lot of competing requirements coming from other services. Congress as well, has their favorite programs and projects.
And so one example of how hard it is to pivot your budget. There was a recognition, especially during that time, that space domain awareness was so crucial and important for our new Command, U.S. Space Command.
It was important to their planning, to their missions. And the Space Force coined a term ‘Pivot to SDA.’ But I saw, especially in those budget deliberations, I saw that SDA, especially the ground-based radars and optical telescopes, were talking about space-based systems as I just mentioned, Silent Barker. I saw those budgets get cut. I mean, they just couldn’t stand up to the pressure of the other things that the Space Force was trying to do so early on snd so even if your strategy and the guidance is written as ‘Pivot to SDA,’ if there’s no money behind that, there’s not much of a pivot.
21:07 – 21:47
Thank you, Ma’am. Now this declining budget request is also indicative of a broader trend that we’ve been witnessing in defense spending over the years.
In 2022, U.S. defense spending came in at just over 3.4 percent of our GDP, or Gross Domestic Product. The Congressional Budget Office forecast that this spending will continue to decrease by another percentage point by 2034.
That would put our defense spending at nearly half of the running average of 4.2 percent of GDP Congress has traditionally allocated for defense spending over the last half century.
From your perspectives, what has triggered these broader declines in defense spending from Congress?
21:48 – 22:51
NA: The national debt is a problem. We also see rising non-discretionary fund needs. We see an aging population that needs to be cared for. And when you see how large the defense budget is, there have been efforts along the way to decrease the DOD budget. I remember something called “Sequestration,” back in 2012, 2013, 2014 time rame, which was a ten percent budget cut for ten years that the Congress passed into law.
Yeah, I know the DOD has a big budget, but I can tell you from somebody, a commander on the ground, it was really difficult basically cutting programs that were non-mission, but they were the the essence of what made a base, a community, for example, or the Air Force feel like they were part of a community.
And I think today you see just different changing congressional priorities and you see a focus on the perceived and probably real bloat across our entire government budget. That’s what I see.
22:52 – 24:30
JH: I see it that way, plus a little different. I agree with everything that General Armagno said. But the little different comes from, well, two things. And these are things that former bosses taught me.
And since I’m going to quote them, I’ll tell you they were. General Mattis once said, “America’s the richest country in the world. We should be able to afford survival. We should pay the bills that we have to pay in order to do that.”
But then it was General Bob Koehler when I think he was at STRATCOM, when he said that because the budget at the time was $700 billion, he said, you know, if you talk to the average guy in the street and and say, you know, the defense budget is $700 billion, 700 billion with a ‘B,’ they would assume that we have a pretty darn awesome defense for the $700 billion.
We’re approaching a trillion now and right now, we are the least efficient acquisition bureaucracy that I’ve ever experienced. We pay sometimes ten times more than we need to for something. We keep things around much longer than we need them. We waste enormous amounts of money through Continuing Resolutions, and if we actually spent our money correctly, that amount would be plenty to build a defense.
But there’s so much waste and you started this discussion with the Continuing Resolution. That’s money you never get back. That’s just gone. So we got to stop wasting money. We got to get rid of bloated bureaucracies. We have to delegate decisions down to lower levels so people can make decisions and move quickly and effectively energize our budget.
So number one, we should pay the money we need to pay for survival. And number two, when we see waste, we should kill it.
24:31 – 24:40
So where do we go from here? What needs to happen not only with regard to the budget for FY25? But for the defense budget process as a whole moving forward?
24:41 – 25:22
JH: You know, everybody thinks that the president’s budget is the budget. It’s not, it’s just the start of the discussion. So the actual budget, what goes to space in FY25 will be decided by the Congress. I know that the current administration is going through a quick re-look at the 25 budget to come up with what I would hope they make some different recommendations that were in the previous version.
And then Congress has the opportunity to change things, and I would hope they would do it strategically with regard to the threat. And if they do that, the budget will align where it needs to be. But there’s a lot of political pressures from local communities all the way up to the companies that actually have the work, that will put huge pressure on it.
But if I had one thing to say, it would just be focus on the threat. If it doesn’t respond to the threat we shouldn’t be doing.
25:23 – 25:57
NA: I totally agree with that. And I just wanted to highlight that Representative Bacon, who as a Congressman in Nebraska, he wrote an opinion recently where he says enough about talking about innovation and working on new technology.
And I think it kind of goes along with what General Hyten and saying he wants tough choices to be made based on priorities. Those priorities should be based on the threat. But he says it’s time to actually set priorities. Congress fund those priorities and move out quickly on producing systems.
25:58 – 26:32
JH: If I was Secretary of Defense, and thank goodness I’m not, but if I were Secretary of defense and I went to my posture hearing before a budget was even submitted, perhaps I would do nothing but talk about the threats and the capabilities that are required to deal with the threats.
Somehow we forget that that’s what we’re all about. Our job is to defend the nation against all threats. Everybody that wears the uniform, everybody that serves in government, swears an oath to the Constitution and embedded in that is the ability to defend the United States.
And if we’re doing things that don’t. I would say stop that and reprioritize against the threat that should inform Congress where the budget has to go.
26:33 – 27:02
NA: And as the threat changes, which we’ve seen it change over the last ten years to the point where there’s a theory that the next war will begin in space, the next war will begin in cyber. It’ll be unseen. It won’t be somebody crossing a border. It won’t be a build up along a border.
It won’t be a bullet fired. It will be in the space domain and therefore a restructuring of our national defense is probably in order here.
27:03 – 28:25
JH: If I was an adversary like China or Russia, looking at the United States, you don’t have to be a military scholar or a historian to say, if I was going to start a conflict with the United States, what’s the first thing I have to do?
