Advancing the Space Force’s Combat Capability

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Col. Jennifer Reeves, USAF (Ret.):

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to our panel on Advancing The Space Force’s Combat Capability. I’m Jennifer Reeves, Senior Resident Fellow for Space Studies at the Mitchell Institute’s Spacepower Advantage Center of Excellence. Over the past several years, the conversation about military space has fundamentally changed. We are no longer debating whether space is a war fighting domain. Guardians are conducting combat operations today. Adversaries are actively contesting the space-enabled capabilities our forces depend upon, and the Space Force is preparing for an environment that will only become more complex and contested. Earlier this year, the Space Force released its Future Operating Environment 2040 and Objective Force Baseline, describing both the environment it expects to face and the force it believes will be required to succeed within it. U.S. Space Command has now added the Space Warfighting Environment 2040, bringing a distinctly war fighter-centered perspective to that discussion, how the joint force will experience, fight, and win in that future environment.

And that’s exactly the perspective we are so fortunate to have on the stage today. Joining me first is Lieutenant General Dennis Bythewood, commander of U.S. Space Forces – Space and U.S. Space Command’s Combined Joint Force Base Component Commander. General Bythewood commands the forces responsible for conducting space superiority operations and delivering global space-enabled effects for U.S. Space Command. Next is Brigadier General Brian Denaro, Commander of U.S. Space Forces – Pacific and Joint Force Space Component Commander for U.S. Pacific Command. General Denaro leads space operations supporting U.S. Pacific Command, integrating U.S. allied and partner space capabilities across what may be our most consequential theater. And finally, Brigadier General Todd Benson, commander of U.S. Space Forces – Central and Combined Forces Space Component Commander for U.S. Central Command. General Benson commands Space Force operations across the CENTCOM area of responsibility, where Guardians have recently been putting many of the concepts we’re going to discuss today into practice.

Gentlemen, thank you for being here. We have three commanders, three very different perspectives on the space fight in less than 40 minutes, so let’s get right to it. General Bythewood, we’ve spent years talking about the Space Force becoming a war fighting service. Recent operations have given us a much clearer picture of what that actually means. From your perspective as the commander responsible for space superiority operations and delivering global space effects for U.S. Space Command, how has the role of Guardians in combat changed and what does space war fighting look like today?

Lt. Gen. Dennis O. Bythewood:

I think you’ve seen this dynamic change over the years, and it’s not really just even the last two or three, really the last decade plus as you look at it. We have an environment where we have anti-satellite missiles poised on the ground, ready to strike spacecraft on orbit. We have directed energy and jamming systems on the ground, ready to impact space systems on orbit. We have co-orbital systems that are holding our spacecraft at risk daily as we walk through that mix. And on top of that, we’ve got terrestrial war fighters who demand the access to space capabilities in their daily operations. And so when we think about space war fighting on the orbit domain now, we think about all of those things. How do Guardians get ready in order to test and train and be ready when they come to do operations for me to be able to execute defensive operations to keep their spacecraft performing those services day in and day out?

Those can be dodging anti-satellite missiles, overcoming jamming, thinking through how they execute in a denied position navigation and timing environment through all of those pieces. Separately, and my two friends here on the panel will get into this in much more detail, we think about the fact, and we’ve talked about it, that Guardians execute from their home base, that we are employed in place, and that is true, but those home bases are not even safe as we look through it. The proliferation of UASs and others even makes locations in the United States something that we have to protect and defend to make sure that we can execute those operations day in and day out. And working with the Air Force, we do that.

We have Guardians in harm’s way in both of these gentlemen’s theaters as we walk forward, some of those are mine, in which case it’ll drive a lot of what we’re going to talk about later in this session, the collaboration between us as commanders to make sure that those Guardians can execute their global missions as well as their regional missions day in and day out. Guardians are in the fight 24/7, whether that fight be forward or on orbit.

