Air & Space Warfighters in Action: CMSSF John Bentivegna

Air & Space Warfighters in Action: CMSSF John Bentivegna

10 May, 2024

Speaker:
John F. Bentivegna, Chief Master Sergeant of the Space Force

Key Takeaways:

• Personnel Development and Readiness: CMSSF John Bentivegna discussed training and career development for Space Force personnel to prepare them for space operations in the context of global competition. The focus is on maintaining high standards of readiness through targeted exercises and training programs.

• Integration of Commercial Technologies: CMSSF Bentivegna mentioned the Space Force’s strategy to integrate commercial technologies to enhance their operational capabilities. This involves adopting innovations from the commercial sector to keep the force technologically advanced.
• International Collaborations and Security Enhancements: He outlined the importance of building international partnerships for space domain awareness and security. This approach involves establishing cooperative norms with allies to address challenges like anti-satellite operations from competitors such as Russia and China.

Quotes:

On the Strategic Vision and Service Evolution of the Space Force:

“I think you know because we’re only four and a half years old right. I think when the service was envisioned and established I think it was you know looking at great power competition as kind of one of the forcing functions as domain started to change.”

“What that means for us as a service…we’re looking at readiness standards but also what are the exercises and training events that we do to generate readiness.”

“There’s career paths that we’re looking at that are under the pillar of developing people to generate readiness. What is how we are looking at our readiness standards? You know, for many years I was a space operator. I did this for you know almost three years I’ve been doing this business and how do we look at the readiness and the systems and the personnel and the training required for the high end fight in great power competition.”

On Importance of Partnerships:

“General Saltzman and he had his space chiefs Summit. And it was a bit it was a day where we got together with 18 partner nations and really talked about you know where are we as a Space Force and our journey and development and then some of our partners were just kind of starting if you will to kind of get into and trying to develop the you know their their echelons of command are all at different levels but sharing kind of where where we are and lessons learned.”

“When you look at you know for example I think you know rideshare share with Japan right for space domain awareness you know we’re looking to partner with with Norway for some protected SATCOM capabilities. We have some of our deep space radar right that we’re working with Australia and UK.”

On Building Norms and Collaborative Frameworks in Partnerships:

“The consistent theme was right that we have to have some norms of behavior in the domain because you know the domain provides only capabilities and how we fight but also how we live for the space economy exploration commerce. So everyone has a vested interest in working together right to kind of figure out what the norms of behavior are and then also work together from a collaboration perspective.”

On Innovation and Integration of Commercial Technologies:

“The kind of the model that we’ve picked up is…exploit what we have, buy what we can, only build what we must.”

On Guardian Development and Training:

“We send these men and women they come in and join the service…but then we have to give them the time to train to hone those skills to be the warfighters that they want to be.” 

On Challenges of Information Classification and Sharing:

“So we’ve really tried to address that and I think in December and January, Deputy SecDef Hicks put out a memo that says the services, especially from the space portfolio, need to really look at why things have to be so highly classified. And with an understanding of that, we have got to be able to work across agencies across nations to get after what the nation expects of us.”

On Operational Readiness and Capability Development:

“How do we look at our readiness standards… what are the exercises and training events that we do to generate readiness… and how do we project power.”

On Technology and Innovation Integration:

“The kind of model that we’ve picked up is, we’re going to exploit what we have, buy what we can, and only build what we must.”

On the Space Force’s Approach to Health and Fitness:

“So the holistic health approach has three components to it: Continuous fitness assessment, human performance optimization, and education.”

On Adapting Training to Current Needs:

“We send these men and women to come in and join the service… but then we have to give them the time to train to hone those skills to be the warfighters that they want to be.”

On Integration and Role of Technology:

“So let’s talk about so specifically changes from what we’re doing now to addressing just focusing more on big competitors like China or Russia or some of these other actors out there that Space Force is doing either in their acquisition or training for guardians.”

[End]