AFA Warfare Symposium Day 2 Transcripts
Transcripts from:
State of the Air Force
–Gen. David W. Allvin, Chief of Staff of the Air Force
Driving Change with Speed
– Kristyn E. Jones, Performing the Duties of Under Secretary of the Air Force
– Frank Calvelli, Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Space Acquisition and Integration
Space Order of Battle
– Lt. Gen. DeAnna M. Burt, Deputy Chief of Space Operations for Operations, Cyber, and Nuclear
– Lt. Gen. Douglas A. Schiess – United States Space Command’s Combined Joint Force Space Component Commander
– Maj. Gen. Gregory J. Gagnon, Deputy Chief of Space Operations for Intelligence
– Moderator: Gen. Kevin P. Chilton, USAF (Ret.), Explorer Chair at AFA’s Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies
Gen. David W. Allvin, Chief of Staff of the Air Force
Keynote Address: State of the Air Force
8:35 a.m.–9:05 am MDT
Gen. David W. Allvin Transcript:
Well, good morning. We’re back again today. It is a great day. Thanks again to the entire AFA team for making this possible. This is a fantastic symposium everyone seems to get better. I’d like to echo thanks to our Secretary Secretary candle who has truly made one team one fight a reality. And to my battle buddy chant Salzman, salty noses business, right. That guy knows his business and I couldn’t have a better partner to be able to make the two services one department work for our nation. So you see on the slide there, it says the state of the Air Force, and that’s what the block is. I feel like we talked about that a little bit yesterday on what we’re going to do. What I’d like to spend a few moments today if you will indulge me is to really take stock of where we are in history and give you a few thoughts about where I believe we are, and why we have that sense of urgency and a sense of commitment to follow through.
You know, since the dawn of airpower, our proud heritage in history has been intertwined with key events in combat, that have shaped a battle, eventually a nation, in some cases, the world those are seminal events and those seminal events get the headlines in history. They are studied they are celebrated. They are learned from but to me, what’s almost in some cases more important are the times that preceded them. These are times of consequence. In my mind, these are times when airmen and air pioneers they embodied what is running through our DNA, which is the spirit of innovation, vision, and courage and the action of those airmen in that time of consequence. Shaped those seminal events.
April 18 1942, Lieutenant Colonel Jimmy Doolittle, stands on the deck of the USS Hornet with 16 B 20. Fives crouched and a brave cadre of crew ready to undertake one of the most audacious, audacious missions in history. 132 days after Pearl Harbor was attacked, and Imperial Japan felt as though they could conduct this war at a distance and have the United States in a defensive crouch. The idea here was to flip the script and to show that we could project power and a war that perhaps thought could be funded a distance could be brought right to their doorstep. This was a seminal event history.
But to me as interesting with the time of consequence that preceded air pioneers like Eugene Ely in 1911, who took his Curtis push plane and landed of the USS Pennsylvania. It wasn’t quite combat relevant at the time, but the very fact that it was demonstrated you could put an aircraft on a ship sparked the imagination of those who followed the vision of what could be in the 1920s in the 1930s. Members of the Air Corps tactical school sought to draw lessons from airpower theories theorists like Mitchell and to hate and apply concepts to them to build out what would be the next invention of air power and its integration into warfare. Central to this was long range strategic bombing and the long range bomber that was a central part of that needed demand signal that demand signal was sent to industry through these innovative airmen with the idea is to take a concept and put it into action. The industry responded and built the long range bombers of World War Two including those that were sitting on the deck of the USS Hornet in April of 1942.
It was airpower visionaries, like Charles Green, who was a part of the Doolittle Raid. And as they were preparing for it, I realized that the the bomb site the center bumps on site was not was not going to be suitable to the task. And because sorry, he had an engineering background. He developed the Mark Twain bomb site, one that was accurate, below 1500 feet and suitable to the task. Everyone like these visionaries like these ahead of time took what would have been seen as maybe a foolhardy plan and made it something that seemed worth trying. And because it was worth trying, they did it and it succeeded.
And I’m not saying that was decisive in the war, but had that not happened had that not been planned and executed. Perhaps Admiral Yamamoto might have not been pressed into action earlier than he wanted to, to have the Decisive Battle of Midway in which he was defeated. And the tide of the war was changed. And perhaps the ultimate outcome of the war in the Pacific would not have been changed. But perhaps it wouldn’t have been able to end like this. He said trying to victory could have been achieved, but it might have taken 1000s more lives. Much more blood and treasure. So that seminal event was made possible by the time a consequence that preceded it. Six years after the Doolittle Raid, after the surrender of Japan and fascism and Nazism had been defeated on the battlefields of Europe.
The allies are one of victory when another ideological struggle was on the horizon with deteriorating relationship between the Soviet Union and that took shape at a flashpoint in the city. of Berlin. In which the deteriorating conditions the deteriorating conditions of East Berlin were in stark contrast to a reinvigorating burgeoning West Berlin counter to the narrative that Berlin that the Soviet Union decided this could not stand and they decided to block aid all access through land and water to the city of Berlin in an attempt to squeeze the city and force the allies to abandon it.
The small isolated city in the middle of a Soviet East German our response was Operation middles, the Berlin Airlift, another audacious plan. The idea that you could resupply a city keep a city alive from the air was unthinkable to me. We did it 324 days 198,000 sorties, 3.2 million tons of food, fuel, supplies, and hope. And the Soviet Union abandoned their plan and the blockade was broken. We did it for three more months just for good measure, to show we could continue it and to reinforce the city of Berlin and case the Soviet Union changed. This was a seminal event. This was a bold, audacious plan. But it was the time of consequence that preceded it.
That mattered experimentation in the 20s with carrying mail and yes when FDR after the mail scandal pressed the Army Air Corps into action in 1834 to carry the mail. And frankly, they failed. airmen didn’t walk away they doubled down they learned from it introspection, they developed better equipment, they develop, develop better training procedures to fly instruments and weather. And they learned from that that was a time of consequence. People like Major General Huebner, who saw that Air Mobility was a developing part of airpower. But he also saw that we were being held back trapped in the paradigms of the past when he saw that the resupply of Army Air Corps was limited to the trains and the rail and the trucks and he said an air force that is tied to railheads and it was dependent on the services the motorized vehicle has the mobility of the truck and the train.
And he realized we were being held back for the potential of airpower that the potential that could bring supplies from the point of origin to the point of need directly. And he called for air transportation groups and press the War Department and advanced Air Mobility to a greater place in a panoply of airpower. But for visionaries like him, might have been different. We also continue to learn lessons when we’re flying the hump some of the most demanding and dangerous flying that happened and it was over the China Burma India theater.
From there we learned lessons about our aircraft a better air crew trying to generate velocity in a difficult environment. And those lessons were learned and adapted to in a gentleman by the name of a gentle Turner, gentle Tonner William Turner, who took over the Berlin Airlift after Limaye and Smith initiated it but he took those lessons he learned from flying the hump and developed those innovations that would make that Berlin airlift possible. Understanding about aircrew limitations with hypoxia and cumulative fatigue and managing the crew rest and the life and the time cycles within which you could fly before you needed to take a long term rest. From the cumulative fatigue. Understanding that new ways of doing maintenance innovations like the production line meetings where you just didn’t fly the aircraft until it broke. You flew it and after a period of time you did a tip to tail review to make sure the airplane was ready to go you could keep the entire fleet healthier that way understanding that to have velocity. You needed to keep those planes and the crews in the air as much as possible. So ideas like food trucks, the roach coaches that we now affectionately call that why you wanted to keep those planes in the air so you didn’t want to have to pilot to go find something to eat or the crew to go somewhere else. You bring the food to them because you need a velocity. What does that result in? That results in every 90 seconds? An aircraft taking off.
These are the innovations that actually made this seminal event possible. We’ll give you one last example. Because I got to experience the seminal event in history. It’s late 1980s 1989 To be exact, and I’m a single Lieutenant on flight in Europe. Life’s good. I’m thinking about as fly my mission and not much else. It was a Thursday night and I lived in the life of a house of lovely German couple. And of course there wasn’t a lot of streaming entertainment then and I could handle that and but all the Armed Forces Network that I can handle. So I was reading a book and as I was reading I heard something outside. And so I go to the for the attic window. I open it up and I look in the street of a tiny town called Health School where I lived and I saw there was a gathering there and it was like a celebration. I thought is this a birthday? Is this a is this birthday? Is this a family celebration? I didn’t exactly know what it was until it turned on the TV and this is what I saw.
This is the Brandenburg Gate. This is the fall of the Berlin Wall. I was just a young lieutenant but I knew right then the world was changing. And then the days that followed. I saw this emergence of hope and just sheer joy and optimism for the future.
Cars along the Autobahn going east to west littered with cheap old cars from East Germany because those people were getting out. They knew they didn’t know if it was gonna last and they want to get on well they could. This this thirst for freedom that they finally saw. It was amazing time in history. It was an amazing time and history and I will never forget that for as long as I live. The fall of the Berlin Wall was a seminal event.
