Securing Space: A Plan for U.S. Action

The Council on Foreign Relations Space Task Force, co-chaired by Elara Nova partner Lt Gen (Ret) Nina Armagno, published a new report: “Securing Space: A Plan for U.S. Action.”

The report outlines a series of findings and recommendations for the United States to immediately address the strategic challenges and existential threats found in today’s space environment.

Resourcing Strong and Capable Space Force Begins with Budget Reform

The United States Space Force requested $29.4 billion for Fiscal Year 2025 (FY25), a two percent drop from the previous year. The final budget, however, has yet to be passed as the federal government is operating under a continuing resolution that expires in mid-March. While the Space Force was founded in response to the actions of near-peer competitors in space that threatened the United States’ national and economic security, declines in funding for the Space Force, compounded by the inherent restrictions of continuing resolutions and the financial burdens of legacy defense programs, are compromising the Space Force’s ability to effectively resource against the space-based threat. 

“A continuing resolution means we don’t have a budget for this fiscal year, and so we have to comply with last year’s budget limits and existing programs,” said General (Ret) John E. Hyten, Senior Principal Advisor at Elara Nova: The Space Consultancy. “This means no new start programs can begin and any other programs that require a budget increase to deliver a needed capability can’t be executed. Therefore, several space programs are consistently delayed and this inefficiency wastes billions of taxpayer dollars.” 

The Space Force has been in existence for a little over five years, or about 60 months. For roughly half that time, the Space Force has been operating under a continuing resolution. This can provide significant barriers for a new military service seeking to adopt rapidly evolving technologies. 

An Underfunded Space Force 

But even if a budget for FY25 was passed by now, the traditional approach to developing the Department of Defense (DOD) budget means the Space Force would still only receive a marginal amount of funding it needs. 

“Traditionally, the DOD budget is typically carved out in thirds,” said Lieutenant General (Ret) Nina Armagno, executive director of international partnerships at Elara Nova: The Space Consultancy. “One third goes to the Department of the Army, another to the Department of the Navy and the Marine Corps, and a final third to the Department of the Air Force, which includes funding for the Space Force and the intelligence community. But this approach means the Space Force only garners about three percent of the overall DoD budget – that’s harmful to our national security.” 

Space capabilities underpin joint force and military operations in other domains, and recent adversarial actions demonstrate they are developing their own space capabilities to threaten the United States’ national and economic security. That’s why, in a recent Opinion Editorial co-written by Gen Hyten and Gen Armagno published by SpaceNews, they argued it’s time for the DOD budget to refocus away from outdated legacy programs to reflect the modern, space-based threat. 

“The defense budget should be all about responding to the threats right now, and the most significant threat is China building strategic air and space capabilities to challenge the United States in the Pacific,” Gen Hyten said. “The second is Russia, which is probably even more concerning in the near-term. Russia has realized the American way of war depends on space capabilities and that’s why President Vladimir Putin has threatened to deploy and perhaps employ a nuclear weapon in low-Earth orbit.” 

A Changing Threat Landscape in Space 

Russia’s threat to deploy a nuclear weapon in space comes in response to the United States’ shift toward proliferated architectures in the domain.  

“Russia spent an enormous amount of treasure and time building a direct ascent anti-satellite [ASAT] capability that would take out one satellite,” Gen Hyten said. “But then in the early stages of the Ukranian conflict, a commercial company with a proliferated satellite architecture essentially rendered the ASAT capability useless. Now, Putin has to threaten that capability with a nuclear weapon because he’s got nothing else in the inventory, so we need to pay attention to what our adversaries are doing to fill any voids.” 

Therefore, as the nature of warfare and the threat landscape has changed, so too should the budgeting process. 

“The first thing an adversary will do is take out the ‘eyes and ears’ of the United States in space,” Gen Hyten said. “This will be followed by cyber influence and chemical or biological warfare that will insert doubt into the American population about our military’s ability to achieve its objectives. Then an adversary will challenge the United States with military force because now the doubt is across the American people. That’s how conflict could start and defending ourselves against those threats should be the highest priorities reflected in the budget.” 

Defense Spending Declines Undercut Strategy 

Further exacerbating this shortfall in necessary funding, however, is the broader decline in recent defense spending by the United States Congress. In 2022, U.S. defense spending came in at just over 3.4% of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and the Congressional Budget Office forecasts this decrease will continue toward 2.5% GDP by 2034. For context, these percentages are lower than the running 4.2% average for total defense spending in the United States over the past half-century.  