Col. Jennifer Reeves, USAF (Ret.):

Oh, that’s awesome. I’m glad that you brought up what’s going on in CENTCOM. General Benson, you are seeing this from a different vantage point over in CENTCOM. So can you tell us about maybe over the past 12 months what has space war fighting looked like during operations? And maybe answer this for us, what are Guardians doing that people outside the space community might not realize?

Brig. Gen. Todd J. Benson:

First off, thanks, Jennifer, for hosting, thanks to our fellow panel members, and, of course, to AFA. The first question, what does space war fighting look like in CENTCOM? I would say this is a good sign because it looks no different than any other type of war fighting. We have adversary, we have objectives, we have capabilities. It is no different than any other pieces of the toolkit that, in our case, Admiral Cooper would employ. It’s dynamic, it’s joint and extremely valuable to the objectives of what we’re trying to achieve. Overall, I think we’ve seen space war fighting reach parity with what the other domains have done for centuries. To your second question, which dovetails nicely with this, what do people think about Guardians doing that I should share with you that you don’t often think about it?

I get the question a lot, or the statement. Somebody will come up to me and say, and this has happened several times in the last month, “You aren’t really deployed deployed, right? Guardians aren’t deployed?” And most people picture us in a high-tech op center, somewhere safe, maybe in Cheyenne Mountain or underground or things like that. But first to say super proud of the Guardians, and you should be too, because not only we’re providing great impact and effects from the United States at our established bases here and around the world, but we also have Guardians that are expeditionary and down range in harm’s way and austere environments and really, really exemplifying that core value of courage. So be proud of what they’re doing. As General Bythewood mentioned, they’re in the fight, they’re on the front lines every single day, they’re standing tall, and they’re doing their mission under fire and in harm’s way. So that’s, I think, what most people don’t realize about Guardians today.

Col. Jennifer Reeves, USAF (Ret.):

That’s awesome. Both of you had just mentioned something that U.S. Space Command is emphasizing in its new document that it doesn’t necessarily have to be the satellite that’s attacked to disrupt a space that our space effects. Other system elements can be targeted like the links, the ground infrastructure that you mentioned, networks or information itself that’s connecting the space capabilities to our war fighters. So what have real world operations taught you about solving space related dilemmas and what do we need to do differently as a result? This is for you, General Benson.

Brig. Gen. Todd J. Benson:

I appreciate the question. As you mentioned, a space problem does not always require a space solution, and we have seen that paradigm shift today. It’s no different than any other domain. A maritime problem can be solved with air power, can be solved with other capabilities, so we’re no different. Often, from our own bias, we look to solve our own problems with our own solutions. And I think the paradigm shift that we’ve seen has seen us evolve from not just solving it ourselves, but getting others to solve it. For example, for many years we’ve been outstanding at providing capabilities and support to other domains, other services. As we’ve grown, we started to solve some of our own problems with our own capabilities, provide things for ourselves. Now, the big shift going forward is how other domains such as land, air and sea are providing capabilities to solve space related issues or to contribute to space related objectives.

That’s the biggest paradigm shift I’ve seen in the nature of space as it equates to warfare. Other services, especially CENTCOM, Admiral Cooper has done a great job of integrating all domains together, everything’s multi-domain. We will never ever do a single domain fight ever again. So how do we bring those together? And there are multiple times when each component and each domain has taken the lead or they’ve followed in support, and this fight’s no different. I’ve had Army, Navy, Marine, Special Operations, all supporting space objectives, and we have also returned and done the same for them. So this has been a pretty exciting time for space.

Col. Jennifer Reeves, USAF (Ret.):

That’s awesome. General Bythewood, when you look across the force, those operations that General Benson is talking about, have they validated how we’ve been thinking about fighting through attacks on the effects chain or perhaps have they exposed some seams that we might still need to address?