But what made that possible? Did airpower contribute to the damn right it did. This is how we did it. This was a religious reading demonstration. That Yes. In the backdrop of the Cold War, the strategic deterrence that underpinned it. Our airmen were ready to meet the challenge.
Yes, we could get the aircraft airborne and preserve second strike opportunity is the foundation of deterrence day in and day out. We prove that and for whatever the Soviet Union and their other adversaries may want to wanted to see from above ground, they had to know that the same was happening underneath that we had airmen were trained, constantly reading 24/7 to do the unthinkable if it was asked to them, that commitment that sheer will, relentless will that’s what our airmen did in this time of consequence.
Oh by the way, let’s not forget, they’re doing it today. Right now, in the missile fields and in those silos with all the support they’re doing that right now. Our airmen haven’t stopped. That sent a message that was a time of consequence. We also had visionary airmen like moody suitor, Bill Kirk, Chuck Horner, who saw that the numerical advantage that the Soviet Union had in conventional forces, including air power, would be a challenge and we need to have we needed to have the quality and the training to ensure that we could overcome that. They were compelled by the logic of the analysis that showed through Vietnam.
That if the pilots could survive and have success in the first 10 missions, then their entire combat tour would be much more likely to survive and to have an effective combat tour. It was those first 10 missions that were the high risk. So they set about developing an environment in which you could most closely simulate that. That stress. They developed the pilots that they trained in enemy tactics, who were good at it as well. That you could simulate that environment that stress who had the painstaking brief and fly and often painful debrief.
That helps sharpen them so they could learn those lessons in the flight room. And not after a post shoot down pickup or even worse at the funeral of a wingman. And from that the aggressors were born from that red flag was born. And to this day, 49 years later, red flag is the gold standard for readiness and proficiency to dominate in aerial combat. These were the times of consequence in which airmen stepped up with the vision with the innovation and with the courage to make those times those seminal events happen times of consequence are important. So what’s our next seminal event? I don’t know. But I do know that right now. We are also in a time of consequence. What we do now matters. So what are our airmen doing now?
Our airmen today are doing everything the nation has asked them to. Our airmen are out there supporting our partner in Europe who is fighting an existential battle against naked aggression. Our airmen are out there supporting our ally in the Middle East who is fighting terrorism within their own borders. Our airmen are out there in harm’s way to help tamp down violence in the Middle East in general. They’re helping support the continued free movement of goods across the waterways. They’re on the peninsula of Korea defending Ford they are deterring, they’re building alliances in the Pacific. They are doing everything we’re asking asking them to do include what I mentioned before. Stay in the silos in the missile field showing that we will do everything the nation asked us to do.
And frankly, the air from the Air Force is busy. The nation is asking us to do a lot because when it comes to our Air Force and the dominant words of the abdominal David Lee Roth, from Van Halen, everybody wants some. And I realized as I said that there’s a crowd that gets that but that song was probably at almost probably cut about 45 years ago in which most of our airmen weren’t even born much less of the listening age, but look it up. It’s classic. Everybody wants so we’re spread thin. And that’s a fact.
And it’s starting to show. We’re starting to show a little bit in the readiness of our aircraft. It’s starting to show a little bit in the state of our infrastructure. It’s starting to show and we have work to do there. But let me tell you, you wouldn’t know it by the performance of our airmen.
You wouldn’t know they are performing admirably because they know they’re part of a winning team. With the right cause.
We should never take that for granted. That is amazing. That is what makes us the Air Force. That we are and we owe it to them to continue to improve on those areas to make their jobs a little bit easier. It’s a tough job. Nobody does it better. But here’s what else are doing. Our airmen are doing something that will make us proud in the future that they’re carrying. On the legacy of innovative spirit, a vision of courage.
Our airmen are sorting out Agile combat employment from the bottom up. They are out there from Alaska in the Indo Pacific, in the Middle East, in your wherever they are understanding the tenets of agile combat deployment, how it might apply in their theater. They’re doing it from the bottom up. They’re figuring out how to lighten our footprint, how to increase our velocity of sortie generation. Those things that we know are going to be required as a changing character of war is coming upon us and the theater of war. is going to require us to fight differently. They’re doing that they’re also embracing the future of our Air Force, which is integration, human machine teaming.
This will be the part of the reinvention of our air. Force and Air Power into the future. Our airmen are gripping it. And I will tell you, it’s not only gripping it in the manner of how we employ them, how we use them to the best effect in combat. But with a standup of our expedition or experimental Operations Unit. Our airmen are understanding not only how to employ we’re experimenting, how to deploy it, how to maintain it, how to train with it, how to integrate it into our Air Force, almost as though they’re listening to the echoes a Major General nerve who said do not get trapped in the paradigms of the past. Don’t find the easy answer say oh, it looks like so let’s just treat it like a whatever it is we need to understand this is a unique capability, a unique opportunity for us to understand how to best employ, deploy and integrate this into the next invention of the Air Force.
You also understand that the future is about ones and zeros as well. It about is about an air force that is based on systems surrounded by platforms rather than platforms upon which we hang systems because those systems as the core of our Air Force going future, going into the future can be adapted more readily can be updated, upgraded and be able to be fit for the environment that we find ourselves and environment that changes rapidly. Our airmen understand this. It’s about the symbiotic relationship between the data and the decision maker between the ones and zeros and the warrior. This is the future this is the reinvention of our Air Force and our airmen are gripping.
We’re also not ignoring what’s happening underneath our noses right now. Some of the changes are are being played out in combat. Our airmen are looking at that and you can see it in pockets across our Air Force, whether it be in Sparks sales or within our components. They’re looking at what’s happening, the crackling of life that’s happening in the electromagnetic spectrum that had been largely taken for granted. The asymmetric advantage that can happen with low cost solutions that may not be enduring, but they’re enough to get you an advantage today. How do we integrate that and agilely adapt and update for those very things that do not always have to be the next high cost exquisite solution. These airmen are doing all of this and this is why we should be so proud that they’re upholding the legacy of airpower. We’re ensuring that we will continue to reinvent ourselves into the future to be the most dominant air force in the world. That’s what our airmen are doing.
In closing, I just want to say this is a this is a picture that when I go into my office every day, it’s in the back of my office. It’s the first thing I see. It’s not just because it’s a super Six Line the hump. But there’s a metaphor here. I don’t know what the next seminal event will be. But I know there’s going to be one. They’re unpredictable, but they’re inevitable. And I know that what we do now, in our time of consequence, which is now will impact that we need to own that. This is our time of consequence. What we do the decisions we make the actions we take the airmen we lead and the way we do it will define that some next seminal event, as the picture shows it’s unclear. There’s danger ahead. There are obstacles to navigate. But we will not turn away. We will lean into in this time of consequence. We have to have the courage to make the hard decisions. The conviction to follow through with those decisions. That’s an obligation to our airmen and it’s an obligation to our nation. The stakes are high and the time is now. Thank you very much.
[End]
Kristyn E. Jones, Performing the Duties of Under Secretary of the Air Force
Andrew P. Hunter, Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics
Frank Calvelli, Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Space Acquisition and Integration
Moderator: Kirk Rieckhoff, Coleader of McKinsey & Company’s Aerospace & Defense Practice in the Americas
Driving Change with Speed
10:05-10:45am MDT
Kirk Rieckhoff 00:00
US aerospace and defense practice in the Americas. Thanks. Well, good morning, everybody. It’s been an exciting event so far. You know, yesterday, the Secretary the under and the Chiefs laid out a pretty ambitious change agenda. And then just to make it a little more fun, they said we got to do it right now. So this session is all about how do we drive that change with speed? What I’d like to do tonight or rather this morning, is to ask first, if we can go back to the very beginning of why, why is it that we do this right now? And fast?
Honorable Kristyn Jones 00:41
So hopefully, it was clear from some of our comments yesterday, how aligned the top leadership of the Department of the Air Force is and how we need to move out with a sense of urgency to address the threats in our strategic environment. As I mentioned yesterday, our battlespace is increasing from sub warfare to cislunar cyber ew. So the threats are expanding technology is moving fast. In some cases, our adversaries are moving faster and getting their new capabilities out than we are. And we need to make sure that we’re ready first to be able to deter any conflict that might come up to have GE or anyone else say today is not that day. But if we need to be able to fight and win, and those are the things that over the last couple of months, we’ve all come to a conclusion that we need to make changes so that we are ready today and for the future to win now, and to win the competition in the long run and the changes that we’re putting in from the Secretariat, and each of the services will give us the mechanisms to be able to do that.
Hon Andrew Hunter 01:55
I would like to say we got a preview for reoptimize and great power competition as we did the operational imperatives work last year and the year before and that was an opportunity for us in the acquisition community to work side by side with the operational community to really focus on mission threads and what capabilities are required to close those threads reliably consistently over time and a resilient fashion and what you find is we we are required them to work across our stovepipes in a way that is extremely non non traditional and that is also not facilitated by our organizational structure. So the why really is we have to be able to do the things that we identified as operational imperatives. We have to be able to be postured to do it as a natural acts not as an unnatural act. So for the acquisition community, the things that are identified and that were announced yesterday by the Secretary then are the chiefs are the things that we need to be able to consistently and reliably deliver on challenges like our operational imperatives, now and and over time, right. over a span of time that includes the competition, potentially over multiple decades.