It’s not actually attack the United States. The first thing I have to do is I have to insert doubt into the American population about our ability to achieve our objectives. I don’t do that with a military confrontation because the American people – rightly – believe and trust the United States military will dominate anybody on a battlefield. And oh, by the way, we will.
That’s not the way you start. First you take our eyes, ears, that’s space. Then you influence cyber to incur doubt. Then you attack the United States through chemical and biological warfare that nobody can see. Nobody can figure out where they’re coming from. And if you look at the way we responded to COVID in the not very coordinated activity we had responding to a COVID virus, all you have to do is insert that doubt, and then you challenge the United States with military force because now the doubt is across the American people.
So it’s not through the Army or the Navy or even through the Air Force originally. It’s through space, cyber, chemical and biological warfare that’s unattributable and those things we actually don’t do very well defending ourselves right now and that should be one of the highest priorities we have, because that’s how conflict would start.
28:26 – 28:41
Thank you, Sir, and in response to how the nature of warfare is changing.
What are some of the technologies, capabilities, and mission areas that the Space Force needs to prioritize in communicating with Congress so their funding efforts can be resourced appropriately?
28:42 – 29:33
NA: Well, you can look at it in basically two buckets. One bucket, what is needed to fight tonight in space, but in support of every other domain. That would be capabilities like anti-jam communications, protected PNT – position, navigation and timing.
And then there’s another bucket. What about a war that extends to space? What about a war in space? Those technologies definitely are being discussed at classified levels, but we can talk about the vulnerabilities of satellites and vulnerabilities in the space domain.
Satellites have no defenses. Zero. None. Well, one technology would be on-board sensing – an on-board sensor that could simply provide a satellite its own warning or its own sensing of something nearby or an approaching threat.
29:34 – 30:51
JH: So I was lucky enough to serve at the four-star level for a long time, through three different administrations. And without going into detail, which would be inappropriate for so many reasons, classification as well as discussion with presidents, I’ll say with the three presidents I worked for directly: President Obama, President Trump and President Biden.
At some point during that time, I had a discussion with them about offense and defense. At some point in the discussion, they would look at me and say, all three of them, right? Now think, President Obama, President Trump, President Biden, three different people as you can imagine, but they would look at me and hold me accountable, rightly so in saying, ‘Didn’t you tell me years ago that we needed to build a more resilient space architecture because we don’t have the ability to defend ourselves? And then that would change the whole discussion about offense and defense, if we had a resilient space architecture. How come you haven’t built a resilient space architecture?’
And by the time I got to President Biden, that had been going on for like ten years. But it was the same question from three different presidents, three different things.
You said multiple times, we need a resilient architecture, and then you don’t build it. Now we’re building it, slowly because the status quo still wins in the discussions. But, again, it’s all about the threat.
30:52 – 31:27
NA: And looking at the threat, it’s also very difficult to defend 1 v 1. So Russia, China proliferating on the ground, for example, anti-satellite capabilities, jamming capabilities, to counter 1 v 1 would be a fool’s errand. It would be very expensive.
And so it’s out-thinking your adversary out-maneuvering your adversary and putting capabilities in motion and funding them, most importantly to counter. But it can’t be platform centric. It has to be mission-area centric.
31:28 – 32:59
JH: So I’m looking at some of the things are adversaries do and learning from that is important.
A couple years ago, in the early phases of the Ukraine crisis, Vladimir Putin threatened to deploy and perhaps employ a nuclear weapon in low-Earth orbit. Everybody says that’s nuts. Why would he do that? Well, let’s think about what they’ve been trying to do in counter space. They spent an enormous amount of Russian treasure and time building a direct ascent anti-satellite capability that would take out one satellite.
And then they deployed that basically to threaten us. And then in the early stages of the Ukrainian conflict, a commercial company proliferated across the heavens, is being used against them. And that direct ascent ASAT they spent enormous treasure to build – tens or hundreds of millions of dollars to take out a ten or $100,000 satellite that doesn’t do anything to damage it.
So what’s the only option he has to actually threaten that capability? A nuclear weapon in low-Earth orbit, which is the dumbest thing in the world to do. It impacts them. It impacts us, impacts the world – it’s horrible. He’s got no way else to threaten us.
We need to pay attention to what they’re doing, what works and what doesn’t work, and fill the void in the criteria so we never are in the point where we would ever consider what we did in the 1960s, which was build a nuclear-tipped ASAT capability. We did that in the 60s. That’s horrible. But we need to be smart about what we do and learn from our adversaries.
33:00 – 33:21
NA: And, you know, it’s not 1 v 1. It’s not space versus space. We can counter our adversaries from other domains.
We can counter our adversaries by using the levers of national power, like diplomacy, information – yes – military might, but also economic power. So there are many, many ways to get after this problem.
33:22 – 33:42
JH: There’s no such thing as war on space. There’s only war and all tools of the government, so if somebody attacked us in space, I want the adversary to know we may not come back in like we come back in a different way that will be more damaging to you than what you just created to us, because the goal is to win the conflict. The goal is not to win the battle.
33:43 – 34:11
Thank you.
Now, I want to leave time for another major recent development that will have significant budget implications. And that is the Trump administration’s executive order, titled “The Iron Dome for America.”
This order directs an assessment for a missile defense system for the United States homeland, while also signalling that space will play a big role in this initiative.
So can each of you elaborate on the role of space and what Space Force programs might be involved in this Iron Dome?
34:12 – 36:27
JH: So the first thing to say is that I would recommend that anybody listening to this go back and look at the Strategic Posture Commission Report of 12 bipartisan people that met a couple of years ago and came up with recommendations for missile defense that even talked about coercive threats against Russia and China, that we needed to have a defensive capability for that.
And a lot of that has turned into what President Trump is calling an Iron Dome for America and I think that’s good. But the first thing you have to realize that if you’re going to have any kind of missile defense capability, you can’t shoot anything you can’t see.