“The FY25 budget request being essentially flat was a huge failure, and even Former Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall said the Space Force budget should probably double,” Gen Armagno said. “Every indication is that the Space Force budget needs to grow, because the Space Force is acquiring new capabilities and new technologies for new missions. Any delay to those Space Force programs is significant, particularly for its support to the entire joint force.” 

The budget process begins with developing a strategy based on the threat, but when there is not enough funding to acquire the capabilities needed to fulfill the strategy’s broader goals, difficult decisions must be made on prioritizing certain programs or capabilities. This results in program cuts that can compromise the joint force. 

“We learned in the early days of standing up the Space Force that there were tough choices for funding the new service,” Gen Armagno said. “For example, we prioritized Space Domain Awareness under a strategy called ‘Pivot to SDA.’ But we soon realized that there were competing space priorities and requirements from the other military services and Congress, against limited available funding. Without the appropriate funding, our budgets for ground-based radars and optical telescopes necessary for SDA got cut.” 

DOD, Congress Can Overcome Budget Challenges 

However, solutions exist for Congress and the DOD to effectively adapt its budget and force structure so that the United States can secure its national and economic security interests in space. 

“Congress writes the law that the president signs into action, but any law can be changed,” Gen Hyten said. “People think the acquisition program is inflexible. But the Federal Acquisition Regulations are the compilation of all the laws that have passed over the decades, and Congress can change the law for the benefit of the country. If the DOD educates Congress on what they’re trying to accomplish, Congress will do their utmost best to include those imperatives in the budget.” 

Gen Armagno points to two recent examples that reflect how the DOD and Congress previously worked together to overcome budget challenges to acquire necessary space capabilities: the Space Force’s Silent Barker program and former Secretary Kendall’s request for “Quick Start” approval for Resilient-GPS under a continuing resolution.  

“When I worked space programs in the Air Force, we successfully communicated with Congress and their staffers regarding a space-based situational awareness program called ‘Silent Barker,’ so Congress understood its priority and the acquisition strategy before the program was even announced,” Gen Armagno said. “Then another example is former Secretary Kendall working with Congress to get an exception to the ‘no new start’ rule under a continuing resolution for Resilient-GPS in the FY24 budget. It was a great idea, and more of that work needs to happen in working with the Hill, because laws can be changed.” 

Iron Dome Highlights Need to Fund Space Imperatives 

Now, a recently issued executive order from the Trump administration, “The Iron Dome for America,” will also require significant investment in space-based capabilities that must be incorporated into the Space Force budget. This new effort only strengthens the imperative for adapting the DOD’s budget and force structure according to the modern threat environment.  

“You can’t shoot anything you can’t see, so the first priority will be to build an integrated terrestrial and space-based surveillance system to see and characterize all the ballistic and hypersonic cruise missiles that threaten America,” Gen Hyten said. “Then you have to build a capability to attack multiple targets with ground-based, naval-based and air-based systems to neutralize those incoming threats, so you don’t have to respond in kind with nuclear weapons.”  

General Hyten points to further solutions already proposed in the Congressional Commission on the Strategic Posture of the United States in 2023. 

“The Missile Defense Agency needs to divest itself of all production and sustainment programs to the appropriate Military Departments. This means the Missile Defense Agency can just focus on the research and development for the long-term missile defense capabilities of the future. This can be done in the FY26 budget, but not if a majority of the MDA is focused on production sustainment and not on innovative moves toward the future.” 

Balancing the national security needs against the threat, so that they’re reflected in the budget, represents the complex problems Elara Nova and its partners are prepared to provide solutions for.  

“The budget must reflect the threat that’s out there today, and we need Space Force Guardians that understand the entire space enterprise,” Gen Hyten said.  “Elara Nova partners fill a critical void in providing that experience, expertise and analytic capability to developing the enterprise approach necessary for establishing the United States’ national and economic security in space.” 

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 22: Department of Defense Budget Must Realign to Space-Based Threats

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.

Combined Space Operations Initiative (CSpO) Spotlights Relevance of Classification in Joint Fight Operations 

When Deputy Secretary of Defense Kathleen Hicks signed a memo to initiate changes in the Department of Defense’s (DOD) classification policy for space programs, the move marked a tangible moment in the push to adapt traditional classification policies for a modern space era. Historically, high classification thresholds for space-based capabilities were designed to protect Cold War-era secrets. But as the DOD has sought to extend Allied partnerships into the space domain through programs like the Combined Space Operations Initative (CSpO), classified designations such as Special Access Programs (SAP) and No Foreign Dissemination (NOFORN) can – at times – compromise their effectiveness.  