Hon Frank Calvelli 03:06
Yeah, for on the space side of the house, as you all know, it’s the threat, right? We all built a magnificent architecture today in space that is absolute phenomenal that we all should be very proud of. What was built in a time were launch was very expensive, and space was very, it was a benign environment. So we tended to go with larger satellites on very long development cycles. And we have a need space is so important to the joint force, that we have a need now to fundamentally transform our space architecture to be more resilient. That’s gonna be through proliferation acidum. Well, it’s diversification of orbits. And it’s all about speed. Now, it’s all about how we get there to face this pacing challenge with speed and our acquisitions.
Kirk Rieckhoff 03:48
So on that point, Frank, you know, the portfolio in the Space Force and in the Air Force is massive. So where do you need to speed the most?
Hon Frank Calvelli 03:58
I think we need to speed and, and really trying to drive towards smaller systems, the physics of what we’re trying to do in space. You know, we’re not we’re not constrained to extremely large apertures, or large spacecraft, we actually can do our mission with smaller systems and more preferred systems. We know for a fact in the space world that smaller systems means faster development. It just does. You just can’t build big systems fast. And so the the key for us is is really whether it’s a missile warning, missile tracking, space communication space to broaden awareness is to build smaller systems at speed, and where we can use existing technology, because if we’re using the same technology, it’s going to allow us to go faster as well.
Hon Andrew Hunter 04:47
In terms of the where we’ve had some Pathfinders, so we benefit from the fact that we’ve we, we know what right looks like. Right looks like what we were able to do with establishing the POC through BM, again to work across stovepipes to horizontally integrate capabilities from the air fleet with our with our space capabilities, with ground capabilities in operationally meaningful ways to deliver to deliver the facts that we need to do when the Secretary established POC through BMS. This is the hardest job I’ve ever given anyone and he has handed out many challenging jobs over many years. But we’re reinforcing what we believe is success because as General cropsy has stood up that organization and brought together the pieces that we gave him from the architecture piece to the programmatic piece, and in close coordination with the operational side the ABMS cross functional team, we’re seeing success we’re seeing a lot of return and the early stages of that work the architecture, generating the benefits that we expected the close collaboration with the operator generating the benefits we expected. So we’re that’s what right looks like we need to be able to do that and many more places we need to be able to do an electronic warfare and I’m so operations we need to be able to do it for things like navigational warfare, and pn T and close coordination with the Space Force. So we’re, we benefit from, from seeing what right looks like and seeing where else can we can and should we do that? And then the other example of what right looks like is our collaborative combat aircraft program. What that was able to do is allow us to accelerate what I call our vertical integration, which the Secretary talks about as accelerating the pace of science and technology, work and commercial development work translating into fielded warfighting capability and the example of collaborative combat aircraft. The sky Borg effort which was a major FRL Vanguard but which was not originally connected to a program of record has essentially turned into a program of record it is it is the foundation for a collaborative combat aircraft, which we are now accelerating rapidly toward into production. So that’s the kind of accelerated vertical integration that we know we need. We know what right looks like because we see it with collaborative combat aircraft and we are going to be implementing that in many other areas including in the weapons portfolio. In the early refueling and the mobility fleet portfolio as well.
Honorable Kristyn Jones 07:16
I was just gonna say if there’s a couple of things to take away from what we’re doing. One of the key things is what Andrew just mentioned that that integration, integration across platforms across our commands the integration to close our long range, kill chains, the integration with industry, with our partners and allies, a lot of the changes that we’re making and standing up the new organizations from the Secretariat and each of the services are to allow us to have that integration deliberately upfront, so that we deliver the capabilities that we need.
Kirk Rieckhoff 07:49
So the need for speed and the need to change. At some level. It’s not really new, right? We’ve known about this for a while. So what’s different this time?
Honorable Kristyn Jones 08:02
So I’ll start out with the fact that as I mentioned yesterday, we have incredible alignment on the strategic environment from the National Security Strategy, national defense strategy, our joint warfighting concepts, and the alignment of our senior leaders. We spent a lot of time talking about the changes that we needed to make, and we got agreement on every one of the changes that we announced yesterday from all of our four stars, all of our deputy chiefs of staff who were involved in the process. So I think the alignment is really one of the things that is going to help us to be successful. I also think that everybody is very aware that we have a real threat in a way that we haven’t had in the past couple of decades, we were able to handle our counter vdeo contingencies. We need to make sure that we’re ready for whatever is coming ahead and the change that we’re seeing in our advertisers, our adversaries that are laser focused on us helps us all to have that alignment and understand what’s really at stake.
Hon Andrew Hunter 09:03
It’s it’s a really good question and something that we have to think hard about right because change is hard. And you won’t necessarily deliver the outcome you’re going for unless you’re very focused and clear and disciplined in going to enact it. I believe in this case, we are very clear and focused and discipline, because we understand the pacing challenge, that’s what we’re organizing to address it was in the title of the initiative. So So I think we’re very focused on what it is we have to achieve. That’s that is I think, somewhat different right. So when we talk about driving change with speed, yes, but it’s a specific kind of change. It’s specific capabilities. We know we need to enable and we need to field and we’re gonna be focused and disciplined on that. I also think we’ve we’ve really, we’ve we’ve demonstrated that we understand how to execute the close partnership between the operational committee and the acquisition Committee, which actually delivers change with speed in a way that is not easy to do and has been tried and not always succeeded. But we’ve demonstrated it with operational imperatives and now we’re taking that next step to make it broader and more universal. And then lastly, I would say is we’ve we’ve done a lot of great work and it’s a bunch of it predates me. So the credit goes to the incredible people in our organizations and AFMC and an AQ and and my predecessors, and laying the foundation with industry on foundational architectures technical architectures, such as our advancements and systems, government reference architecture, which really provide an engineering and Systems Engineering and Engineering foundation for rapid change of capabilities and rapid evolution of capabilities. And that’s been a big success. Again, that’s something we’ve demonstrated. We are establishing and building out and then making more robust a broader swath of those architectures to help us drive change with speed.
Hon Frank Calvelli 10:56
Yeah, I would say you know, if I look at the Space Force, Space Force was formed because of great power competition, and positions like mine and the Space Force. I mean, we were formed to go fast. I mean, that that is the goal. The threat is to great space is so important, not only to the joint force but to the country. And so, you know, we need to make sure our architecture, what’s the becomes resilient so that the nation can depend on space, whether we’re in peace, whether we’re in crisis, whether we’re in conflict space needs to be there for the nation. And that’s really the sense of urgency that’s out there. Fantastic.
Kirk Rieckhoff 11:27
You know, you’ve mentioned earlier, Andrew, some of the successes you’ve had of going fast, and I was just wondering, what are some of the lessons learned from the place where you’ve seen this working, and if you could talk about that?
Hon Andrew Hunter 11:41
Well, I know I keep saying it, but it is the most important lesson which is the criticality of marrying up the operational perspective, but really the expertise the understanding of the operational problem with the acquisition community that understands technically how do those, how can those problems be addressed by technology and what what is the level of maturity that technology and what is the scope of the effort required to deliver it? So it’s that just dialogue, neither one is really able to do that on its own? Because it’s just the acquirers looking at the acquisition end of the problem, the technical end of the problem, we can end in a completely non viable operational implementation of the technology. If the operators just look at it for an operational perspective, they could ask us to build something that’s unbuildable. Right or is just not deliverable within the timeframe they want. So it’s that that continuous and close cooperation between the two that has been the strongest lesson learned and I would say is the principal reason beyond everything else much as I love my foundational architectures and and some of our new contracting approaches which are really phenomenal, beyond all of that what has made the rapid progress we’ve made on collaborate? Collaborative combat aircraft possible has been the partnership between AFMC and ACC and the discipline and focusing on the most most urgent requirements and working with closely with industry to understand their understanding of what’s viable, so close cooperation with with industry as well to make the rapid progress.
Hon Frank Calvelli 13:21
So so we know for a fact that building small it’s a go fast and space acquisition, but the other part of that equation really is execution. And what I mean by program execution, it’s delivering a program that works on cost and on schedule. Just slipping schedules out or over running programs just hurts our ability to go fast. And so we as all space options, professionals that are here in the room. Our job really is to set that upfront X strategy a properly, make sure we put under contract, a program that has realistic cost realistic schedule with the industry partner that has the skills to execute the program, and then once under contract, manage the hell out of it. Right acquisition is a contact full time contact sport. I mean, we need to be involved on a daily basis, making sure we’re delivering on cost and schedule. But our key for our success for speed is not just building smaller, it’s actually delivering to plan and delivering on schedule.