So the first thing you have to do is be able to see the threat and characterize it. Right now, the threat is moving from just a ballistic threat that we can see pretty well to cruise missile and hypersonic threats that we can’t see very well. So the first priority to deal with those threats will have to be to build surveillance systems to deal with that.
Now some of those surveillance systems will be terrestrial, but most of those will be space-based, and they’ll have to be changed. And some of those, by their very nature, will have to be low to see the dim targets that are going to be cruise missiles and hypersonics. So coming up with an integrated architecture of ground and space to be able to see and characterize all the missile threats that threaten America is the first step to an Iron Dome.
The second piece is that we have to go after the rogue states, the North Koreas and Iran and make sure we can defend ourselves against that. And then the coercive threat from Russia and China, which is a low number of low-yield weapons, threatened to be used like in Ukraine to change the equation because we don’t have a like capability to respond to that.
Wouldn’t it be great if we had a small number of defense capabilities in order to take out those capabilities, so we didn’t have to respond in kind with a nuclear weapon?
Now, those capabilities can be broadly built, using ground -based, air-based, naval-based systems in order to deal with those kind of threats, but ultimately to get to an Iron Dome for America, you have to get to a capability that can attack many targets with one capability, because otherwise you get to the problem we were talking about earlier with the ASAT capability.
You’ll never be able to build enough interceptors, so ultimately, on the weapons side, to achieve the vision that President Trump has defined, you’re going to have to move into space.
36:28 – 37:12
NA: From what I’ve read, the Defense Department is taking this in phases. They know they can’t build the whole thing today with today’s technologies and today’s budget.
So we know that current systems will certainly participate in the Iron Dome. Our current missile warning systems, even though they can’t see all threats. Those will be part of this architecture. Our strategic communications systems in space will be part of this architecture. The Proliferated Warfighter Space Architecture that the Space Development Agency is building will be enhanced and part of this architecture as well.
So it remains to be seen exactly how it all will fit together in the end. But they do realize that they’re going to use what we have and build upon it.
37:13 – 37:37
JH: That’s why I recommend the Strategic Posture Commission and I have to admit, I was one of the authors.
So, you know, it’s somewhat self-serving. But what we laid out was the phased approach. What you do near-term, what you do in the mid-term, and then what you do in the far-term in terms of technologies to change the game and everybody on the commission agreed with those recommendations, which tells me that’s a pretty good starting point.
37:38 – 37:58
Now, the executive order also states that funding for this Iron Dome for America should be included in the Fiscal 26 budget request. As we mentioned before, we currently don’t even have a budget for 2025.
So what needs to happen to make this a reality to incorporate such a monumental effort such as this Iron Dome, into the Fiscal 26 budget?
37:59 – 38:42
JH: So the first thing that has to happen is the Missile Defense Agency needs to divest itself of all production and sustainment programs, period. Which means they don’t do any production sustainment, all they do is research and development. Then the services responsible for producing, sustaining THADD, Patriot, ground-based interceptors. All those capabilities that are out there and the Missile Defense Agency can just focus on: ‘What do we need in order to get to the long term future?’
And you lay in the capabilities of applied research and technology, basic research and technology all the way through in order to build that, you can actually do it in the 26 budget pretty easily, but not if 80 percent of your people are doing production sustainment, because if that’s your organization, your culture is production and sustainment, not innovative moves to the future.
38:43 – 39:20
NA: And to be sure, this will be very disruptive for the status quo that the Pentagon is used to and to some extent, the other services.
And if you bring it back to the role of Congress that we talked about as well. I read that Senate Republicans are proposing a $150 billion more for the defense budget for 26.
Will that all go to the Iron Dome? Doubtful. And even if it did, there will still have to be tough choices and programs and projects that are killed among all services to afford to do what this very ambitious project is asking us to do.
39:21 – 40:11
JH: I assume it’s going to be the Missile Defense Agency. But however this team is formed, the Space Force needs to have active members on the team.
If you look at the UCP that’s out there right now, this integrated global surveillance mission is a Space Command mission, and therefore the Space Force is the primary service provider for that capability. So the Space Force needs to be heavily involved in that.
And then as the threat gets played out in this group, the smart people in the Space Force should look at and say, you know, I’ll look at directed energy, I’ll look at kinetic energy, and I’ll look at all those things and they can do trades pretty quick because they have the capability to do that and say, this is what space could provide in those areas.
And then you could say, what is the technology readiness of it? So what would it take in order to improve technology readiness levels of those capabilities and lay those programs in to do that? If you have the right people in the room from the Space Force, they can lay all those pieces out and you can have an integrated approach.
40:12 – 40:20
Together, you also wrote an OpEd that was published recently by SpaceNews. What was the motivation behind writing that OpEd and why release it now?
40:21 – 41:20
JH: So, Scott, you can probably get my answer. It’s all about the threat. And we’re not responding to the threat, and the budget doesn’t reflect the threat that’s out there today. And we’re not making the right decisions as a nation for how are we going to deal with that threat? And because we’re not making the right decisions, we’re lagging in the capabilities as we need to deter this kind of threat.
The last thing anybody in this country should want or anybody in this world should want, would be a war between the United States and China, or a war between the United States and Russia.
Nothing good can come from that. But in order to deter you actually have to have real capabilities, and those capabilities have to be seen by the adversary, and they have to strike fear into the adversary, so they decide when it’s an opportunity to act or not. They make the decision, “Not today.” And that’s got to be every day going on to the future.
And so the reason we we wrote the OpEd was to emphasize the point that resources are not being put in the right place, and we need to adjust where we’re putting the resources.
41:21 – 42:10
NA: They’re not. And actually, you know, failure to act is not an option.