“Over-classification in space goes back to the roots of why we were doing military space in the first place: the Cold War,” said Lt Gen (Ret.) John Shaw, former Deputy Commander of United States Space Command and partner at Elara Nova: The Space Consultancy. “Our space capabilities were closely guarded because they were strategic, cutting-edge technologies that were closely aligned with our nuclear capabilities. But now, we need to integrate those space capabilities into other warfighting domains, functions and forces.” 

The push for a modernized approach to space program classification comes as the domain has evolved through what General Shaw describes as the three ‘Space Ages.’ The First Space Age aligns directly with the Cold War era, when the space sector was largely driven by U.S. national security concerns and required restrictive classification policies.  

Then after the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, the Second Space Age emerged as a benign space environment that enabled space-based capabilities like G.P.S. navigation and satellite communications to mature through civilian and commercial programs. But as General Shaw wrote in a recent Wall Street Journal opinion editorial, space is no longer benign. 

“Around 2015, we transitioned into the Third Space Age as space became a warfighting domain,” Gen Shaw said. “The great miracle of the Second and Third Space Ages is that we are now so reliant on space that we need to integrate it with our joint warfighting and Allied forces. We now have an adversary going after our space-based capabilities, and that magnifies the urgency for Allied integration more than ever.” 

Adapting Classification Policy to the Modern Era

In order to effectively coordinate military operations across Allied forces, however, the DOD needs to be able to communicate with its international partners.  

“The United States can’t go it alone in the space domain,” said Lt Gen (Ret.) Nina Armagno, former Director of Staff for the United States Space Force and partner at Elara Nova. “We have to be able to share our capabilities with Allies to fight in an integrated manner, so we can keep up with Chinese and Russian space-based weapon systems. But that means our Allies need to understand these space systems as well, and that is the most compelling reason for updating classification policies.” 

According to General Armagno, classification designations are often assigned early in the acquisition process. But once a capability is designated with an SAP, NOFORN or other top-secret classification, that label often persists even as the technology matures into a fully-fledged weapons system or program of record. 

So while the memo re-writing the classification policy remains classified itself, the changes are expected to enable the DOD to intentionally and strategically reveal certain secrets that can be leveraged as an advantage – similar to weapon systems and military programs in other domains.  

“Some technologies should be highly-classified, but there are times when we want to deter our adversaries by letting them know we’ve developed a system,” Gen Armagno said. “The B-21 is an example where the technologies that make it special are highly-classified, but the fact a B-21 exists is unclassified. So sometimes we want to reveal certain capabilities, but the space community has struggled to strike this balance for a while.”  

While General Armagno has not seen the final structure of the classification framework, she was directly involved in developing the new policy in its early stages.  

“The framework was designed to break down systems, capabilities and technologies into categories of classification, including SAPs that we can intentionally share with Allies at a classified level,” Gen Armagno said. “Intentionally declassifying systems in order for our Allies to participate is important, but what’s equally important is bringing Allies directly into the fold and clearing them for higher classifications. This way, we can both protect the information and technologies that we think are worthy of protecting, but still share capabilities with our most trusted Allies.” 

Extending Allied Partnerships into Space

The modernized policy is expected to strengthen initiatives the United States has already undertaken to extend Allied partnerships into the space domain. In 2014, the DOD introduced the “Combined Space Operations Initiative,” an international forum designed to normalize the responsible use of space and ensure space sustainability as technologies advance in the military’s latest warfighting domain.  

Known as “CSpO,” the initiative has had early success as it has since released its Combined Space Operations Vision 2031 document and added more nations to its growing list of participants. The move to re-structure the classification policy, therefore, is seen as one that will capitalize on the momentum initiatives like CSpO have been building.  

“CSpO was a mechanism to bring Allied leaders together for a discussion about policy,” Gen Shaw said. “You can think of CSpO as a lobby to a large hotel. It marks the beginning of discussions with Allies. It is getting Allies in the door, having the discussion and proceeding to normalized operational orders, relationships, command and control and even integrated architectures.” 

Space-based architectures, much like the Space Development Agency’s (SDA) Proliferated Warfighter Space Architecture, are widely viewed as an increasingly critical component to modern-day military operations across all warfighting domains. At the international level, NATO recently announced a Space Branch in support of their own space-based efforts, like a remote-sensing constellation for intelligence, surveillance and reconniassaince (ISR).  

“The national security space architecture is going to be augmented with Allied capabilities, but not every country has to bring a satellite to a space communications architecture,” Gen Armagno said. “In space, you don’t have to follow the traditional example of an Allied partnership where a country contributes its own sovereign capability. For example, a NATO country could buy or contribute funds to purchasing a commercial space communications service. Ultimately, Allies are going to have to decide what they want to bring to the table so that we can operate together.” 