Honorable Kristyn Jones 14:20
So before this job, I’ve been involved in business systems for a long time. And I think the things that we’re seeing in efforts like CCA and C three, BM are just as relevant there, that if we come up with a requirement and throw it over the fence, we’re likely to not get the outcome that we want. So I think that partnership through the entire end to end business process is very important. And that’s highlighted by the things that we’re doing also in the operational area, where I think we’re continuing to learn more, there’s more we can do is our partnership with industry along the way as well. Some of the things that we are doing with CCA for risk reduction and getting a lot of different perspectives I think are great. Also our commercial space activities. So I think continuing to bring in that perspective, as well as our operators will help us to be more effective in the long run.
Hon Frank Calvelli 15:06
Let me comment on that for a second though, because I agree to completely but we need we need help from industry, right? The culture of low bidding has to end we really need your support. And when we ask for an RFP, whether it’s aerospace, that we get back a realistic program realistic in terms of schedule realistic in terms of cost, don’t pay to win it think we’re going to fix it later. We don’t have the dollars to fix broken programs later. We have a track record across department fence for the last 4050 years of awarding unrealistic costs and schedule and then fixing it later. We can’t do that anymore. We have to be awarding executable programs and we need industry’s help in doing that.
Hon Andrew Hunter 15:48
And if I could just maybe add another layer of detail on what it is I think we’ve gotten right and collaborative combat aircraft which I can talk more about now than any of these prior sessions, which is a great relief. But you know, it’s out there now that we have the five vendors that we’re working with. And when I say working with right that is a daily engagement, if you think of classic acquisition, right, okay, we have a very formal requirement that is ratified all the way up to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and then as some semi inviolate or enviable going forward. Once that’s happened. You pitch as the industry and say here it is build us that right. And here’s an RFP that details how we want you to deliver us, you know, the technical proposal that’s going to fulfill that vision, and it’s very, it’s very linear, and it’s very, you know, there’s one enviable benchmark against everything is judged. What you see with collaborative combat aircraft is different approach, right? multiple vendors, continuous daily engagement between the government team in the industry and the industry team, leveraging digital tools, so they’re actually looking at the design as they’re talking. So that when you get to the end game of a final technical proposal, it’s not a gas on the part of industry of is this what what they were really looking for. We’ve done our best to you know, squirrel around as much as we can find out as much as we know it’s it’s daily engagement. And I think that’s that’s really critical.
Kirk Rieckhoff 17:22
We’ve got a large audience out here of Air Force and contractors. And when we look across this group, I would be curious, what advice and what guidance do you have for them?
Hon Frank Calvelli 17:36
I think it’s just critical to get the upfront documentation Correct. Like to really take our time and getting a coherent request for proposal in place. And then I think we need to all start to evaluate scheduling cost realism as part of source selection criteria. I mean, we do I think a really great job on the technical piece of it. But I think we need to really ensure that what we’re awarding is realistic and has a chance of actually delivering on cost and schedule. I just don’t think we can continue to afford to rob our future modernization by paying for programs that are not executing properly in the past. And so it’s really going to be critical for all of us to really don’t award a broken program, I guess would be the thing I would say. I mean, make sure that the program that you award is something that can be executed.
Hon Andrew Hunter 18:30
Well, I think the issue of managing risk is one that that we are always both trying to help industry understand our perspective on and also the workforce, right what mission Am I giving to our workforce in terms of tackling and, and managing risk and it’s the core of what they do and they’re professionals at it. But but there’s many different ways to manage risk and you can better you know, which risks you’re managing to deliver specific outcomes. So, I think what we’ve, what we’ve done, what I believe we’ve done and will continue to do under re optimizing for great power competition is give the workforce really clear expectations for what is the pacing threat, what do we have to do to address it? And therefore how do you manage your program and manage the risk within your program to optimize the outcome or the output that we’re taking and if our if our workforce is clear on that they’re the ones in daily and daily contact with industry and with a specific industry teams, working designs and working to deliver for us. That’s the information flow that I think we have to have. And it’s really about the clarity and the consistency of that vision.
Honorable Kristyn Jones 19:46
Yeah, I’d like to pick up on the RISC idea. That’s something that I think is really critical to our ability to move out with a sense of urgency. I mentioned yesterday, we are increasing our emphasis at enterprise risk management and being able to look across both services and the impact on the outcomes we need for great power competition, but specifically to risk with our programs. We need to empower our leaders to fail fast and to learn general often talked about that a little bit this morning that we’re not going to get everything right all the time, but we need to have a culture where we can learn. I had the privilege of being in pack gas just a few days ago for general Snyder’s promotion to four star so that should sink in to four star. And one of the things that he talked about was when he was a lieutenant, that he didn’t always get everything right but he had leadership that recognized his potential and gave him a chance. And now he’s in charge of what’s arguably our most important AOR for this pacing challenge. So I think that the ability for leaders to underwrite mistakes and the pursuit of excellence for our PMS and the folks who are making day to day decisions on our programs to not be afraid of failing, but to move out and to know that their leadership supports them as they’re trying to do the right things I’ve seen and I know that each of our essays has seen charts that have way too much, because there’s this fear of being transparent. And so I think as we move forward with great power competition, we need to have that culture of transparency of identifying where our obstacles are, and being able to tackle them without this fear. The other advice that I would give for industry so again, I was on the industry side before coming back to government, and I’ve seen this and I understand how things work. A lot of times people are incentivized to maximize their sales to a command to a program and a lot of what we’re trying to do here is to talk about integration. So we need industry to also be thinking from an integration standpoint. So account leads defense sector leads help us to do that. We’re trying to have Enterprise Solutions. Please don’t go out and sell us the same thing. 30 something times, we need to figure out the right way to optimize our resources. And so we need you to be thinking from an enterprise perspective as well.
Hon Andrew Hunter 22:17
Sorry, one quick thought on, you know, because I mentioned managing risk, and then I put it in the context of like, individual programs, but there’s also enterprise level risk, which honestly is one of our biggest challenges, right? And one of the things are optimizing for great power competition is most designed to address because we’re pretty good at working with industry on programmatic risk. Enterprise Risk is not something our system was really designed to address. And so we’ve addressed that or we’re we’re working on that we’re creating on the acquisition side system centers, with the technical expertise to understand emerging risk and roadmap how to get after it and well into the future and respond rapidly to things that catch us. We’re creating the enterprise level capability within AFC MC to see risk across our programs through the integration development office within AFMC. And there’s someone formerly tasked to address enterprise level risk of that nature and a clear partner on the operational side with the integrated capability command that’s doing the same thing. From that end of the business. You
Hon Frank Calvelli 23:27
guys are gonna say on the on the space side, another benefit of building smaller systems is one if you fail, it’s 15 $20 million a satellite. But you take a program like next gen geo next gen polar OPR systems at about $3 billion a copy it’s a lot less forgiving to fail on a program like that we only build one or two of them. And yet on orbit, it doesn’t work. So, you know, if you’re going to take risk or build smaller it allows you the benefit of taking risk and failing which is a great opportunity to learn. But when you’re doing a huge program that’s $3 billion a copy only building two of them. program where you probably don’t want to take as much risk.
Kirk Rieckhoff 24:02
Well, maybe it’s to pull that thread a little bit more. Because I think risk aversion it will definitely slow things down right. What is it that you three can do to help? Because essentially the burden is on your PMS they’re coming forward to manage this risk. We talked about failing fast. How can you three help them?
Hon Frank Calvelli 24:22
I think the we helped by by encouraging them to take the risk with the smaller systems on the space side of the house right? I mean, encourage that I have seen just some fantastic work out of the Space Systems Command team the space develop an agency team and the space rapid Capabilities Office team when they when they’re able to have a smaller system. The other thing I really like about smaller systems is shorter development times is ownership. So on a three year development like we’re seeing out of SDA and some of the work Ed Space Systems Command I mean, you’re seeing the material leader or the SML there the entire lifecycle. That’s amazing. That’s awesome. I take it more traditional program that might take seven to 10 years to develop it. I may have one SML get the program started. One next one come in, take it through PDR next run through CDR the next one to launch and by the time that satellite launches I’ve had for program managers and a staff turnover three or four times. And so I think there’s a really great opportunity when we’re building small to have much more accountability. And you know, we have always found that when when you have people who are engaged and have ownership of it, they’re more likely to be successful as well as opposed to I’m just passing through on the acquisition.