What China is doing in space: intercepting our satellites. That is a maneuver that brings us one satellite closer to another. It’s not stopping a mission or intercepting and turning something around like you would think in the air domain. An intercept is a very close pass. They’re doing this all the time to our satellites. They are practicing tactics and techniques.
They’re getting ready to do this to the United States. We can see not only their build up, we can see them practicing their TTPs. The threat is so very real and can be seen. Now the budget needs to be re-prioritized and re-worked to meet this reality.
42:11 – 42:28
Now, each of you represent Elara Nova: The Space Consultancy in various capacities. So how is Elara Nova and its team of partners and consultants, prepared to provide the experience and expertise necessary to build and maintain a strong and capable Space Force – a process that begins with the fiscal budget?
42:29 – 43:13
JH: I tell you what, we have some pretty spectacular Guardians right now that understand the pieces of the space capability.
But what we don’t have in large numbers are Guardians that understand the entire enterprise. What Elara Nova understands through the leadership and the folks that we’ve hired, is we understand the entire enterprise and how to bring enterprise capabilities together and integrate the “eaches” to build something that is much broader. We have consultants that do that. We have advisors that do that.
When you use Elara Nova, you get all of that capability. Right now, I believe, and I wouldn’t be involved with Elara Nova if I didn’t believe this, that we fill a critical void and the capability by providing that enterprise approach. I think that’s the unique thing that Elara Nova provides.
43:14 – 43:50
This has been an episode of The Elara Edge: Expert Insights on Space Security. As a global consultancy and professional services firm focused on helping businesses and government agencies maximize the strategic advantages of the space domain, Elara Nova is your source for expertise and guidance in space 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. 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.
Space Forces Are Now a Key Element of the Joint Fight
Comprehensive Strategy Identifies Critical Role of Space-Based Information for Future Joint Force Operations
The power of integrating space-based capabilities into Joint Force operations captivated the world during the first “space war,” the Gulf War of 1990-1991. Since then, space’s significance to military operations has only increased, accelerating through the post-9/11 era and culminating with the creation of the United States Space Force in 2019. Now, the Department of Defense’s (DOD) newest military service is solidifying its role in bringing space-based capabilities to the Joint Fight after being identified as the “Integrator” for Joint Space Requirements, as described in the 2023 Comprehensive Strategy for the Space Force.
But space is not new to national security; the role of space systems in defending the nation predates even the First Gulf War. As far back as the early days of the Cold War, satellites monitored adversary activity, warned of ballistic missile attacks and connected military forces with decision makers. But it wasn’t until Operation Desert Storm that the role of space in Joint Force operations shifted from a strategic and defensive capability to one that supports tactical forces in all types of military operations.
“In preparing for the Gulf War, we knew that forces were going to be operating in the desert without real navigation landmarks and needed help from this new system called GPS [Global Positioning System],” said General DT Thompson, recently retired Vice Chief of Space Operations for the U.S. Space Force and senior principal advisor at Elara Nova. “When U.S. forces and friendly nations in the region came under Scud missile attack, we adapted our strategic missile warning system to provide tactical warning against shorter range missiles. This was our first true understanding of what space could and should do for military operations.”
In the decades since, the DOD has been refining and reinforcing its ability to leverage space-based capabilities.
“That role of space in military operations came to be known as ‘Force Enhancement,’ providing threat awareness, global navigation and strike precision, and generally improving the agility and combat power of air, land and maritime forces,” General Thompson said.
Force Enhancement in the Modern Day
As a recent example, General Thompson points to an air campaign under Operation Odyssey Lightning as how space-based capabilities enhance Joint Force operations in the modern day.
“In January 2017, two B-2s flew from the U.S. to strike targets in Libya, of which more than 80 separate targets were identified and developed from space,” General Thompson said. “During the 40-hour plus mission, the B-2s received updates or changed targeting information in-flight for over half of those targets via satellite; they successfully rendezvoused with tankers 15 times based on navigation and timing provided by GPS and post-strike analysis conducted from space showed every single one of those targets was hit precisely, thanks to GPS-guided munitions. This is a quintessential example of how space enhances the combat power of the Joint Force.”
This real-time ability to provide new information and updated threat assessments further exhibits why the role of space is growing in military operations.
“The ability to collect information from space, then communicate it to decision makers and firing units in real-time has taken the role of space to the next level,” General Thompson said. “This has led the Department of Defense to develop a new concept for future warfighting.”
Space in the Joint Warfighting Concept
The need for a new warfighting concept comes at a time when technological advancements, particularly in space, accelerate alongside an escalating threat landscape from peer adversaries.
“Envision a scenario where the United States is fighting a peer adversary in the next decade,” General Thompson said. “We are talking about simultaneous, all-domain operations across tens of thousands of square kilometers with hundreds or thousands of threats and targets on the battlefield. A multitude of offensive and defensive fires will be in play to address all of the threats and targets simultaneously.”
The broad scope of an all-domain future fight will require massive amounts of accurate, reliable, up-to-date information to establish an information advantage for friendly forces.
“The fog of war will be thick,” General Thompson said. “Large numbers of friendly forces will be operating in the region and targets will maneuver and otherwise attempt to confuse our forces. The key to directing those fires is in finding the targets, identifying them as the right targets, de-conflicting fires so all aren’t firing at the same target and staying on the targets until their destruction is confirmed.”
Space Integration Vital to JADC2 Success
To do this effectively, the DOD is establishing a real-time network that closes kill chains faster through its Joint All Domain Command and Control (JADC2) initiative.
“All of the information will pass from, through and to space-based platforms to those in the air, on land, at and under the sea,” General Thompson said. “These other platforms are the tip of the spear, but they won’t be effective unless they are connected through space. I don’t think it’s an overstatement to say that if the U.S. Space Force does not deliver – JADC2 collapses. If JADC2 collapses, the entire Joint Warfighting Concept collapses.’”