Considering that not every nation or Allied partner may be capable of providing their own assets to a space architecture, initiatives like CSpO are designed to directly facilitate innovative and collaborative solutions for Allied partners to leverage in response to space-based threats from Russia and China.  

Classification Policy and Commercial Space Partnerships

But as the global space economy emerges and nations cultivate their own space industries, so will an opportunity to collaborate with new commercial space partners.  

“It’s inevitable that we’re going to see growth of commercial space-oriented organizations in other Allied countries, as well,” Gen Shaw said. “In the same way that there are many aircraft-producing companies in other nations, there’s going to be an emergence of commercial space companies in other nations. We just haven’t gotten there as a global space economy yet, but we will.” 

Therefore, effective communication with commercial space partners will also be contingent on a modernized classification policy. 

“This new approach opens the door for commercial capabilities providing a space-based service,” Gen Armagno said. “Commercial companies are developing cutting-edge technologies outside of bureaucratic restraints, but the Pentagon must evaluate the risk-reward analysis of our classification policy in order to integrate those capabilities appropriately. The Pentagon has to consider the balance between protecting 20 year-old secrets or embracing the risk to bring on the highest-performing technology in the world, so our Joint Force can reap the benefits.” 

For maintaining the current classification policy, may in fact be counterintuitive to facilitating Joint Force success. 

“There are a lot of commercial companies producing cutting-edge space capabilities that may be more advanced than the more traditional ones that we’ve developed,” Gen Shaw said. “So we could make a mistake by classifying capabilities that the commercial industry might already be using. There’s going to be some cognitive dissonance there that may compromise our ability to integrate as effectively as we could.” 

Classification Policy Critical to Allied Success

The need to communicate effectively with Allied and commercial partners will only grow more critical as the DOD moves forward into the Third Space Age. 

“The right time was probably ten or 20 years ago,” Gen Shaw said. “But the urgency is greater now than ever before because the Joint Forces and the Allied Forces’ reliance on space is greater today than it was yesterday, and it will be greater tomorrow than it is today. So if we’re going to account for that in multi-domain joint warfighting, we have to be able to communicate and understand what’s possible to synchronize the interdependencies of all of our capabilities.” 

Elara Nova, too, recognizes the strategic relevance of classification policy and how it relates to Allied and commercial partnerships in the space domain. As such, the consulting firm is developing its own international portfolio to support these efforts through a variety of means.  

“Elara Nova was born for navigating these challenges,” Gen Armagno said. “The founders and partners at Elara Nova are the mentors and figures who stood up the Space Force. They’re trusted because they’re in it for the right reasons. They can conduct studies and assessments, write strategies and bring capabilities to bear for partner nations, while finding success in doing so.” 

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 15: Classification Policy Changes to Strengthen Allied Partnerships in Space 

Host: Scott King 

SME: Lt Gen (Ret) Nina Armagno, partner at Elara Nova (NA); Lt Gen (Ret) John Shaw, partner at Elara Nova (JS)

00:02 – 01:45
When Deputy Secretary of Defense Kathleen Hicks signed a memo rewriting the Department of Defense classification policy for space programs, the move marked a turning point years in the making. Traditionally, space programs have been reserved at high classification levels, in large part to protect Cold War-era secrets. Then in the decades since the Soviet Union’s collapse, a benign space environment enabled civil, commercial, and military space capabilities to not only mature, but populate the orbits.   

But space is no longer a benign environment. Adversaries like China and Russia recognize the role space-based capabilities serve in Joint Force operations, and have developed their own military space assets to threaten the United States and its Allies. And in the absence of an international governing body for the space domain, the U.S. launched the Combined Space Operations Initiative – or (CSpO) – a multinational effort to preserve the responsible use of space, while deterring military conflict. 

But until now, traditional classification policies have prevented the DOD from sharing much of its space-based capabilities and information – with Allies and partners.   

Welcome to “The Elara Edge: Expert Insights on Space Security.” I’m your host – Scott King. And we have two guests joining us today, to break down what this memo means, and how the DOD aims to strike a delicate balance between modernizing its classification policies, without revealing too much of its space-based secrets.  

Lieutenant General John Shaw is a partner at Elara Nova: The Space Consultancy, and recently retired as the Deputy Commander of U.S. Space Command.  

General Shaw, welcome to the show! 

01:45 – 01:46
(JS): Good to be here, Scott.  

01:46 – 01:58
Good to have you here, Sir.  

And also joining us is retired Lieutenant General Nina Armagno, who recently served as the Director of Staff for the United States Space Force.   

Thank you, Ma’am, for taking the time to join us today.  