Lt. Gen. Dennis O. Bythewood:

I think what they validated for us is really the construct of the Space Force put in place when it thought through componency and how we lay out our Space Force components and the requirements that they interact with each other in order to get the job done. And so when you think about the role from U.S. Space Command and what I’m doing in Space Forces – Space tied to the combat operations in CENTCOM, it really then drives this partnership. And so we really had to think through and narrow the timelines that it took for Todd and I and our teams to integrate to drive effect. There is no one who is closer to the fight in CENTCOM than Todd and his team. So there’d be a little bit of hubris on my side to assume that I understand that fight better and can execute operations independent of what that component is doing in theater.

And so we tightened those interactions to make sure that we’re providing the missile warning necessary for troops to shelter in place and also to drive the response options in theater. We tied the SATCOM pieces together to the operations that Todd knew was going to happen and make sure that we could synchronize those in time and space all the way through understanding what are the minute details of the position navigation and timing and other things that were necessary to prosecute operations. Todd’s in the position to drive timing and tempo, we’re in the position to respond to that, to drive the global effects necessary to make those things happen. And that conflict allowed us to really tighten up those themes. We play that in exercises with General Denaro here as we walk forward, and those things will continue to sow clean ground for us as we walk forward.

Col. Jennifer Reeves, USAF (Ret.):

Oh, that’s great. And I’m glad you mentioned General Denaro because we’re going to bring him into this conversation. Sir, the operational environment in the Pacific presents a very different set of challenges, I think, than what we may have been talking about to this point. How is the challenge posed by China shaping the way SPACEPAC builds readiness and combat capability for the joint force?

Brig. Gen. Brian Denaro:

Thanks, Jen. First, I’d like to say thanks to AFA for allowing us all to be up here. I think it’s just a testament and evidence of the level of partnership and collaboration amongst the three commanders here by having us here on stage talking about our challenges. And I think a lot of times we get together and we all say the same thing because we’re all identifying the same things that we want to fix and we’re all touting the same successes, but we wouldn’t be successful without all three of us working together on these things. Turning to the Pacific theater, I would say a lot of the stuff that General Benson is learning, General Bythewood, and a lot of things that they are implementing in their theaters has direct applicability to the Pacific theater. And so not only are we tightly linked operationally, but also on lessons learned and the things that our Guardians are experiencing as they implement and operate these systems. And I think that translates well.

Pacific theater, one of these terms you probably hear is tyranny of distance. One indication of that is the bags under my eyes that you probably see under these bright lights. The vast distances that we have to deal with is something that maybe contrasts a little bit, although Space I think got us, in most cases, 100 kilometers and up when it comes to distance. And so it’s nothing that we’re not familiar with. With over 52% of the terrestrial earth that we have to deal with, 50% of the world’s population, seven of the 10 largest militaries, I think five of eight nuclear nations, there’s a lot of focus… Not to mention the economy with 60% of it flowing through the PACOM theater and then the future growth of that being two thirds of what the globe depends on. It’s no mistake there’s a lot of focus on the Pacific theater, but when we think about what we need, to get at Jen’s question, I think it comes down to readiness.

And thankfully I think we’re gaining a lot of that readiness through real-time employment of our capabilities. But I’ve got to be able to train the Guardians for the Pacific theater, for the Pacific challenges, the scale and the complexity of that challenge, and making sure that not only do they have the tactical proficiency, but that we’ve looked at the command and control proficiency across our command staffs on how we’re going to execute potential fight in that theater.

Col. Jennifer Reeves, USAF (Ret.):

So when you think about China, is there something specific, greatest urgency to prepare the Guardians and/or the joint force for this operating environment that they might face specifically because of China?

Brig. Gen. Brian Denaro:

Well, look, the U.S. Space Force exists to protect the joint force against space-enabled attack. On the other side of that is denying the benefits and the advantages of space to our adversary, our potential adversaries. And so I’ve got to make sure that our forces are ready to do both of those things, and I depend on both the gentlemen on this stage to make that possible. I think we look at developments coming out of other nations that are leading in space, and we see that those challenges are ever-changing. And so there’s an urgency to get resilient capabilities on orbit, and then in my theater there’s an urgency to get those resilient capabilities on the ground as well, and that looks like proliferated capabilities, that looks like disaggregated orbits, it looks like a certain amount of protection on our space vehicles like cyber hardening that I think is absolutely essential to being able to deliver those space capabilities that the joint force depends on.