The 2023 Comprehensive Strategy for the Space Force, submitted to Congress last year by Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall, describes the Space Force’s role in the new warfighting concept and how it intends to build forces and Guardians to fulfill that responsibility.
Among other things, the Strategy emphasizes the need for Space Force Components in each of the Combatant Commands.
“The strategy acknowledges that space is integral to how the U.S. Armed Forces fight,” said General Thompson, who was still in active service when the strategy was drafted and contributed to its development. “In order to leverage space to achieve mission objectives, Combatant Commanders must first understand what space-based capabilities are at their disposal and how to use them effectively. Therefore, the Space Force has to be integrated into their Commands.”
According to General Thompson, integrating the Space Force into Combatant Commands will be an opportunity to apply lessons learned from previous operational challenges.
“In the past, space forces weren’t well integrated within Combatant Command planning and operations. So when space officers showed up in crisis offering capabilities – ones that could have provided significant advantage – they were often not used because those capabilities were not well understood, highly-classified and therefore, not to be shared with Allies and coalition partners. The Space Force needs to have components in the Combatant Commands to be there every day planning, preparing, operating and building trust with the Command staff, other Service Components and international partners in the region.”
A New Approach to Space-Based Capabilities
Along with establishing Space Force Components in each Combatant Command, the Space Force has been assigned the role of Integrator of Joint Force Space Requirements in the Joint Requirements Oversight Council (JROC).
“This is a very unique designation,” said General Thompson. “It’s the Space Force’s job to advocate for space capabilities and resourcing across the entire Joint Force and Combatant Commands. This designation ensures space-related needs of the Joint Force have an educated and authoritative voice in the most important Pentagon processes.”
Of course, none of this has happened in a vacuum; others have been watching closely for decades.
“Potential adversaries understand how important space is to the American way of war and are aggressively preparing to deny us use of space,” General Thompson said. “They are developing and fielding weapons to take that capability away from us. The United States Space Force and the Department of Defense now need to protect and defend those capabilities, so they can effectively operate and survive under attack. We are faced with preparing for conflict in space.”
This also means the DOD must find a way to better articulate the need for, and use of, counter-space capabilities.
“There’s this reticence to talk about space superiority, offensive and defensive space control, as we do with other weapons,” General Thompson said. “While we speak vaguely about defending and protecting our space-based capabilities, we openly discuss nuclear weapons that sit on alert every day for deterrence, as well as the threats we face in cyberspace. It’s time for the nation to talk more openly and directly about what needs to be done to defend our space-based capabilities, and what we must do to deny use of space to others in conflict.”
Space to Hold a Seat at the Joint Fight Table
While much of this is new when it comes to the space domain, it won’t be the first time a new warfighting domain has been integrated into Joint Force operations and planning.
“The potential of air power became starkly evident in the Second World War,” General Thompson said. “Air power was vital in both a strategic and tactical sense. The Eight and Ninth Air Forces provided tremendous strategic and tactical effect in Europe; Naval Forces could not operate effectively in the Pacific without powerful carrier-based air arms. And while the United States Army had created the world’s greatest air forces during the war, it was evident the time had come for an Airman to sit at the table with Army and Maritime Force leaders as an independent voice; to integrate air power effectively into the Joint Fight.”
Now, in the same way the U.S. Army’s air forces were the foundation of the U.S. Air Force in the 20th century, so too, the U.S. Air Force’s space forces formed the foundation of the Space Force in the 21st century.
“Now that space is a critical warfighting domain,” General Thompson said. “It is important that a Guardian – someone who truly understands space power and how to integrate space forces into military operations – sits at the table with the rest of the Joint Chiefs, and has a voice in budgeting in the Department of Defense, and planning for the Joint Fight with Combatant Commands.”
DOD Embracing the Emerging Role of Space
With its Comprehensive Strategy as a guiding framework, the Space Force is taking ownership of its emerging role in the Joint Fight.
“If resourced and executed appropriately, the Comprehensive Strategy ensures we have the information advantage needed to enable the Joint Warfighting Concept and the forces that will provide space superiority – freedom of action in space when and where we need it – to win the nation’s wars,” General Thompson said.
In his new role as a senior principal advisor at Elara Nova, General Thompson emphasizes the organization’s broad range of military experts and national security leaders as an embodiment of what integrating space into the future Joint Fight would look like.
“Elara Nova has a powerful assembly of experts in space operations, acquisition, strategy, planning and training to understand how those capabilities can integrate in the Joint Force,” General Thompson said. “Although primarily space-focused, Elara Nova also has experts from other service domains: air, land, sea and cyberspace. Each understands the Joint Force, how it operates, plans, trains and executes, as well as the relevant emerging technologies and operating concepts. There is no other place where all of this expertise is at-hand and ready to support the utilization of space for the nation’s security.”
Elara Nova is a global consultancy and professional services firm focused on helping businesses and government agencies maximize the strategic advantages of the space domain. Learn more at https://elaranova.com/.
Episode 10: Space Force a Key ‘Integrator’ in the Joint Fight
The Elara Edge: Expert Insights on Space Security
Host: Scott King
Subject Matter Expert: Elara Nova Senior Principal Advisor, General “DT” Thompson
00:02 – 01:34
The influential power of space-based capabilities in Joint Force operations first captivated the world during the Gulf War of 1990-1991 – commonly recognized as the first “space war.” Since then, the significance of space to military operations has only accelerated through the post-9/11 era and led to the creation of the United States Space Force in 2019.
Now, in the recently released Comprehensive Strategy for the United States Space Force, the DOD’s newest military service outlines the role space-based capabilities serve in the Joint Fight.