01:58 – 02:03
(NA): Thanks, Scott. And, I am really happy to be here as well.  

02:04 – 02:15
Great. Well, we have a pretty robust discussion ahead of us here today.  

But before we begin, can each of you explain the DOD’s historical approach to classification policies for space? And how that leads us to where we are today? 

02:16 – 03:19
(JS): A good place to start on understanding why we are struggling with what some would call over-classification in space today goes back to the roots of why we were doing military space in the first place. And it was during the Cold War and during the Cold War, or what I call the first Space Age. Our space capabilities were strategic in nature, and they were very closely aligned with our nuclear capabilities. 

One example is the National Reconnaissance Office and its satellites that gave us ability to see what the Soviet Union was doing and assess its military capability and strategic capability. And they were closely guarded at the time because they were cutting edge technology. In the journey we have taken since the end of the Cold War till now – that’s really the great miracle of the Second and Third Space Age, is that we now are so reliant on space everywhere in Joint Warfighting and our human society. 

And so how do you reconcile those two kinds of dynamics, right? The beginnings in the strategic arena where we were closely guarded secrets, and now the need to integrate with our Joint Warfighting Forces at every possible level.

03:20 – 04:59
(NA): Speaking of beginnings, I spent some time in the Pentagon, and I guess that’s an understatement. But I got to see the acquisition process, basically from its very beginnings with research and development and the technologies that are produced. They are very closely held secrets. So, you know, think about coming up with just the latest tech. So that gets classified, that gets developed into a concept. The concept gets developed into an acquisition program. That program stays classified at that level. The program becomes a system and the classification never changes. So, sometimes it’s not deliberate. Sometimes it’s very deliberate. The technologies should be highly classified.   

But there are some times when we do want our adversaries to know that we have developed a system because we want to deter them. And so we want to show them or reveal, not keep everything concealed, but reveal some capabilities. I can think of the B-21 as an example. The technologies that make the B-21 special are very highly-classified. But the fact of a B-21 is unclassified and there are pictures of the B-21. And so the space community has been struggling with this for awhile.   

There’s a culture that persists around classification and that might be the toughest nut to crack as DOD goes down this path of what to maintain as highly classified and what to intentionally declassify or reveal. 

05:00 – 05:10
So given this culture that’s persisted over time – how does the DOD and the Space Force go about striking this balance in deciding what to classify or unclassify? 

05:10 – 06:02
(JS): Yeah. Hey, Scott, let me say Nina’s absolutely right. When she talks about in order to have deterrence, your adversary has to know that you have something. And so even when the National Reconnaissance Office was a very closely guarded secret during the Cold War. The Soviets could see those satellites. In fact, it drove them nuts. To this day, I think Russia still hates those low-Earth orbit spy satellites because we see a lot of mischief going on and that was good. That was good because they knew that we were watching them and that it would be hard for them to surprise us. It would be hard for them to build up without us noticing it. And it would be harder for them to cheat on any kind of arms agreement. Not impossible, but much harder because we’re watching.  

So really the question becomes about ‘How much of your capability do you reveal and then what do you conceal in terms of your operational art?’ And it becomes a good discussion from there. 

06:03 – 06:35
(NA): Right. And it has to be considered and it has to be thought all the way through because if it’s just applied in a loose manner, we could actually stand to unintentionally reveal or unintentionally give away some technologies that we do want to protect as long as possible. We can go back to that NRO example that John Shaw just had. The Soviets probably didn’t know exactly what these systems were and so they were technologies that were protected hiding in plain sight.  

06:36 – 07:41
(JS): Yeah. And you almost want a little, some uncertainty because they have to assume the worst. Hey, Scott, back to your question though about what’s that balance between classification or not. How did we do it in other domains? And Nina alluded to some of that, right? 

You want our strategic adversaries to know we have a B-21. But there’s a lot of things around that B-21 in terms of the tactics, its performance envelope, and such that you aren’t going to want to reveal in order to preserve its capability best you can and be the strongest possible deterrent that it can be.  

Any weapons platform that our Department of Defense or our Allies put into the field is going to have some level of secrecy behind it to preserve the operational art and or the possible surprise that it could have in an engagement.   

So I would just look to that as a model. That’s normalization of what we will do in space. A lot of things are going to be known that we have capabilities and we’re going to want that for deterrence purposes, for planning and campaign execution purposes, both within the Department and with our Allies. But there are always going to be some things that you’re going to keep close.

07:42 – 08:19
(NA): And John, let me just take it just a tiny bit step further, because I think what you’re also suggesting is that no matter what our strategy becomes for the space community and the space domain, it really needs to be looked at holistically.