Col. Jennifer Reeves, USAF (Ret.):

That’s awesome. Thank you for that. General Bythewood, looking ahead, the Space Force’s Future Operating Environment 2040 describes the environment we expect to face. The objective force baseline describes the force we believe we’ll need, and, of course, newly the Space Command Space Warfighting Environment 2040 looks at how the joint force will have to fight within it. From a war fighter’s perspective, what changes most fundamentally about the space fight that we’re in today and what we expect to see in 2040?

Lt. Gen. Dennis O. Bythewood:

I think as you move towards 2040, there’s two things, and it’s going to be speed and scale. And if I look back 10 years to the speed of space warfare then, and probably the easiest example that I ever come up with is we were thinking about missile volleys 10 years ago as probably being a volley of five would be an interesting thing to see, not individual missiles shots, but five in one shot, wouldn’t that be something that would be stressing on the architecture? Then you look at any day of conflict… Not even conflict. Any day of campaigning now, and there’s probably five every two hours if no one’s fighting. And the answer is there’s probably five every minute and a half if we are in any kind of a conflict or anyone else is. Missile capability is pretty crazy. The scale of that fight has changed and the speed of it has changed.

As we look forward to 2040, I’d put speed and scale, and then you pick any topic you want to talk about. Artificial intelligence integration into war fighting, it is going to happen at a speed and scale that we’re only now scratching the surface of as we move forward. Proliferation of constellations will happen at a speed and scale that we haven’t seen now and we’ll have to be able to execute within. If we look at the dynamic nature of forces working together, adversaries who are combining their operations to put dilemmas on us, that is going to only intensify as we look forward. And if we look at the 2040 scenarios, the answer is many more spacefaring nations and probably spacefaring multinational organizations when you think about terrorist organizations and others that will have the ability to put things on orbit or into orbit that hold things at risk.

So we have to think about all of those. And what that drives for us when we look at it from a Guardian standpoint is an expansion of mission sets that will move up into the space environment, because that is not only a speed and scale problem on orbit, it is the same thing as we look at the terrestrial war fighting environment. The growth of Guardians in our training and our infrastructure to be able to allow us to move forward and engage within that environment, to take advantage of the AI and other capabilities that would allow us to triage the problem set in front of us, but then determine from a Guardian standpoint what execution to take and how to lay those missions out in response.

And then broadly the mix of being able to come back within an on orbit fight as we walk through that thing and understand that when an adversary comes at you with speed and scale that we need the Guardians both within our forces and Space Force’s Space, but within the terrestrial combatant commanders and the components out there ready to respond, react, and ensure that the space capabilities are delivered for terrestrial war fighters day in and day out. It’s going to be a challenge and it’s going to be a great opportunity for us to really show our stuff.

Col. Jennifer Reeves, USAF (Ret.):

Yeah, I think so too. And, of course, at this point, General Benson, I’m confident everyone is asking the question are we seeing some of this already in your area of responsibility?

Brig. Gen. Todd J. Benson:

Without a doubt, I’d double down on what General Bythewood had mentioned on speed and scale, those are absolutely critical for how we go forward in war fighting. From my perspective, we need as much kit and formations as possible, but remember from how Guardians do this, we’re very small scale, but with large impact. There’s over 300,000 in the Air Force and around 10,000 in the Space Force. But what we provide is pretty good bang for the buck, but we do still need mass, not just in space, but also on the ground. I’m going to add a couple more things to your list, sir, as well, and I would add movement and maneuver and logistics. Movement and maneuver is about being able to continue to move on the battlefield as much as possible. Staying static is not good in any domain. And then second, logistics, I think the great quote about focusing on logistics, professionals focus on logistics, amateurs think about strategy, logistics matters.