Welcome to “The Elara Edge: Expert Insights on Space Security.” I’m your host – Scott King. Today’s episode is the first of three installments of a Special Edition Series marking the first anniversary of Elara Nova as an emerging leader in national security space.
Today’s guest is retired General DT Thompson – senior principal advisor at Elara Nova: The Space Consultancy. General Thompson previously served as the Vice Chief of Space Operations for the United States Space Force, where he was responsible for assisting the Chief of Space Operations in organizing, training and equipping space forces in the United States and overseas.
General Thompson, thank you for joining me today at The Elara Edge. I understand you were still serving as the Vice Chief of Space Operations when the Comprehensive Strategy for the Space Force was written – what does it say about the Space Force and its emerging role within the DOD and the Joint Fight?
01:35 – 02:32
The document itself really says three things. The first thing it says is, is this acknowledgment that space is integral to how the U.S. Armed Forces fight today and how we are going to fight in the future.
The second thing it says is potential adversaries understand how important space is to the American way of war and are aggressively preparing to deny us the use of space in conflict and that we have the responsibility to prevent them from doing that.
And then the third thing it says is adversaries are learning from us in a second way – and they’re developing space capabilities and space forces of their own to apply to their military operations. And we, the United States Space Force and the Department of Defense, are going to need to be prepared to deny their use of space in conflict.
Those are the three main things that the strategy says we will need to do. And then talks a little more detail about how we’ll do that.
02:33 – 02:43
Thank you, sir, for providing that additional context.
So can you share why it’s important for the Space Force to integrate with the rest of the Joint Force – particularly as it is still standing up as the newest military service?
02:44 – 04:25
It’s important to ensure that we’re integrated because the Joint Force is the way America’s Armed Forces fight. We fight as a Joint Force. The Combatant Commands to do the fighting.
The services prepare those forces and provide them to the Combatant Commanders to fight. And really a key to doing this is every service has to be there in every Combatant Command, every single day where they do planning, where they do training, where they do exercising, and where they do a whole host of activities to prepare and ultimately operate in the Joint Force.
You just can’t show up on day one of a war and say, ‘Hey, we’re here. We’ve got a lot of great capabilities. We’re here to help. Let’s go.’ That trust and confidence, and understanding that is developed over months, weeks, years of planning together, operating together, preparing together is what makes the Joint Force so effective.
In fact, there are examples in the past where when space forces and space capabilities weren’t deeply integrated with Combatant Commands, space officers showed up in conflicts with capabilities, capabilities that could have helped, that were highly classified and therefore, not shared.
And the response of Joint Force Commanders were, ‘Thanks. Where were you weeks, months, and years ago when we were preparing to do this? You can’t help me today.’ And so that’s why we need to be there every single day in planning, in preparation, in training and in exercising so that when we operate, especially when we are operating in conflict, we truly are an integral part of the Joint Force.
04:26 – 04:44
Sir, you mentioned something interesting there in that the highly classified nature of space-based capabilities can be somewhat of a limiting factor for Combatant Commands. So what makes it so difficult to be a little bit more transparent about our needs and capabilities in the space domain? Is there a parallel between talking about space and say, our nuclear posture?
04:45 – 06:23
No, actually there isn’t and that’s what I would advocate for.
Now, we’ll talk about the ability to collect intelligence, to do surveillance and reconnaissance from space, the ability to communicate, to provide indications and warning, to do positioning, navigation and timing what we would call GPS. We talk about those all pretty openly. There’s this reticence to talk about space superiority, offensive and defensive space control.
In the case of nuclear weapons, we talk about the forces we have. We talk about the need for deterrence. We talk about the fact that while nuclear weapons sit on alert and are used for deterrence every single day, the reason they are is so that we never use them in a more direct sense, the way they’ve been used only twice in the past.
That’s why they exist today. We talk about tremendous capabilities, the threats we face in cyberspace. We talk about threats that we face in the air. When we get to the point of talking about capabilities, sensitive capabilities, now what they can do and can’t do, and what their vulnerabilities might be. That’s when you move into the classified area and those discussions are limited.
But what we need to be able to do is talk about strategy, operating concepts, the sorts of things we might do or might not do in a more specific, but also general sense without talking necessarily about specifics of what capabilities might be out there. And that’s where I think we do ourselves a disservice, is we won’t have those conversations. Even though our adversaries are fielding offensive weapons and we need to talk about how to protect ourselves in that regard.
06:24 – 06:32
And, sir, from your perspective – what has been the historical role of space across military operations? How has that role evolved over time?
06:33 – 09:13
Yeah. So the historical role of space in military operations is one that we used to call ‘Force Enhancement,’ which really means enhancing the combat power of air, land and maritime forces, ensuring that those forces could navigate the globe with confidence, that they could strike with precision and agility, that they understood the environmental conditions that they would be operating in, and that they had the information that they needed in order to conduct those operations.
You know, the early decades of the space age – space and the use of space was really a strategic asset. Intelligence collected from space was shared primarily with our national leaders and strategic leaders. Communications were done for strategic purposes between national leaders with nuclear forces. We used, for example, our missile warning capabilities to protect the United States from nuclear attack. In the early days, the capabilities were usually used for national and strategic purposes.
The turning point for that primarily, although there are intervening steps over the years. The big change started with the first Gulf War in 1990-1991, and it was really driven by Iraq’s Scud attack on military forces, which really drove space forces to, in real-time, adapt the missile warning enterprise from a strategic national capability to support our Joint Forces. And as we increased communications with forces on the battlefield and as we understood that maneuver forces were going to be operating in the desert without real navigation landmarks, and they needed things like GPS.
We accelerated GPS launches. We call it the first Space War, but it was really our first understanding of what space can and should do for our Armed Forces. That really started a progression that accelerated after 9/11 as we operated in austere environments, collected information from space and increasingly pushed that information, and that connectivity further and further and further down to the tactical level so that it went from large Commands, then it went down to maneuver units, to the point where it actually got down now to the individual Soldier, Sailor, Airman and Marine as they were operating.