It needs to be looked at across domains as well. Not just not just copy what other domains are doing or kind of use their same logic, but actually – we have an integrated and strategic conceal/reveal, classify/declassify type of strategy. I think we all just always have to remember space doesn’t exist on its own or for its own, but as part of the Joint Fight.

08:20 – 08:31
Now, each of you just spoke to how the DOD can leverage what it reveals for deterrence.    

But what challenges does the traditional policy bring that is causing the DOD to re-think its approach to classification? 

08:32 – 09:10
(NA): The most obvious answer is the United States can’t afford to keep up with China and Russia to a lesser degree as far as the numbers of systems they are producing that we consider to be weapons.  

And so we’re going to need friends and Allies and in order to fight in an integrated manner – they’re going to need to understand what these systems are. To me, that’s the most compelling reason to declassify. Maybe, maybe second to the deterrent reveal/conceal rationale. But we have to be able to share our capabilities with our Allies because we’re all going to be fighting together.

09:11 – 11:14
(JS): So let me tell a quick story. You know, it was in 1999, and I was working in the air operations center as we were planning the Kosovo air campaign. And I was also working inside the top secret SCIF, working on some space things that we were working on at that time. And, I personally was trying to struggle. How do I use these capabilities and integrate into the air campaign because no one else is cleared for them? And very routinely the first place that those met was at the two-star level. That was the first place where a leader could see kind of the whole picture.  

I even got a reputation working with General, it was General Short at the time. He was the three-star air component commander. He ended up calling me Captain Briefcase because I would just kind of show up with this briefcase to go talk to him and say, ‘Here’s what we’re doing.’ And he would be happy and warm to chat with me and we developed a good relationship. But he said ‘You know, John, it’s nice of you for coming to talk to me, but why aren’t we putting this into everything else that we’re working and planning on?’   

And, you know, I’m a Captain shrugging my shoulders, saying, ‘Sorry, General, I can’t. They’re not cleared, but I’m doing the best I can to try to synchronize it behind the scenes.’  

And as the Deputy Commander of U.S. Space Command, we were synchronizing operational plans with other Combatant Commands, most prominently, INDOPACOM United States Indo-Pacific Command, of course, because of the pacing adversary in China. You know, we’re bringing a lot of space capabilities into the fore, but we’re needing to synchronize those operational plans, Space Command’s plan and INDOPACOM’s plan. It’s trying to synchronize goals and ways and means and effects at just the right time in different phases to achieve the optimal result for a combined campaign. And if you can’t share all of those capabilities with the INDOPACOM staff or even the components there in INDOPACOM, you’ve got a problem.  

And so we actually made a lot of progress. We have more progress to make. So I’m not going to say it was as dire as it was in 1999, but it still remains a challenge for that overall, all-domain warfighting integration across Combatant Commands and ultimately to Allies.

11:15 – 11:29
And to that point, Deputy Secretary of Defense Kathleen Hicks signed a memo earlier this year that essentially rewrites the classification policy for space programs.   

What changes are being made and how does this memo tie into the challenges we’ve been discussing? 

11:30 – 13:39
(NA): Scott. That’s classified. We can’t share that information on this podcast. Seriously, I have not seen the memo itself, but I began working on it ten years ago. Then-Commander of U.S. Strategic Command, General Hyten.  

I was his J5 and we began working on a framework for this very reason. The very considerations that we’ve been discussing: deterrence and what makes deterrence actually work. What do you hold dear? And what do you share or reveal for a deterrent effect? So we set up a framework essentially, and kind of ironically, that memo was classified.  

But what it did was it broke things – systems, capabilities, technologies – into categories of classification. Things you wanted to keep at the top secret level, including Special Access Programs, things that we intentionally wanted to share with Allies at a classified level still, though, and then an unclassified, so it’s actually time to reveal these technologies now, knowing full well that things classified at the secret level probably can be discovered by adversaries.   

Those satellites, much like the NRO satellites of the 80s and 90s that were confounding Russia, those capabilities will be able to be detected and tracked and that doesn’t mean their true roles and the essence of what they’re going to be doing needs to be revealed. But that’s going to be a complication that the Space Force is going to have to deal with that their systems and even potentially how they use them can be known to adversaries.  

And I guarantee you, that’s the essence of this memo today where all the details behind this memo will be highly classified, so that programs can begin the declassification process and that starts at the level that they’re already classified at. 

13:40 – 14:16
(JS): I think that’s a great background because, again, Nina has been working on this a long time. So I remember early drafts of this memo bouncing around that OSD policy was working on. I don’t think I actually ever saw the final version myself either.   