And we’re seeing that too in space, not just in space, but on the ground. How do we get things to theater? How do we move things around? All those key pieces that every other service has done for years, we’re starting to learn those things today. But overall, as far as how we’re doing war fighting in CENTCOM, I would argue that we have to integrate that early. And it can’t just be about what space is going to do. It has to be all domains together. As I mentioned before, we’re never going to do a singular domain fight ever again. It’s got to be all integrated. And the way you do that is that combatant command has to pull everything together early and to the left into their plans. I think CENTCOM is really evolving in that regard. We’re starting to think about not just non-kinetics and kinetics, but we’re talking about capabilities and what effects that they have.

So as we start to make those plans really early, we’re starting to see that evolve to have better effects long term. There’s been a great opportunity to see all components work together, not just within CENTCOM, but also very unique as we get to work together with each other. And that was, I would say, a hidden surprise in all of this. Some of the biggest benefits that CENTCOM has received has been through the support of other components like the ones you have on stage here today.

Col. Jennifer Reeves, USAF (Ret.):

I very much like how you’ve described this future fight with greater scale and resilience and maneuver and speed, and, of course, the ability to continue operating through attack. When you look at the forces that you command today and then how you want to be in this future, how do you get there? How do you get there? What areas would you focus on between what you have now and what you believe you’re going to need in the future? General Benson, let’s keep you going, let’s start with you.

Brig. Gen. Todd J. Benson:

Yeah. Where we’d go in the future with forces? I think we’re on a great path. We see our budgets on a nice rise, we see our number of personnel increasing, and having a good focus on not just the space capabilities, but those that are terrestrial I think we’re on a super good path. What we look like in the next two or three years is going to be completely different from an organization standpoint as far as quantity and capability, just really pleased with where we’re going and what Congress is enabling us to do over the next few years. So I see a good focus on increase in personnel, increase in capabilities, and we should be even better at what we do in the next few years.

Col. Jennifer Reeves, USAF (Ret.):

Awesome. And so General Denaro, let’s hear from you. Is closing that gap principally about new capabilities? Are you looking at new stuff? Or are there equally important changes that you think could be useful in terms of maybe command and control or authorities or training, information sharing, maybe even integration with allies and partners? What are your thoughts?

Brig. Gen. Brian Denaro:

Yeah, I agree with Todd on this. I think we’re on a good trend line and there’s a good glide slope there that’s taking us to new capabilities and new kit. But like the secretary said this morning, five years ago there’s a bunch of new missions that the Space Force is going to be asked to do that they weren’t doing five years ago. And as those capabilities are fielded both in the space domain and in the terrestrial domain, we’re going to have to figure out how to make them most effective and integrated into the joint force. There’s a strong demand signal for these things, so there’s no doubt that they’re needed and the funding is likely there to make them a reality, but the pressure’s going to be on to actually deliver on producing, manufacturing these capabilities, getting them on orbit. And for me it comes down to the speed with which we need to do this.

I am willing to take capability that is only partially ready. If I can get my Guardians on the system, integrating and practicing with that system in the joint force, we learn a ton of lessons, and the acquisition operator teaming that happens to make those capabilities effective I think is really, really important. And in addition to getting the kit, I think our Guardians are going to need the right training. We need the right Guardians with the right training on the right systems, and that’s going to require a pipeline that starts all the way from when they are recruited or come out of the officer training program to when they’re actually on mission on the console and are doing their IQT and the rest of their training in operations. But I also need them to practice those capabilities in real world and in exercises. And General Bythewood and I have plenty of opportunities to do this together and we learn every single time, both at the field training exercise level as well as the command level, if you will, learning the C2 as well as the integration of the systems at the tactical level.