Hon Andrew Hunter 25:35
Yeah, I think there’s a lot we can do. And I think this is hard but doable. And we I try to do it every day in our organization, is get people to think deeply about what do we mean when we say success. Or failure? Write a test that doesn’t meet all of its test objectives is, is in one sense of failure. But in most cases in our test experience, it’s not a failure, right. It is a we learned something to make the system that we’re working on better. And the key thing is not to stand everyone down and figure out hey, why did we not achieve all our test objectives in that test, and spend months doing it? It’s how do we turn as rapidly as possible to get to the next test, which will be successful because of the learning that we got in the last test and will then allow us to advance our technical understanding even further with the additional things that the next test will demonstrate. And I think I think we have shown that we are doing that we can do that. And we are doing that in many of our of our test programs. It’s also worth saying that traditional success doesn’t always mean success for the enterprise. Secretary Kendall likes to tell the program of when he was in early his early days in OSD as a director of tactical warfare was working with an army program for an air defense capability in Europe something that was near and dear to his heart as a former Air defender in the army who worked in Europe and and they canceled the program. And he talked to the program manager and the program manager said you can’t cancel my program. I met all my requirements while he did but the threat had moved on and the program was no longer actually going to address the enterprise risk that was necessary. So we also have to have that understanding both within government and within industry, that you can succeed according to the traditional definition and still not have something that ultimately we say yeah, we got to move that into production. Because it may be something else we made. It may be a space capability that ends up being the thing that really solves the operational problem more than an air capability and it’s one reason why Frank and I work very hard to stay synched and integrated, because that is it is often the case. First of all, our capabilities don’t work without each other. And it’s often the case that the real answer will lie on the other side of the fence.
Honorable Kristyn Jones 27:50
I think a lot of what we’re doing here and what we need to continue to do is institutionalize the mechanisms to get the outcomes that we want, whether that’s in these more integrated centers and being able to specialize more in a particular area, let’s say a nuclear capabilities, or getting the training that we need so that people understand how to manage risk and how to work with industry and those kinds. of things. Those are what we need to do so that as leadership changes that we continue to have the right momentum moving forward. And and I know Frank in particular has spent a decent amount of time documenting in his memo some of the things that he’s expecting, so that what he’s asking for of the workforce now will continue to live on.
Kirk Rieckhoff 28:32
Well, I just want to say thank you all for this. As we close out this last session. We’ve got Space Force and Air Force here. It was just love closing thoughts from you.
Honorable Kristyn Jones 28:44
So one thing that I wanted to highlight I’m wearing two hats right now the undersecretary role and the FM role and in key to both of those is our budget and our audit. So one of the things that we’re going to pop up at the end here is some information on a QR code about the impact of the long CRC There we go, your long CR or if we go to our sequestration budget, this would be really critical to us, especially to the Space Force. The fra levels if we exclude any negative impacts to our guardians, in practice by about a 17% reduction to what we were planning, it’s really sizable and would be catastrophic. So I’d ask all of you to help us to amplify that message that we need to get Congress to act we’re already months into 24. And the longer we wait, the further we’re falling behind. China isn’t dealing with this kind of delay. So please help us in that. The second thing that I would say, again, kind of from both my FM and Undersecretary hats, is the importance of our financial statement audit. For any of our big primes in the room. We know you’re all auditable, otherwise we wouldn’t be doing work. With you. But many of you are holding on our government equipment or our operating materials and supplies. So just a few days ago, the Secretary sent a note out to our biggest prime so you may have seen it already. But if not, please ask for it. That stresses the importance of you helping us to maintain the accountability of that equipment that’s in your hands and being open to the auditors when they’re asking for that information. So I just wanted to stress that I don’t know who else will make those pitches. But I just wanted to say thank you for your partnership. We’re making lots of progress on the audit and in fact, we’re currently in the rankings first of those organizations that don’t currently have an audit within the DOD. So that’s tremendous progress, but we need your help to keep moving.
Hon Andrew Hunter 30:45
Well, hearty endorse on the need for the FY 24 budget and for support as we do FY 25 and start to kick the FY 26 process as well certainly no the secretary articulated. We’ve been fortunate we were able to get after things like collaborative combat aircraft and sea three battle management, because we had 23 funds that and so are being under continuing resolution. allowed us to continue to, to operate, but we really can’t take that leap forward. Right, that acceleration that we’re going after, without the 24 budget request, it’s still it’s still an essential element. And then there are many other efforts beyond CCA and seethrough, BM that are that are awaiting FY 24 Because they’re in the New START category. And I very much agree that I have to have the capabilities that Frank is generating using the FY 24 budget funds that the Space Force is requested for the things that I’m doing to succeed and and ultimately meet their purpose. The one other thing that I really wanted to make sure I mentioned because it’s so critical and has been such a focus of re optimizing for great power competition is also our focus on the nuclear enterprise. Probably the most risk intolerant part of our business right because operational risk is completely unacceptable in terms of having to be able to meet that national requirement. And because we’re undertaking such a massive modernization program, and so the efforts to enhance our focus on the nuclear enterprise to elevate the nuclear what’s today the nuclear weapons center will be the nuclear System Center in importance and in its authority and its role to coordinate and make sure that we’re able to deliver the nuclear modernization and integrate it into a integrated nuclear enterprise really significant in the in the role of a nuclear material manager who ensures that all of these things including NC three, really work together. It’s a massive part of our reoptimize ation for great power competition. I think it doesn’t get maybe all the attention. But I think it’s one of the most important things that we have.
Hon Frank Calvelli 32:52
Let me start by saying just how impressed I am with the space acquisition workforce that’s out there. The amazing folks as BAE Systems Command Space, our CEO space about my agency, and SAP SQ have are just phenomenal and are making just amazing progress and making architecture more resilient. So thank you. My job is what I want to touch upon but really great comments the under and an Andrew made about integration spaces the great enabler for the joint force. So we get to play two hats. It’s not enough that we deliver our programs on cost and schedule as accuracy and program managers. We have to be system engineers. We have to make sure that our programs that we’re doing tie in integrate with other space programs that are going on, other ground programs going on and then other programs throughout the year force and potentially even the Navy in the army. So we we have to play an integration role and a system engineering or production role. And so far, that’s been going great, but we need to continue to focus on that as well.
Kirk Rieckhoff 33:49
Well, thank you all very much. Have a great conference.
10:55-11:35am MDT
Aurora Ballroom
Space Order of Battle
– Lt. Gen. DeAnna M. Burt, Deputy Chief of Space Operations for Operations, Cyber, and Nuclear
– Lt. Gen. Douglas A. Schiess – United States Space Command’s Combined Joint Force Space Component Commander
– Maj. Gen. Gregory J. Gagnon, Deputy Chief of Space Operations for Intelligence
– Moderator: Gen. Kevin P. Chilton, USAF (Ret.), Explorer Chair at AFA’s Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies
SPEAKERS
Maj Gen Gagnon, Lt Gen Burt, Gen Chilton, Lt Gen Schiess
Gen Chilton 00:00
Mitchell Institute space power advantage Center of Excellence Thank you. Good morning everyone. Well, I’m an old retired guy now that I can tell you I keep track of what’s going on in space and things have changed dramatically since I retired in 2011. The biggest changes our adversaries, China, Russia, have increased their counterspace capabilities, both with direct descent anti satellite weapons on orbit capabilities, ground based capabilities to include jammers and ground based lasers that both may someday migrate to space. But all of these things compelled us to do things differently. Not only to stand up the space force but to start thinking about how we’re going to counter defensively and offensively. These capabilities that our adversaries present, and also demands that we update our order of battle. And that’s what our panel is about today, how we train, how we conduct operations, what hardware and capabilities we need to buy to be successful in the domain. And so I’m honored to be joined by a great panel today of space experts and great space leaders. Next to me is general Greg Gagne. I’m the Deputy Chief of Space Operations for intelligence for the entire space force. Welcome. Thanks to general gagne on the app. Let’s hear it. No small job. No small job. The next individual I think is one of the busiest people in the Pentagon because of the number of jobs she has Lieutenant General Deanna Burt the deputy chief of Space Operations for operations cyber and nuclear. Welcome. And last, but not least, we have Lieutenant Colonel Doug Schatz. And now he’s the one smiling up here because everyone else was doing staff work. He’s a commander, not not just one command to command so the general chest is the commander of us. I’m sorry, commander of US Space Force and space. And commander of US Space commands Combined Joint Force space component. So welcome to you all, and let’s just jump into what compels us. So, general Gagnon. I want to start with you with your intel expertise. What’s going on that got us so worried in space these days?
Maj Gen Gagnon 02:29
Well, it’s great to have the opportunity to talk to such a large group of folks both here and online. And let me re-emphasize a few points. China, China, China, our Space Force is four years old. Their Space Force is older. Their Space Force is in third grade. When they started their Space Force was about December. 2015. Where were you in 2015? And from 2015 to today, they’ve increased their on orbit assets 500%. They now have over 900 satellites in outer space and you might say that 900 is a big number. You may say 900 is not a big number, because you look at SpaceX and you see the things that our commercial industry is doing. But in the United States for the 9000 satellites that the US has up there. 70% of them are communication satellites or broadband satellites. We put satellites in outer space to connect the world. Over half of the CCPs satellites in outer space, our remote sensing for the last two years, they’ve put two over 200 satellites on orbit each year, and in each year over 100 of those were remote sensing satellites. Those remote sensing satellites are designed to find, fix and track joint forces in the western Pacific. In just my time in the Space Force, which is only three years, they have moved from good enough to almost just as good with their surveillance and reconnaissance capabilities in the western Pacific. That is an important fact for all of us to understand. We have often deployed with space superiority, because we could move to a pod we could get on the plane, we could go to the central command, and we haven’t done that logistics under threat that has now changed.