I think another feature, I’ll offer that was in it, and Nina kind of touched on it, is that trying to make a bigger distinction between technologies and general capabilities and physics and actual programs and vulnerabilities. And so we tended in space to kind of lump those all into one big basket. And this idea, you should be able to differentiate these things out was part of that approach. 

14:17 – 14:36
And so my next question here is: why now? It seems like we have this convergence of space-based threats, our own maturing space-based capabilities, and the need to expand Allied partnerships into the space domain.  

Considering all of these factors – why is now the right time to be re-considering our classification policy for space? 

14:37 – 15:17
(JS:)Well, I would say, it was the right time was probably 20 years ago and then ten years ago. I’m not sure I would agree with the way you said that today – now is the right time. I would say it’s more urgent. The urgency is greater than ever.  

And that is because, again, the Joint Force’s reliance and the Allied Force’s reliance on space is greater today than it was yesterday, and it will be greater tomorrow than it is today. And so if you’re going to properly account for that in multi-domain Joint Warfighting, you have to get to a point where we can all talk about it and understand the interdependencies and the synchronization of all of those capabilities, so that urgency is at its highest point it’s ever been. 

15:18 – 15:52
(NA): Absolutely, and the national security space architecture that is going to be augmented with Allied capabilities. They’re going to want to protect and classify some of their capabilities, as well. Some of their sovereign capabilities, so they’re going to have to decide what they want to bring to the table and reveal to the United States so that we can operate together.  

And I think it’s just like John said, more urgent every day, because the threat – Oh gosh, it’s just not going away. It’s not going away.  

15:53 – 16:34
(JS): Yeah, that’s well said. I need to point out that my story about 1999, we had a little bit of a luxury there, right? Because Serbia didn’t have space capabilities they were using against us, nor did they really have the ability to go after our space capabilities.  

And even then we struggled to kind of integrate it all together. And that’s what I would call that’s part of that Second Space Age from the Cold War until we really realized, ‘Hey we’ve got a threat and it’s a warfighting domain,’ which I say was around 2015 is when we made that change. In today’s Third Space Age, everything Nina said is true.  

Now you’ve got an adversary who is using space against you and going after your space capabilities and that just really ups the urgency of necessary integration more to the highest point ever.  

16:35 – 16:59
Thank you, Sir.  

And this leads us to the next stage of our conversation: the role of Allied partnerships in space. Over the past decade, the Combined Space Operations Initiative – or CSpO – has grown to ten members – with Italy, Japan and Norway joining just last year.  

For those in the audience who may not be familiar with CSpO, can you explain what CSpO is? And what purpose it serves? 

17:00 – 18:12
(JS): CSpO really was led by the Office of the Secretary of Defense in the early twenty-teens, and its purpose was to start bringing Allies into a discussion about policy and shared architectures. And so this was this mechanism, ‘Hey, let’s bring leaders together. How can we talk about shared policy? How can we talk about where we might have common needs or shared architectures?’  

I have to stress that CSpO. The analogy I’ve used for it is that it is the lobby of a very large hotel or building. It’s the beginning of discussions with Allies. It is getting in the door, having the discussion and then proceeding to someplace else where we normalize through either operational orders or relationships or command and control or even integrated architectures. So it’s just the beginning of that discussion.   

And it was very successful. If one were to look back over the last ten to 12 years that CSpO has existed, we’ve actually had really constructive discussions with Allies, brought them along, integrated other Allies, brought them along and has been successful.  

But again, it’s only the beginning of an alignment that then transitions to more traditional, proven Allied constructs for warfighting together.

18:13 – 19:18
(NA): I think it was around 2017. And, I was at a CSpO event. It was a tabletop exercise where the scenario was that an adversary was lasing a certain orbit. And so this nefarious behavior was affecting everybody around the table and as we walked through, ‘Okay – what do you do about this?’  

The representatives from two of the newer countries, the light bulbs came on, you could see it in their face. They’re like, ‘Oh, my gosh, we are stronger together.’ And at the time, their nations didn’t have a space policy. But when we went through some typical responses – those kinds of things were appealing to these two countries and they, well now, they’re part of CSpO.  

But it was really neat to be there. The day that their representatives realized, this is an important alliance. We can participate and we can make our coalition even stronger by being part of this. So I think it’s a powerful thing. CSpO has been very successful.  

19:19 – 19:32
Thank you, Ma’am. And so how will initiatives like CSpO help the U.S. extend its traditional Allied partnerships into the space domain?  

And at the same time, how does space present an opportunity to do things differently when it comes to Joint Force operations? 