Just a couple examples. On the EW side, we’ve got the ability to train now. They can do about three times the number of signals that they could. For missile warning, we had the standard space trainer that, to General Bythewood’s point earlier, able to actually simulate real volleys of missiles at the scale that we would expect to see them. And so this is giving our Guardians realistic training, and it’s training that I desperately need them to have in a very short timeframe.

Col. Jennifer Reeves, USAF (Ret.):

That’s great. General Bythewood, as you listen to your fellow commanders, where do you see the greatest opportunity to focus for greater combat effectiveness across the force in the future?

Lt. Gen. Dennis O. Bythewood:

It is really hard to pick just one, and so I won’t. The service doesn’t have really the luxury to pick an area and say, “That’s the area that we need to focus on.” When you look at where we need to go in order to drive the effects necessary for us to be successful in a 2040 environment, or a 2030 or 2035 along that way, it is a whole of the Space Force problem set that we’re getting after. It’s kit, like you mentioned earlier, continuing to build out our capabilities in different areas, being able to give the joint combatant commanders options and the president as we walk through this mix of non-lethal to lethal, things that shape the environment to things that do great effect within that environment to drive the missions that we all have. So kit becomes a paramount thing, and it’s not just building the kit that we already have in the pipeline, but it’s maintaining the innovation as we go forward to keep thinking about what’s coming next and react.

If you read our vision of what the world will be like in 2040, that’s our vision in 2025, it will be different in 2030 when we look at 2040, and so we will have gotten it wrong, and we need to be able to move through that. So there’s an acquisition and a research and development and another team that has to be able to move with that speed and adapt and overcome. If we look at STARCOM and others, that is training the Guardians to execute within that environment as we move forward, building system depth on the new kit that’s coming, and we thinking about that is important and that’ll happen both within STARCOM and our Combat Forces Command. But it’s also building that joint war fighting mindset that says, “How are we going to integrate this new kit into the fight? Are we ready to do that at the speed and scale that we need to as it moves forward?”

And so we have to do that. And then it’s not that just on its own. Once those forces are trained, once those force elements are ready to be presented to a combatant commander, then it comes to folks like us, and we also have to have though through and prepared ourselves for all the different capabilities, the different needs of the joint war fighter as we move forward to anticipate what those problem sets are, the collaboration between us, which we’ve talked about a lot, but also the collaboration with Airmen, Soldiers, Marines, Sailors as we walk through this mix to make sure that they’re getting both the support they need from us and that we’re taking care of an adversary space environment to make sure that they’re safe to execute those operations at a risk posture that they’re capable of. So the Space Force doesn’t really have the luxury of one thing to focus on. We’ve got to focus on it all and we’ve got to put an all hands into this thing to make sure that we’re driving the service to be there for it.

Col. Jennifer Reeves, USAF (Ret.):

Perfect. And I think there’s something that people might be thinking about in addition to that, and let’s talk about this next. Space War Fighting Environment 2040 describes commercial space not simply as a source of technology, but as an integral part of our future space power. General Denaro, let’s start with you. From a combatant commander’s perspective, where are commercial capabilities mature enough that you can actually plan to rely on them in a fight and where must the military retain its own capabilities?

Brig. Gen. Brian Denaro:

Look, commercial is already part of the fight. Commercial is very much something we depend upon, and I think we’re unique in this industry where there is so much innovation happening on the commercial side that we are just always racing to catch up to the new ideas that are coming from our commercial partners and industry and the civil space as well. Commercial, in my opinion, should be the option of first resort. And if we can use something commercial to accomplish a military objective, then we should consider how that is possible and then look for a government solution if we can’t do that. And it’s not just purchasing or leasing the commercial capability. It’s all the other things that come from all the industrial innovation that’s happening in commercial industry. From the production line to the supply chain, to the manufacturing, these are all things that the government is learning from industry and frankly taking advantage of.