And so it has really been that recognition came in 1991, but has really been now over the 20-plus years of operating against violent extremists that we’ve really enhanced the ability to provide information and space capabilities all the way down to the individual member of the Armed Forces.
09:14 – 09:17
Can you give us a modern-day example of what “Force Enhancement” looks like?
09:18 – 11:26
I can give you what I would call the quintessential example of force enhancement in space is exemplified in the January 2017 mission of B-2 bombers that struck targets in Libya as part of our ongoing operations against violent extremists. Those two B-2s took off from Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri, and they flew for over 40 hours to Libya and back. They had targeted as part of their mission planning 108 separate targets. All of those targets were developed by information collected from space.
Throughout that 40-hour mission. They met up and joined with tankers 15 different times for air refueling. In addition to the targets that were developed by intel, in the process of flying that 40-hour mission, over half of those targets were either updated or changed in-flight by passing new targeting information to those aircraft in the course of the mission and then to the best that we could measure in all of the post-strike analysis was done from space.
Every single one of those 108 targets were hit precisely because of the navigation and targeting aids provided from space. And so that is what I would call the quintessential example of how space enhances the combat power of the Joint Force. What has changed is some of that was done in real-time, but increasingly now, collecting information from space, identifying targets in space, updating targeting information in space, connecting sensors and decision-makers and weapons in real-time in space has really taken that role to the next level.
And because adversaries recognize and understand that – they are now developing and fielding weapons to take that capability away from us. So now we’ve added the need to protect and defend those capabilities, so that they operate and survive effectively under attack and that’s kind of how the role of military space has evolved over the decades.
11:27 – 11:35
The Space Force has also been designated as the Integrator for DOD Joint Space Requirements. What makes this “Integrator” label so significant for the Space Force?
11:36 – 13:22
This is a very unique designation.
And it really is. It’s the Space Force’s job to reach out to the entire Joint Force, to every other service, to all of the Combatant Commands, and to collect and to organize and to prioritize and coordinate among them and bring back to the Joint Requirements Oversight Council for approval – what we believe are the most important capabilities that the Joint Force needs.
Then it’s our job to advocate for those capabilities, in some cases to resource those capabilities inside the Space Force. It drives our budget to be able to advocate for that budget in other places where it needs to be. And the Space Force is the right organization to do that, because we among all of the services, the Combatant Commands best understand the capabilities that can be provided in space. And we can assist the other services and the Combatant Commands in how to most effectively integrate them.
We can also be held accountable. In fact, I saw that many times as a Vice Service Chief, the Joint Requirements Oversight Council has all of the service Vice Chiefs sitting around the table. And those Vice Service Chiefs have the ability to poke me in the chest and say, ‘Thompson, you and the Space Force, need to get off your rear end and start delivering the following to us, or of all of the capabilities that you want to provide here is the capability the United States Army or the United States Navy, or the United States Air Force needs most importantly.’
And so the fact that we’re now an integral part of the Joint Force makes us, first of all, the right one to do it. And I think it’s a unique task that nobody else has that is important to ensuring the capabilities that are there and integrated effectively.
13:23 – 13:41
Thank you, sir. And the Comprehensive Strategy document also identifies information as a “Joint Function,” that ensures combat readiness. Can you expand upon this idea of information that ensures forces are “combat ready” and tie that to the emerging role of the Space Force as an Integrator in the Joint Fight?
13:42 – 15:51
Let’s go up one level above information and let’s talk a little bit more about the Joint Warfighting Concept itself. No longer are Joint Forces going to be fighting along the lines of domain, a Joint Force air component commander, land component commander, maritime component commander, space component commander.
While those commanders still exist, they’re going to be much more deeply integrated. So imagine or envision, if you would, a scenario where the United States in the next decade is fighting a peer or near-peer adversary. We’re talking about simultaneous operations across tens of thousands of square kilometers. We’re talking about hundreds to thousands of targets and hundreds to thousands of threats and all of this unfolding in real-time.
And so, in order to address the way we are going to have to fight in the future, all of that is going to have to – first of all, you’re going to have to have fires that address all of the threats and targets at the same time.
The second is, you’re going to have to have a means to be able to understand what the threats and the targets are, which is done through information advantage.
The third thing is you’re going to have to have a means to pass information, diffuse information, and to make decisions which is – which we term Joint All-Domain Command and Control. And then the third is you’re going to have to ensure that those forces remain supplied, even under attack.
And so this concept that says this large, large, integrated fighting force that has to find, fix, target, track, strike, assess and follow-up, as well as defend itself over a huge, huge battle space, needs all of those four things in order to operate effectively.
One of those keys to directing the fires, to ensuring that those fires have a target, they know it’s the right target. And that target that may, for example, move or maneuver over the flight of a weapon. You have got to have information and that information has got to be connected in order to be able to execute that Joint Warfighting Concept effectively.
15:52 – 16:07
The strategy states that the Space Force’s unique capabilities will be crucial features to enabling the Joint All Domain Command and Control (or JADC2) initiative.
What are these unique capabilities of the Space Force that make it crucial to JADC2 success?
16:08 – 17:34
Go back to that scenario I asked us to envision earlier, of this high-end conflict – a peer or near-peer conflict across tens of thousands of square miles, hundreds to thousands of targets, hundreds of thousands of threats, inbound and outbound weapons. Sensing those targets and threats, understanding them, fusing information to understand what they are, where they are, what opportunities they present as targets, what threats they present as adversary weapons systems, passing information to those both the human beings, but also the machines that are going to have to decide to actually act on all of that information, including in-flight updates to weapons in-flight, on their way to the target, and then assess the effectiveness of our defenses, our offense, our strikes, and to decide what we’re going to have to do again, all of that will occur through space.