19:33 – 20:31
(NA): Everybody needs space today and so it might even be easier as we move forward with integrating space and it’s because it doesn’t even have to be a sovereign capability that a NATO country brings in, for example.

For space, you don’t have to follow all the traditional examples. We can certainly learn from them. But, for example, why couldn’t NATO buy space communications as a service? Every country doesn’t have to bring a satellite, a space communications architecture, and it’s a new way of thinking. So the traditional model of everyone bringing a sovereign capability to the fight.

I don’t think you have to do that in the space domain and that kind of opens the door for other things, like bringing in commercial capabilities where you can just purchase a service or rent a service. There’s so much that we can tap into here. It’s exciting. It’s an exciting time. It’s the growing space economy, right, John Shaw?

20:32 – 21:20
(JS): That’s right. Hey, here’s a way to think about it. I think it’s inevitable that we’re going to see growth of commercial space-oriented organizations in other Allied countries. Probably most of your audience right now could probably start thinking of aircraft-producing companies in other nations. Dassault in France, Saab in Sweden, British Aerospace. I mean, ‘How many commercial space companies in other nations can we think of right now?’ It’s not a lot. There’s a few, but you know, there’s not many. Why is that? We just haven’t gotten there yet. It’s going to happen.   

And there will be other commercial capabilities in Allied nations. We don’t really think about that. That’s a growth area. There’s going to be an emergence of the global space economy and a lot of other commercial space companies in other nations. 

21:21 – 21:30
This brings us to an interesting point: we’ve talked about how classification relates to our Allied partners, but how do these policies relate to the DOD’s commercial partners, as well? 

21:31 – 22:17
(JS): There are a lot of commercial companies producing cutting edge space capabilities that in many ways rival the more traditional ones that we’ve developed on the government side. Commercial imaging from space is getting very, very good and the ability to process it and disseminate it and exploit it is getting very good. Commercial communications are probably more advanced now in many ways with the proliferated low-Earth orbit architectures that are being developed and the universality in which that space communications is getting into our society.  

So, what I’m trying to point out is – we could make a mistake by classifying things that the commercial side might already be ahead of in the way that they’re using them and there’s going to be some cognitive dissonance between there that’s not going to allow us to integrate as effectively as we could. 

22:18 – 23:03
(NA): That’s for sure. We definitely as a nation, it’s almost like our secret sauce. Well, we have two secret sauces and one of those secret sauces is definitely our, our Allies, the way that we partner with other countries. But the other secret sauce that desperately needs to be brought to bear is the private sector. The commercial capabilities that are coming faster and they are leading edge technologies developed outside of the bureaucracy and integration with those capabilities also probably requires us to look at classifications and deciding, ‘Is it more important to protect secrets that are ten, 20 years old or, you know, is it worth the risk so that we can bring on performing tech?’ 

23:04 – 23:53
(JS): Yeah. I think Nina’s second secret sauce there – commercial. It’s really all about our strength and our ability to innovate. It’s a great strength that we have and why is it so pertinent to space right now? Again, I’ll go back to space is more important to society than it’s ever been.  

There are many opportunities to innovate and use space technologies to drive society forward, to generate capital flow for the space economy. It would be a huge mistake for the Department of Defense to not try to ride that wave. And in order to ride that wave together or work that together, you have to communicate as openly as you possibly can.  

And so that goes back to why we’re still going to have to have some form of classification with regard to operational art, how we’re going to use things but in terms of capabilities or strategic problems we’re facing we should be communicating that with the ever-growing commercial space industry.  

23:54 – 24:06
So all things considered – what about Elara Nova?  

From your perspective as a partners – how can Elara Nova and its team of consultants strengthen these partnerships on behalf of the DOD and the United States Space Force? 

24:07 – 24:33
(NA):Elara Nova was born for these kind of challenges. 

One of the things they ask people, ‘What are your challenges? What are your sticking points? Where can I help you?’ And then they put their brainpower to these problem areas and, and find success. All of this is right up Elara Nova’s alley. They can conduct studies, they can do assessments, they can write strategies and bring capabilities to bear for partner nations, all the while fixing their toughest challenges.

24:34 – 25:12
(JS): I’m proud to be associated with Elara Nova. I think that allowing for great communication of problem statements and understanding what challenges are, just like Nina said, I also think it plays a role in sort of we’re necessarily generally poking, ‘Hey, you’re doing it wrong, whether it’s Department of Defense, stifling innovation or it’s commercial, not quite hearing about what the threat is and what we’re might be facing or Allies might be facing in the future.’ And so it’s just it’s all about, I think, communication and sharing the broader problem statements of what we’re facing in the domain moving forward and then contributing to the potential solutions there.

25:13 – 25:50 
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.