If there’s a production line of commercial satellites, maybe that same production line with slight tweaks can also be used to great effect with great speed to deliver a government system or government capability. So it’s a blend of different things. I think we’re seeing this already being implemented. You heard the secretary this morning talk about AMTI. I think there’s a commercial baseline there that’s certainly helping with that across multiple companies. And we see it in the joint commercial operations cell where we’re leveraging commercial data all the time to do space domain awareness, something that General Bythewood and General Benson and I all rely upon day to day. And so I think it’s a real force multiplier that we’re getting from industry. But the other thing I’d say is that we’ve got to go fast, and commercial’s helping us get there. But there’s an accountability, I think, on industry to make sure that as we give PAEs, for example, more authority and responsibilities, that industry is also stepping up with accountability to deliver on those capabilities. And it’s a give and take between government and commercial.

Col. Jennifer Reeves, USAF (Ret.):

Awesome. Well, and now we want to look at this from the other perspective. General Benson, recent global operations have shown that our adversaries can exploit commercially available space capabilities. How does that change the way you think about commercial space as both the advantage for us and something that an adversary might use against us?

Brig. Gen. Todd J. Benson:

Fantastic topic to think about. As industry increases the accessibility to space, the affordability becomes available to everyone. Not just us, but our adversaries, peers, near peers, everyone has access to space. And it leads us to maybe the most common example would be imagery, but it leads us to a term that I would coin as hyper-transparent warfare. We are living that today. The world is observed constantly, whether it’s commercial or by government means. And so this hyper-transparent warfare means a couple of things. For us, it means that the adversary can’t hide. They’re not going to be able to hide. But it also means that we have to realize that the adversary can see us too. So we have to start thinking about future warfare constructs and movement and maneuver. And we have to realize that everything that we or the adversary does will be seen, not necessarily by governments, but it could be just by the average citizen that’s crowdsourcing information online.

I remember seeing, several years ago, a fantastic article by someone from New York who had taken commercially available imagery and documented an entire Russian exercise, and you could see these unclassified images that they just got off the internet that they had paid for of all kinds of things, airplanes, troops, all of that. So we have to realize that an adversary or ourselves, we can leverage those commercial capabilities in future conflicts daily.

Col. Jennifer Reeves, USAF (Ret.):

So then that makes me go to General Bythewood and ask the question of what has to be in place contractually, technically, operationally, or maybe in terms of authorities as we think about commercial services becoming something that we can rely on in combat operations?

Lt. Gen. Dennis O. Bythewood:

I think you have to think about it holistically, and I tend to look at it within resilience within any architecture. So whether you’re looking about how do we construct back to what missions would we use commercial in, I think the answer is we’d want to use commercial in every mission that it has capability. Would you rely on it solely? In some, maybe. Especially if there’s diversity of access to that commercial data and I can meet my needs with some level of surety. In other areas, it may be a tertiary or the fifth line down that says, “If all else fails, I have a method to share information or to get certain pieces of data.” And we’ll make those choices based on the criticality of the mission and the maturity of the commercial architecture to support those as we go through that mix. As you look through the contract space, ultimately this comes to, one, the government not being heavy-handed in how it lays out contracts.

We tend to think of I need to drive more surety in, so I’m going to lay more things within the contract, but to the points that these gentlemen made earlier, the innovation that we get within the commercial world is only stifled by us thinking about every possibility within that space and locking it down before it even happens. So I think we need to be, one, light hand, and then, two, think about it from an operational perspective from our line on, “Hey, what is the assurance that we need? How do we think about ground systems, either theirs or our ours, to drive resilience, backups to the options that are being given to us and how we best incorporate them into war fighting?” And maybe the third one, which I think is maybe the most important as we think about operationalizing this, is providing the venues where we can basically fly off commercial capabilities in a relevant environment to understand how they play.

One, that helps our commercial partners actually move forward and do the iterations that we would do in any live fire exercise to enhance their capabilities. Two, it really gets us into the mode of show me, don’t tell me on your capabilities. What can you do in the environments we care about and how do you integrate with partners as you walk through that line? And then three, it really lets us understand where are the gaps and how do we, as we pick individual commercial capabilities to incorporate into our mix of force elements, structure it so that we have resilience. Even if the individual offerings don’t give us that resilience, we can think about it from an architectural standpoint and make sure that we’re incorporating that in.