Gen Chilton 04:40
That is a big difference. And it sounds like their focus is developing a capability that is specifically the space based capabilities specifically focused on countering the United States in the western Pacific.
Maj Gen Gagnon 04:51
That is accurate, sir. I would say for their Space Force. There’s two main mission areas. One is to try to take out Doug shafts and his forces in space so that they can remove our ability to fuel the joint force. But the second part of it is to try to create the space capabilities that we have all grown accustomed to to make us the most lethal military in the world.
Gen Chilton 05:16
Thanks, Charles. Yes, sir. You don’t have a view on this as well because you’re the operational commander. And I’m sure you don’t discount the Russians as well. So could you talk a little if you want to expand on the China threat, please. But could you Russia, North Korea is now becoming spacefaring with their satellites. Go ahead,
Lt Gen Schiess 05:35
Joe, tell them thanks. Thanks for doing this too. It’s a pleasure to be on the panel especially with these friends of mine. too. But sir, thanks for your leadership in the space community as well. And as you said , I’m going to repeat it. I have the best three star job in the United States Space Force right now at being the commander of US Space Force and space and getting to be general whiting’s. CGF SEC is Combined Joint Force Base Component Commander and so yes, we think about this on a regular basis. And we have great partnerships. But yesterday the Chinese obviously are challenging pay or pacing challenges. We think about that on a regular basis. You talked about some of the things here but they have demonstrated they have in 2007 they demonstrated a direct descent anti satellite missile, took out one of their own satellites and created debris that still causes problems today. They have a satellite that they’ve demonstrated can go to another satellite, grapple that satellite and take it to a graveyard. They’ve talked about that being done for you know, cleaning up debris, but they can do that to the United States or one of our allies, satellites as well. They have jammers. They have lasers. They have a million other things out there that are going after as general Gaghan said, our ability to do our mission to deliver what we need to do for the joint force is very concerning, but you are correct. Russia also has capability. They also have a direct descent anti-satellite that caused 1000s of pieces of debris as well. As a matter of fact, we had to tell the International Space Station to take cover during that time when there were cosmonauts on that platform as well. And so they put their own people at risk when they did that. They also have lasers. They also have jammers. They have a satellite out there that’s gotten close to one of our satellites and they have some exercises they’re doing with nesting doll type satellites. So I’m concerned about that. And as you said, North Korea and others. This is the domain that people are now concerned about. It is no longer this benign domain. I’m not sure it ever really was. But we have to be prepared to all those threats and I just want to say I’m I’m excited about what the guardians are doing to get after this threat because they know that this is what is going to be the thing that keeps us having the same way of life that we have every day and that these people can’t take that away from us.
Gen Chilton 07:58
Our guardians certainly are not so secret weapons. That’s right. Yes, sir. That’s great. I agree with you well, so to counter these offensive capabilities our adversaries have developed. We recognize that we own a few satellites up there and that perhaps with it’d be better to have more another word spread the target set out and so we started a proliferation concept so general Burt I want to I think we’re people understand what we’re doing in that regard. But are there other advantages, besides resilience to having a proliferated Leo constellation?
Lt Gen Burt 08:34
Thank you, sir. I appreciate the time and Mitchell Institute and being here with this team. My brothers in arms are always good to be here and work with them every day and what we do. I want to reiterate something that you’ve heard General Saltzman talk about and he alluded to this morning, our theory of success, competitive endurance and why I talk about this as there are three pillars to it. The first is exquisite space domain awareness. How do we have the foundational intelligence that General Gagnon and his team and across the US Space Command intelligence community, provide in the domain to understand attribution and when bad behaviors happen and what the intent are of different capabilities? The second is that resiliency piece can we take a punch and continue to fight through it? And third, if required, do we have options we can present to the national command authority to do responsible counterspace campaigning? So all three of those are really important and what we’ve built on in the last year since Gerald Saltzman has taken the seat as a team to get after his theory of success. So sir, to your question, I wanted to give that kind of foundation because when you talk about proliferated constellations, and you talk about diversifying, so having missile warning missile track in different orbits, both Heo Geo and now, MEO, I think that’s important because you make the targeting solution for the enemy harder. You impose costs upon them to have more capability and magazine depth to try to take that capability away from the joint force. So that all goes into that resiliency piece to be able to take a punch. But we also know that by diversifying constellations, in different orbits, you get different capabilities. We’ve seen it with intelligence and surveillance and reconnaissance. Being in different altitudes and orbit regimes. You get different capabilities, broad area coverage, versus very precise images. So there’s advantages to mission but there’s also to that resiliency as part of our theory of success.
Gen Chilton 10:17
You increase revisit rates to Yes sir. So they actually can become a global sensor in Leo, where geo is just got that one steering position. You know, we also talked about this disaggregation so wanted to take away the ability for the adversary to hit one satellite and take out three separate capabilities. And one of those areas has been a missile warning. So we’re, we’re gonna have Leo and we of course we still have geo but Mia was a new piece of that. Can you tell us why mele was brought into the discussion?
Lt Gen Burt 10:48
Yes, sir. And as we talked about by disaggregation, again, you had you force them to cost you impose upon them to be able to target and take out an entire capability. When we had our previous structures with very high value assets. Gen Saltzman talked this morning about the Merchant Marine, you would have significant single high value assets that provided that missile warning capability. So taking out one or two, you really could cripple our capabilities and be able to provide that to the joint force. Now that you get to disaggregate multiple orbital regimes you make that target set problem harder for them, and also allow us to gracefully decline if we were to take and absorb a hit.
Gen Chilton 11:24
General Gagnon do is what are the threats and Meo that we worry about? Are they similar?
Maj Gen Gagnon 11:29
The threats in Meo depend on the weapon system. So the important thing to know when you think about the PLA is that they’re exploiting both the ability to get to space from the ground with threats such as the direct ascent ASAP that we talked about quite frequently, but also with high powered lasers. They also have quite frankly shown and demonstrated their ability to weaponize space. They did that as Doug kind of pointed out with their SJ 21, about two years ago. And that was the satellite that did the capture of a defunct satellite for them and then pushed it out to the geo orbit. A considerable effort. If you were in Beijing, and you were sitting in a conference room, thinking about diversification of their weapons, and how each one has particular targets. They’re thinking adversary, just like we’re thinking adversary. So diversification across regimes is important because it complicates the equation. But one of the key things we’re trying to do is disincentivize first mover advantage, and those are the larger sub pieces that general Burt talked about, that you highlighted disaggregation diversification proliferation. What we’re trying to do is not give them the opportunity for a knockout punch, because if they cannot get the knockout punch, they will not gain information superiority in their warfare doctrine. Information superiority is a prerequisite to other domain superiority, think information superiority, followed by localized air superiority, then unlocking the surface combatants, both maritime and ground. That is sort of the thought process inside the doctrine. If you can prevent step one. Maybe you prevent Step Two from ever even starting. Thanks.
Gen Chilton 13:35
Victus Knox. We talked about this recently, and we have a wish he could share with the crowd. The importance of having demonstrated that capability one time but you know, there’s going to be follow ons. But also, you know, we have the x 37, which is a very flexible reusable spacecraft. Maybe also if you could hit on why you think these are so important to the future force?
Lt Gen Burt 13:58
No, I agree. Victus Knox was a huge success. And so kudos to the SSC team, and industry that helped enable and make that happen. It shows we have to get after speed. And it’s delivering capability at the speed of aggression and winds needed and how do we provide in that part of that pillar three of responsible counterspace campaigning? How do we provide capability to the combatant command, as well as to the National Command Authority for decisions when counterspace capabilities or threats are launched into orbit? How would we respond? What are our response options in order to deal with those threats? And this capability vector SNOC show that we could take as Gerald Saltzman said this morning, from the capability being delivered to the launch facility within five days up and operational. That’s incredible. There are absolutely second and third order effects to all of our programs of how we fill gaps or fill needs that the combatant commander would need from capabilities to support the joint force, but more importantly, it also allows us to act and respond very quickly to aggression. If it happens at a time and place of our choosing, and also create some of our own operational surprise to the adversary of what we are going to launch. We also know as General General gagnant is very clearly articulated. The enemy gets to vote every day. And so even if we put capability on orbit, to counter those threats, over time, those threats will evolve. So again, having this ability to quickly respond at speed and get a capability to counter a threat is critical because they are voting every day and the threats are continuing to change. So this is a very cost effective way and rapid reaction capability for us to be able to respond to the combatant command. I also think you know, we talk a lot about hardware capability, but it also really went after a lot of process. General Saltzman alluded to this: how do we work with the FAA for clearances and range clearances? How do we work besides finding pads? Are there ways to do that quicker and more efficiently? And to think outside the box? I think the team really evaluated all that. Now how do we take that data? Put it conceptually in a ConOps and how do we apply it across all of our mission sets and get faster everywhere, not just with the Victorinox capabilities?