Absolutely. Platforms in the air, platforms on land, platforms at sea, under the sea. They will be the action arm. They are at the point of the spear, but none of that works if it’s not sensed from space, connected through space and follow-up action through space. And so I don’t think it’s an overstatement to say if in fact the U.S. Space Force does not deliver on the capability that it needs to provide – JADC2 collapses. And if JADC2 collapses, the entire Joint Warfighting Concept collapses.
17:35 – 17:43
And then with that in mind, how will this Comprehensive Strategy bridge that gap to realize that future Joint Warfighting Concept that you described earlier?
17:44 – 19:03
If we execute it faithfully and we leverage the sensing and the connectivity available in the commercial market, we fill in with the types of sensing and connectivity that the commercial market will not provide.
We tie it all together effectively. We defend and protect it. Then it will give us the information advantage that we need. There’s a lot of work to do in AI in that regard as well, to be able to sense much more quickly and identify. There’s more work to do in the machine-to-machine connectivity. But if in fact we execute that vision faithfully and which often means not just execute it but start by resourcing it appropriately, it will provide the information advantage, it will enable Joint All-Domain Command and Control, it will make the joint fires more effective because it will ensure they are more likely to have the desired effect on targets and that we won’t waste rounds firing at things that are no longer where we thought they were when the weapons launch and things like that.
So if it’s executed faithfully and well, it will in fact, deliver on the Joint Warfighting Concept that has been envisioned and published and put out by the Joint Chiefs that says this is the way we intend to fight within the next decade.
19:04 – 19:23
And sir, there is one more parallel here I’d like to ask you about. And that is if you can draw a parallel between the ways that the air domain and the U.S. Army’s Air Forces first unlocked capabilities across the land and sea domains, to the ways that the space domain is now unlocking capabilities across other service domains in the modern day?
19:24 – 21:43
While air power began to evolve and develop in the First World War more than 100 years ago, the power and potential of air power was really evident in the Second World War, from 1941 to 1945. In fact, it became such that naval forces would not operate, especially in the Pacific, without air support, air cover and the air arm. Primarily in Europe, in the Mediterranean, the other major theaters of the war.
Air power was vital in a strategic sense. The Eighth Air Force and its bomber offensive over the continent of Europe, as well as the Ninth Air Force and its tactical integration with land forces. It became clear and evident the importance of air power in that role at that time. I will also say it was the United States Army at that time that created the world’s greatest air forces.
The United States Army – The Army Air Forces – created the Eighth Air Force and the Ninth Air Force and the 20th Air Force that operated in the Pacific, and certainly naval aviation came into its own. But it was the United States Army that created the world’s greatest air forces at the time. What became evident after the war was – it was now time for an Airman to sit at the table with the other leaders of the forces to be able to integrate air power effectively with Army forces and Maritime forces.
The same thing has happened here, I would argue, with the Space Force and space forces. Other services were involved, but it was primarily the United States Air Force that created the world’s greatest space forces over the last five or six decades. But now is the time because space is so critical, because it is now a warfighting domain as well.
After the United States Air Force created the world’s greatest space forces, it was time for a Guardian, someone who truly understood space capability, space power and how to integrate it as part of military operations to sit at the table with the rest of the Joint Chiefs, to have a voice in budgeting in the Department of Defense, in planning, and in the Combatant Commands.
That time had come and now the Guardians sit at the table in planning, execution, resource allocation, etc. to ensure that space is effectively integrated into military operations.
21:44 – 22:12
Thank you, sir, and if I may – your experience seems to demonstrate the unique position and qualifications of Elara Nova: The Space Consultancy. Today, we’ve been discussing the Comprehensive Strategy which you have actively contributed to while you were still in the service.
Can you take this idea a step further and explain how this type of strategic thinking experience – particularly from the Joint Fight perspective – embodies the broader opportunity the Elara Nova network has in realizing our nation’s national security objectives?
22:13 – 24:01
Yeah, so Elara Nova is uniquely positioned in a whole host of ways.
First, it has a unique and powerful assembly of space experts, experts in space operations, experts in space acquisition, experts in strategy, and in planning and in training to understand how those capabilities can integrate into the Joint Force.
The second is Elara Nova doesn’t limit itself to experts in the space domain, although it’s primarily space-focused. It has the experts from other services, it has experts from other domains, the air domain, land, sea, cyberspace.
Those experts are part of Elara Nova, and all of those experts also understand the Joint Force, how the Joint Force operates, how it plans, how it trains, how it executes, as well as the understanding of current and emerging technologies and operating concepts.
The nature of space and the capabilities it can and should provide is rapidly evolving and not just because of that – because in other technology areas how the whole concept of warfighting, especially high-end conflict is evolving, not just me, but many of these experts have been there and part of that journey.
They’ve been members of the Space Force, they’ve been members of the Air Force, they’ve been on the Joint Staff. As we’ve all looked at how in fact, it’s going to change the way that we have to operate as a Joint Force. They have all seen the need for that, from that perspective. And I think all have a sense of urgency that we cannot wait. So I would challenge anybody to find any other place where all of these sets of expertise are at-hand and ready to support both the nation’s security and utilization of space to that end.
24:02 – 24:57
This has been the first installment of a Special Edition Series of “The Elara Edge: Expert Insights on Space Security,” featuring guest appearances from Elara Nova’s senior principal advisors. This series comes as the space industry’s emerging and leading consultancy, celebrates its first anniversary of elevating military and industry partnerships to meet national security space imperatives.
As a global consultancy and professional services firm focused on helping businesses and government agencies maximize the strategic advantages of the space domain, Elara Nova is your source for expertise and guidance in space 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. 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.