Secretary Frank Kendall – Mitchell Institute
Key Takeaways:
-Secretary Kendall had his first conversation with the new administration’s transition team yesterday. The space domain and the necessity of teaming was a topic of conversation however he did not mention what was said.
-He discussed how “devastating” a CR is to national security and the importance of getting funding on time.
-Secretary Kendall told attendees that there is consensus within the DOD that there needs to be budget growth for the Space Force. His team is leaving behind a draft budget for the transition teams, noting, [One of their highest priorities should be increasing Space Force funding and increasing space capabilities.]
-On operational imperatives today, Secretary Kendall is happy with the progress made. For OI #1, he noted there has been very good progress, however the service needs to move faster in the counterspace arena. He also mentioned the progress made in C3BM, noting the complexity of the mission and desire to move faster.
-Words of wisdom to his successor include “China, China, China. One team, one fight.”
Notes below.
19 Dec 2024
Frank Kendall, Secretary, USAF
Progress the Last Three Years
-Overall I’m happy with the progress we’ve made since I came in.
-We had a number of things to do organizationally to create a competitive ecosystem and to compete against China. We’ve made good progress.
-We’ve made reasonable progress on the funding we need.
-We’ve identified the operational imperatives and now we need to continue to get after them.
-Overall, very pleased. I wish I could continue the work but I feel like I’ve left the Department in a good place.
Next Gen Air Dominance
-What drove us to take a look at these systems was budget constraints.
-We also had to look at other functions and come up with sound decisions on what we’d pursue. The election happened as we were doing this. Whatever we decide to do, the team will need to be able to support it.
-We’ve decided to delay a decision. The analysis is done but we don’t want to own this decision. We’re kicking it off into the next administration and they can pick it up and move fast.
Space Domain & Teaming
-I had my first conversation with the transition team yesterday and we talked about this.
-Space Force was formed from the Air Force. It’s small. We brought in elements from the other services as well. We brought in Space Development Agency. Those things have all gone fine.
-Intelligence Community, we have a good relationship with NRO. We need to work together closely.
-Space Force is about to have its fifth birthday. They’ve accomplished a lot. There’s a sound culture. What they can’t get around is the small size. That’s a fundamental limitation. A very important part of what Space Force does is provide support to the joint force.
-Space Force needs to do extreme teaming with a number of stakeholders. More people in the other services who are space aware need to advocate for space and integrate it into their missions. That needs to be done. I’m trying to create more space awareness.
-The joint force is going to be very dependent on space and space capabilities will be decisive in conflict. We need to do extreme teaming and make sure we have the expertise.
CR
-All of this is devastating. We’ve put out a long list of direct impacts of CRs. Going six months is incredibly debilitating. We’re giving away time. I can’t say enough how much of a negative effect CRs have. It’s dysfunctional. There’s nothing positive to say about CRs.
Avoiding Singular Points of Vulnerability
-An adversary should always have more than one problem to solve.
-Threats and technology have driven a shift into space. The shift is definitely there and there’s even more reliance on space.
Space Budget Growth
-There’s a consensus in DOD that we need to vamp up in space. Our sister services know this.
-We have legacy systems and we want to get to more resiliency and we want more counterspace capabilities. Those both need to be ramped up.
-Space Force is 65% roughly R&D. The new administration will have to look at this but we’re leaving a draft budget behind. One of their highest priorities should be increasing Space Force funding and increasing space capabilities.
-Air Force can’t pay for Space Force. There needs to be some shuffling in the overall DOD budget.
Strategic Deterrence
-We need to do what’s necessary to have strategic deterrence. We need to have effective forces against our most pacing challenges.
-It’s a given that we’ll have nuclear deterrents. There are options with conventional capabilities as well.
Mobility in the Indo Pacific
-Our biggest concerns, you can’t buy enough air mobility to move the joint force. You can move a lot of people and capability but there are practical limitations. I don’t think we’re badly sized for that but we have an aging force.
-China is reaching out to greater ranges. We’ve got to address the survivability problem.
AI Impacts on DAF
-What people call AI is not really AI, it’s automation in a lot of cases.
-Data and information, going through massive amounts of data to establish connections. There are creative things to identify courses of action.
-There are options to implement it in warfighting platforms.
-Platform level like automated behaviors but under human control, that’s a big one and the machines can do it faster.
-Sorting out complex situations and presenting courses of action to the warfighter, high density, low latency situations, that’s where we’re going. Seconds and fractions of seconds matter.
Operational Imperatives Today
-Space order of battle, very good progress there. Largely moving to more resilient architectures, distributed comms and MW. It’s moved forward really well. The place we need to move faster is counterspace. We need to move faster and to have more effective and more efficient ways to address this problem.
-C3BM, Gen Cropsey, we’re going to give him another star. He’s working integration. We’re making progress here. Again I’d like us to move faster. It’s a really tough job but Luke is doing a great job.
-GMTI, we’re in the early stages and have made good progress.
-Air dominance, we need a final decision on NGAD. We talked about this.
-Forward basing, we are using that money to make the bases more resilient. With more funds we could be faster.
-B21s, doing good so far I feel good about it.
-Resiliency, this is a problem beyond Space Force, Air Force, DOD. It comes down to infrastructure. There needs to be a lot of attention here.
-We added mobility, EW, munitions, training and testing. This is a long-term race. People will spend their whole careers working towards these. China will not stop.
Words of Wisdom for Successor
-China, China, China. One team one fight.
-Put yourself in learning mode and be open to very capable professionals who will get you up to speed. It’s going to be intense.
-If you’re coming in not from the community, please listen to the people around you who have a great depth of knowledge.
-The thing I think will be ultimately the most transformative will be the CCAs. They will ultimately have the longest lasting effect.
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