Gen Chilton 16:05
Thank you, you know, I reflect back on operationally responsive space RS, which was the first time we started thinking about this and there were two great impediments. One was launch, you know, you’re going to have missiles ready to launch. We weren’t doing that much of a launch and that CONOPS was never fleshed out. The other was to be able to quickly build a satellite or add a capability to orbit there wasn’t in the tenure design process. Today we’ve gotten a lot of small companies that are very agile, and we got hot production lines on satellites, and launch is becoming less and less of an issue with high production lines and multiple contractors. So it seems to me that this technically responsive spaces is something that could actually happen and also you know, we I think we make the mistake of thinking that nothing’s going to happen in three days. This could be a campaign and if it’s a campaign we’re gonna have to reconstitute we’re gonna have to put up new things and and general shifts your thoughts because you’re gonna be you’re gonna be the warfighter.
Lt Gen Schiess 17:03
Yes, sir. So thanks for that. I totally agree. With general Berg and her comments on this, it gives the combatant commander and in this case, the CG F 60. Ability to one replenish So say we’re not in a proliferated art architecture yet, and something is taken out or we have a failure or something like that. This gives us the ability to go out put something together, put it on orbit and maybe get a capability laid back faster than we could. So that’s one avenue there. And then as things change so fast, and something gets on orbit or there’s some other thing that we need to find out about. This gives the Commander General Whiting, a US Space Command the ability to send a plan or to me to say hey, let’s go after what can we do to take a look at this, what can we do to negate this? And then we can get with, you know, SpaceForce staff and SSC to go, Hey, what do we have out there that we can put up very quickly one to send a message to our adversaries that we’re watching and that we’re aware of what they’re doing and here’s our capability to get after that, but also get something up there as fast as possible not wait around until we find out what it is from other sources. And so I think this has a huge capability that US Space Command and our other service components to their combatant commands are going to be akin for
Gen Chilton 18:13
Yeah, Charles. Thank you.
Maj Gen Gagnon 18:16
I think this this concept is even more important than it seems on face value Gen children kind of highlighted how the conditions are ripe inside our US industrial base in order to make this concept a reality today, and we kind of did act one and proved it. Let me let me give you all a moment of caution that the conditions may be ripe for the Beijing environment to be able to do that as well. Over the last three years, we’ve watched the Russian launch market collapse, it collapse because of the actions of Ross cosmos the further invasion of Ukraine sanctions them trying to hold one web hostage on a launch with their satellites because they were already in Russia. So demand has not returned to Russia for launch. Beijing and the CCP recognize this and they are rapidly expanding launch capabilities in China. They’re expanding beyond their national space ports today. And they’re executing sort of those first hops that happened before reusable launch. And we’re seeing that inside China today. What I want to share with this audience is that it’s important not just for US companies, which probably will have restrictions anyway, but for international companies, not to help the CCP move forward. Now, that seems like an easy ask, but what does that mean? That means don’t take launch contracts with Chinese launch providers, because commercial launch in China actually started in 2023. They’re trying to gain international revenue that can help offset costs that will support national security launch for the PLA. So let’s not help them. I think we should all agree on that. Not just in this room, but in our audience. That’s online.
Gen Chilton 20:02
Great. Thanks. So we used to have a thing called Joint STARS they’re I think they’re all in the boneyard now, and GM TI was certainly a capability that the terrestrial warfighter desired and needed and used in combat. There’s advantages to moving into space and Space Force has flowed money to the NRO to be the acquisition authority for this new constellation and capability in space. But what’s what’s not clear to me is who’s going to operate and who’s going to task the GMP AI sensors. When the jam ti sensor was on an airplane, we had an airman in the back and they were working directly for the CO comm who was tasking them, tell him where to go, what to image and to affect the operational tempo and even tactical effects on the battlefield. So who’s going to operate the GTI constellation general Berg who may throw that out? You
Lt Gen Burt 21:01
know, sir, it’s exactly the same guardians will work the tasking of that system with a combatant command on what they are allocated of when the capability is available to them working on the joint staffs, allocations and priorities that are given up. So that will be tasked worked with the CO comm through the service components at each of the COCOMs back to guardians who will fly that satellite shoulder to shoulder with the National Reconnaissance Office every day to provide those capabilities. So there is a definite partnership there with the intelligence community, that overall tasking and managing what the Joint Staff allocation is and those priorities will be handled. Working through Space Forces space for that global capability. But the tasking when it’s over your head that combatant commander has tasking authority will set the priorities just as they did with J stars and GMP AI will now be the same for space. And this isn’t the first so let’s be clear, I mean, in denied environments we’ve seen big YSR has problems getting into a Chinese fight, that’s going to be difficult. So we’re going to see many phenomenologies Go to the space domain, not just the GM TI. So this is laying the groundwork for where we go for the future and how to provide that critical ISR capability not only to the joint force, but as general gagnant would probably also argue how do we provide those critical space domain awareness or intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance in support of Space Force maintenance, how do we how do we work that and as every service, we need those capabilities? So we’re proud to be part of the joint force and provide those Yeah.
Gen Chilton 22:26
Would you agree that you know, in peacetime it makes sense to share all assets and all intelligence collection across not only the COCOMs but the National Intelligence community that for this specific capability. When you’re in a shooting conflict, the communists be the primary supported element and Tasker and controller have the capability.
Lt Gen Burt 22:45
I think the key difference here, sir, is when whether it’s peacetime or wartime, you want that combatant commander to have that capability. Same thing happened with J stars, yes, other intelligence entities other combatant commands can request. Let’s say I’m EUCOM they can come to you calm and request that I collect certain things STRATCOM could ask you calm to collect something, for example. That’s all up to the combatant commander and how those requirements rack and stack for their collection but ultimately EUCOM would own the collection over their theater and what gets what gets tasked all the data. Let’s be clear, all the data is shared across the entire intelligence community and to everyone so we are not trying to constrain the data from being used by anyone. So all the intelligence community will have access to anything collected from these platforms. It
Gen Chilton 23:30
makes so much sense to put it in a data lake that people can draw off of super so that the Chinese recently launched a space plane and it deployed six objects in space. So general chess, let me start with you and see what complications this provides you and then general gagnant. I’ll ask for your intel assessment about what they’re up to.
Lt Gen Schiess 23:53
It was Sir, thanks. Appreciate that question. So obviously we are we are watching what they are doing with their space plane. Do you want to correct something there? Those objects were actually what were classified as debris, and they have since decayed and so we are tracking the space plane we’re tracking the rocket booster that went with them and we’re we are obviously concerned as the Chinese continue to bring on bass control capability and we have to have the ability to defend our assets. And so this is a high priority for us to watch what what they’re doing with the space plane. And they’re they’re doing experiments they’re they’re doing that but we’re we’re watching so
Gen Chilton 24:32
does it have similar maneuverability or does it have maneuverability on orbit that gives you trouble keeping track of it?
Lt Gen Schiess 24:39
Sir, we, as you know, we’re always looking and we can track this vehicle. Great.
Gen Chilton 24:46
And their intent, which was always what we asked the intel community, what do you think?
Maj Gen Gagnon 24:52
I think that their space plane which is on its third mission, if you will, so this is the third launch for them. The first one was a few days. The second one was about nine months. And this one I think went up on December 14 through December 15. This space plane is designed for them to get to outer space test experiments also provide maneuverability for unworn collection probably and a number of other sensing kind of experiments that they’d want to do. It also enables them to practice remote proximity operations and things similar which are advanced advanced space operations. And that’s important. That’s important for them to develop as a Space Force. And it’s important, but for us, it’s threatening, right? We need to be developing advanced tactics and advanced operations in space so that we can learn and get better our space plane is on mission number seven. It’s currently in outer space, it’s the x 37 V. And on our space plan, you know we’re doing an experiment for the kids down the street at the Air Force and others are taking a beating up there to see how RADIATION AFFECTS the beam. But we’re also doing space domain awareness experimentation right so we can better sense and understand the dynamics of sensing in outer space. Now, that’s a US initiative, the x 37 V, which is you know, proudly presented by United States Space Force, but we’re also working with our partners to improve our ability to see in outer space. General Saltzman this morning talked about dark witch and he had a picture of it behind him which was the the dish we’re going to put in Australia that helped us observe deep space on operationally relevant timelines. So even though we have collection today the collection we will have in the future will be even better. Also brief this morning was Sachi. Sachi was the two satellite payloads that were developed by MIT Lincoln Labs, which are remote sensors for space domain awareness. They are going to be hosted on what’s called QC SS which is the Japanese PN T satellite network. So with our allies and partners, we are learning to improve our space domain awareness in the very near future by orchestrating our business plans to do so. That’s something I don’t think we were truly successful prior to having a space force. So although we have the world’s best space domain awareness today, we will be even better in three years. And when I say better, I mean we will be even better with our partners because we are stronger together. Certainly
Gen Chilton 27:34
first principles in any domain that you’re going to conduct operations what’s what’s going on in that domain. There used to be an argument against us even talking about space superiority or space as a warfighting domain. Back in the day when we were so dependent on space and none of our adversaries did. Arguably China depends on space as much as we do today to achieve their goals of keeping us out of the Western Pacific. Does this compel us general chefs to develop counterspace capabilities to make sure that we can either degrade tonight or destroy their capabilities that, frankly, hold our fleets at risk and hold our aircraft at risk? operating in the western Pacific? Sir,
Lt Gen Schiess 28:21
thanks. Thanks for that and obviously a very important question. So at US Space Forces space and in my CJ fsic role for commander of US Space Command, I have three lines of effort that I have to go after and one is I have to protect the joint warfighter from space enabled attack on them and that’s exactly what you are getting at the ability for the Chinese or the Russians or anybody else to use space, ISR or other activities to be able to target our soldiers, sailors, airmen, marine and guardians out there. And so we have to come up with capabilities that allow us to protect them from some space enabled attack. And so, yes, we have to develop those capabilities. It gets back to what general Gaghan was just talking about with dark and our ability to know our domain, our ability to know when you know as I think General Saltzman said the other day when something moves, we know it moved and then we kind of calculate where we think is gonna go next. But we need to get beyond that. We need to know where it’s going well, and then we have to work with our intelligence folks on what is the intent of what they’re doing so that that helps us protect the joint warfighter. We also have to defend our own assets. We have to make sure that our high value assets are protected communication or regular communication, our missile warning and we talked about proliferated, architectures and things like that we have to have capabilities to protect our own assets because we have to do the next mission which is deliver these capabilities as I’ve heard gentleman say many times, our joint force is architected and grown on the fact that they’re going to have space to do their job. And so we can’t allow that they don’t have that. So we have to protect we have to defend and we deliver that. That means that we have to have those capabilities, sir.