And then I will add the last one, which is the war fighters in the field are huge consumers of anything that gives them advantage. So if we are not thinking about how we incorporate commercial offerings into our mix, think about how we maximize the benefit of what is available, we will have soldiers, sailors, Marines, coast guardsmen buying commercial capabilities all on their own from the side that aren’t integrated, that don’t have though through the fail-safe, and aren’t probably ready in the third order effects. So we need to be leaders here and we need to make sure that we’re driving that across the force.

Col. Jennifer Reeves, USAF (Ret.):

So what a great conversation we have had today looking from the fight we’re in now towards the fight that we expect in 2040. I’m going to close with one question for each of you. And remember that we have great capabilities, we are getting new capabilities, people want space. It is in the fight, but if you could accelerate one change in capability, readiness, training, integration, or anything else in the force you command today to make it more combat capable tomorrow, what would it be? General Benson, let’s start with you, sir, then General Denaro and General Bythewood, sir, the last word will be yours.

Brig. Gen. Todd J. Benson:

I think it’s hard to shortcut culture, but I think for us we need to take advantage of our culture and we’re growing it every day. Couldn’t be more proud of our service in seven short years as we’re coming up on another birthday here to be combat tested and combat proven. And the mindset to me is it’s the biggest thing that shifted. It’s not a piece of equipment, it’s not adding a new unit, but watching Guardians grow to a point where they think about war fighting, how they’re able to think about joint operations, it’s just been really impressive to see and to walk away because we usually don’t share the term combat leaders or combat forces. We say them, but I get to see that every day. And as Chief Gracey and I go out and we walk the line and we get to shake hands and put our hands on the shoulders of everybody that’s in harm’s way, you see them grow.

And what we could have done in 20 years I think we’ve condensed down to about six months to a year of seeing somebody grow so quickly. And so I just want to share those moments of the growth that we’ve seen and I think it’s going to continue. So imagine a Guardian that came in from basic training a year ago has combat experience and spends their entire career thinking about space, that’s going to be something that I can’t wait to see as we go on in the future.

Brig. Gen. Brian Denaro:

Yeah, I’ll build on that a little bit. Look, our people are our greatest strategic advantage and I think we owe them, I owe them the greatest training and the greatest development that we can give them so they can be most combat effective in any situation. And so I touched on that just a little bit earlier, but I think we need that and we also need more of them. We’ve got to double the size of the Space Force in the next five years and we need every single one of those Guardians integrated with our joint teammates, with our allies and partners, delivering space capability at a train and ready level that allows us to deter conflict in any theater and, if necessary, fight and win those conflicts.

Lt. Gen. Dennis O. Bythewood:

Here, I’ll close with one word that I think we can take in a bunch of directions. What I’d want to see is dynamicism. And you can take that from the way our Guardians need to be able to execute within a dynamic environment to come up with new solutions and incorporate them quickly. You could take that from the way we need to build systems and so that we can able to maneuver within the environment, whether that be the terrestrial environment or the on orbit environment to get to positions of advantage to execute operations, to just the way we need to think about service growth as we move forward. There are so many things that we don’t know ahead of us, these are both opportunities and risks that are going to be coming forward. So I think if we drive into our culture a dynamic mindset that allows us to think about where we’re at now, where we’ve been, and then move quickly to where we need to be at each step of the future, this service will certainly be in a position to execute missions for decades to come.

Col. Jennifer Reeves, USAF (Ret.):

Thank you so much for that discussion, gentlemen. Ladies and gentlemen, we have come to the end of this panel. I’d like to thank Lieutenant General Bythewood, Brigadier General Denaro, and Brigadier General Benson for taking the time to speak with us today. Let’s give them a round of applause, please.