Gen Chilton 29:56
Thanks, Gagnon on the other point. I
Maj Gen Gagnon 29:58
would just I would add a few things. Those are all important. And all of that starts with providing general chef’s with improved situational awareness. And although I talked about those longer term projects that were government to government, there’s also SSC initiatives with our own commercial sector that are dramatically improving our space domain awareness today. We have gone just in my last two assignments from a situation where we could handle and operate in direct and orchestrate 19 telescopes around the world to over 600 telescopes around the world by buying into a couple of commercial entities through BB Gulf and our outstanding activities down at SSC. So, space. You know, defense starts with space awareness and we’ve made some significant progress in just the last two years.
Lt Gen Schiess 30:52
Yeah, so Joe gag is talking about our joint air JCO that does that. And so that’s a part of s four s great partnership with SSC and BB Goff to be able to do that. And we are ratcheting that up. And that brings us back to the coalition that we just talked about, because it’s not just Americans that are doing that. We’re now working on that. With our UK partners or Australian partners are Japanese partners. And it gets us the capability to look after things that we can use our assets to look after the higher value, but we can then use this to look across the whole domain. So it is a game changer. We’ll continue to work on that. But we also have to bring on those those exquisite capabilities to get after some of the things we have to do if we get into a conflict.
Gen Chilton 31:35
Great point. No doubt great allies and partners give the Chinese pause. Very important point but you brought up commercials. So let me go down that path. Of course we’ve used commercial satellites and past conflicts, but not in an environment where they were put at risk by an adversary. We searched, you know, commercial comps for the Middle East for many years and used commercial satellites for that. But we have to think about it a little differently. I would suspect that if we’re using those in an operation, whether it be comps or ISR, from space, commercial imagery from space, whatever. Well how are we thinking when it comes to protecting them or defending them against these threats or deterring attacks on them? Any thoughts on that? No,
Lt Gen Burt 32:23
I think we’ve seen from the outset of the war in Ukraine, we had a lot of commercial capabilities being used by the Ukrainians and one of the first salvos was through cyber attacks and other means where the Russians attacked commercial space capabilities. They’ve also had extensive jamming of those capabilities to try to deny them to the Ukrainians for you. So absolutely. I expect that in any fight with any potential adversary. If we are using commercial capabilities, those commercial capabilities are going to be at risk. So how do we create, again, that depth and ability to use both commercials in conjunction with our military capabilities? That’s important to us to create that resiliency, but knowing that then that means they’re going to be attacked. We spend a lot of time with our commercial partners. I’m sure Doug will elaborate on the commercial integration. So he’s already talked about the JCO. But how do we talk to our commercial partners in WarGames and exercises about what does that mean and how would you protect them? And in what ways would you procure what does that mean to their business model? The commercial companies are selling to multiple nations, not just the United States? And so how would that affect their business model? And how is that really put in our contractual agreements of how we would operate together in the domain? I think all of those are important, moving forward. We also know that each of the service components that we have would be if we had commercial capability that was critical to their mission, they would be putting those out as part of a critical asset list, they would be nominating those to the critical asset list for let’s say, indo PAYCOM general master Lear would be providing that for Admiral Aquilino to say, Hey Sir, these are the commercial capabilities you most depend on and care about for your mission that would then get pushed to space for space and US Space Command to look at overall then how does that get compared with and prioritized across the globe? And then what do we have from defensive capabilities to get to a defended asset list and dug out there’s nothing else you have to talk about that process and how you guys do that?
Lt Gen Schiess 34:16
Yeah, thanks, Joe Burt. So obviously, just like any other component that’s out there from a perspective of we have to defend our assets that we have to be able to execute our mission. And so as general Burgess talked about, each of the components that are supporting a geographic combatant command can come up with the space order of their critical x critical asset list and then that comes to us some of that is on their defended x s. Wow, I can’t say that word, defended asset list and so they will work through that but as it comes to on orbit capabilities, and that’s up to us to do that, we have to work with all the other geographic combatant commanders in Space Command to come up with the definitive asset list. And so, commercial is very, very important in that and actually General masliah and I did a exercise last June pack century space century and the conversation between the two of us on what is what is the most important commercial assets that you have and then what can we do to support you on that to get after Admiral Aquilino is priority so I do want to talk a little bit about the commercial integration. So at the combined Space Operations Center at Vandenberg, we have the commercial Integration Cell, it’s 10 companies. And they’re there. They have cleared individuals to the top secret SCI level that can be on our ops floor. Not all of them have someone on the ops floor all the time, but then we have the calm capabilities to get to them. And so general Burt talked about the Russian invasion into Ukraine and the ability for them to go after some of those commercial assets. We were talking to that commercial asset because they were available. We were talking to them, they were providing information that then we were providing to our other nine companies. 10 is not enough for that number. We have to expand the commercial integration. So to get after that and then just recently, there was a try agreements tricycle agreement signed by the commander of US Space Command, the director of the NGA and the director of the NRO to get after not just those companies that do commercial, SATCOM and maybe commercial SDA, but also provide some of those assets to the intelligence community. And so now we are on hook from US Space Command. To provide threat warnings to them to provide information, but we also get something back from them. Sometimes they may have some information that we may not have because of the capabilities that they have on us that then from a nondisclosure agreement we can provide out to everyone else and so we’ve got to expand that because it’s only going to get more and more important to have our commercial partners with us. But as you said, other nations out there are going to go after these assets, as well. And so we have to be able to protect them as much as possible. There’s probably
Gen Chilton 36:45
some lessons learned from the 80s when President Reagan flagged off all the vessels in the Persian Gulf, which there’s consequences to attacking a US flag vessels. Our commercial partners should have American flags I suspect they all do on their satellites, and so a similar responsibility to defend them. Not only because of our dependence on them, but because they’re American. Makes sense to me. Sorry. I
Lt Gen Burt 37:12
think it’s important to you that we codify this. So I think you’ve heard the department of defense is looking at its own commercial strategy, and how we move forward on that we also as a Space Force, have been building that commercial strategy. We want to make sure we dovetail with the DoD strategy. We were close to releasing ours but with the DoD now coming out and being in work we wanted to make sure we did a last check before we got ahead of the DoD strategy, but that that should be coming here in the next few months. But what I think is important is what you just talked about, how do you contractually codify that? How do you start to wargame and general Saltzman talked yesterday in the classified session about experiential relationships. So those WarGames those exercises, how do we play through these scenarios? Not just talk about them? Let’s let’s play them through in a TTS or an exercise or war game and find where those those pain points are friction areas, and then how would we codify them for future use? So I think there’s a lot of good work here still to do, and how do we put it down and continue to evaluate it over time? Great,
Gen Chilton 38:07
thanks. We’re about at the end of our time here. I want to end with a point that the space order of battle, it’s not something we’re just going to do and put on the shelf. And when we talked about today about refilling satellites on orbit, repairing satellites on orbit, none of our satellites on orbit today have that capability. And so it’s going to demand a new space order battles as we put more technologies forward to support both the terrestrial fight but also to make sure we can gain a maintain spirit in space should someone come after us. So this work on the space order battles of living and breathing effort that takes constant attention, and I feel this group of individuals, shepherding it through at this point in our history. So thank you very much for participating today. About a round of applause for our panel, folks.