The Nexus of Space, Cyber, and Special Operations
September 24, 2025
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This transcript was generated with the assistance of AI. Please report inconsistencies to comms@afa.org.
Gen. James B. Hecker, USAF (Ret.):
Well, welcome everyone. We have the pleasure of going right after lunch, so that’s good. But we’d like to thank the panel here and also thank General Field as we wound down AFA 2025. It’s been a great conference. And I think we got a great panel ahead of us. It’s basically we’re talking about the nexus or the integration of space, cyber, and special operations. And we got the experts here to talk about it. So we have General Whiting, who’s the commander of US Space Command. You got your space following, your Guardians are out there. And also a classmate of mine from United States Air Force Academy, class of 1989. So welcome. We also have Lieutenant General Farrell, who’s the deputy commander of US Special Operations Command. He’s a graduate of ROTC at Florida State University. I had kids that both went to Alabama. In their opening game, when we were ranked number eight, and you weren’t even ranked at all, they beat us. And now they’re ranked number eight, and we’re below that. So congratulations and best of luck against Virginia coming up this week. We also have Lieutenant General Hensley, who I’ve known for a while. He’s the commander of 16th Air Force, Air Forces Cyber, and Joint Forces Headquarters Cyber. So welcome everyone. When we look at what’s going on in the world, we have both China and Russia that are kinda doing the same thing. They’ve been integrating their space, their special operations, their cyber for a while now. And then we’ve had what the evolution of warfare. We have a lot more ballistic missiles out there than we used to. We have countries that had them, that have them now, that didn’t used to. Lot more cruise missiles to worry about, and of course, one way attacks, and even small UAVs that are orbiting over our cities in the United States and our bases as well as Europe. So it’s changed quite a bit. And in response to this, the President announced Golden Dome for America, which is still evolving. We’re trying to see exactly what that’s gonna look like. And also we have the Secretary of War that stood up the Joint Task Force 401, which Special Operations is leading that, to kinda get after these emerging threats. To deal with this, it’s gonna be a team effort. And I couldn’t think of a better team than the folks up here on stage that will work together to get after this. So for your opening comments, what do you think that the problem that Nexus is trying to solve? And how are you teaming with the fellow folks on stage as well as industry to get after this? So if you could each respond to that for your opening comments, I’d appreciate it. We’ll start with you, Steve.
Gen. Stephen Whiting:
All right, well, hey, General Hecker, thank you for being the moderator today. I wanna thank the Air and Space Forces Association for having this event. It’s truly a pleasure to be here with General Farrell and General Inslee. I think the Nexus, as we call it at the joint level, is all about leveraging the unique capabilities of these three different, very different classes of capabilities. In the space world, obviously, the entire planet is encapsulated in space. And so from our satellite constellations, we can create global effects. We can provide terrestrial forces, capabilities completely untethered from terrestrial networks, so they can operate anywhere around the globe. Of course, cyber is able to access this man-made domain to reach around the planet and do all sorts of things. And then special operations forces, the unique relationships and accesses they bring. And so from a space perspective, as we’re trying to solve the problem of creating space superiority, protecting our capabilities against the threats that are now arrayed against them, we see the advantages that special operations forces and cyber forces bring as contributing to that mission. Because we need to be able to operate globally to access space when and where we need to, whether to protect our systems or hold at risk RED systems. So working with SOCOM to develop unique accesses, to get to where we need to be. Working with Cybercom to not only harden ourselves in the cyber domain, because we think cyber’s the soft underbelly of the space enterprise, but also leveraging the offensive capabilities that Cybercom brings to bear to get after our mission. That’s the opportunity that we see is leveraging these unique capabilities and accesses to be able to get after our space mission while recognizing we have to enable their missions as well.
Gen. James B. Hecker, USAF (Ret.):
Thanks, Steve, appreciate it. Sean?
Lt. Gen. Sean Farrell:
Thanks, sir. I think to build on General Whiting’s point, SOF, I’ll take this back to the tactical application of both space and cyber. We saw the benefit of that during the global war on terror. And we’ve been able to understand what both of these combatant commands bring to SOF operations. I think to your question, sir, Nexus takes that tactical application and allows us to level it up for integrated strategic planning. To add the combatant command level, understand what other combatant commands requirements are, joint force requirements, and consider it with practitioners of the art of special operations, cyber, and space, and what can we bring together in a synergistic way, overlapping, but understand each other’s resources. Be able to generate a pathway to a future joint warfighting concept, signal requirements to the Secretary of War and the department that can then help us build systems of the future that allow us to fight in the way that we need to fight.
Gen. James B. Hecker, USAF (Ret.):
Great, thank you, Sean. Tom?
Lt. Gen. Thomas Hensley:
First off, sir, General Hecker, thank you for the opportunity to sit on this panel. General Whiting, General Farrell, it’s an honor and privilege to be up here with you. And thanks to AFA for allowing us the opportunity to have this forum, this venue. So from a 16th Air Force AF Cyber standpoint, I think I’ll address it from a couple ways. And one, I just want to level set on what 16th Air Force AF Cyber does. As the commander, I have multiple hats and multiple authorities. But for the panel that we’re talking about today, I’ll focus on the responsibilities that we have to protect the DAFN, the Department of the Air Force Information Network. It’s not the Air Force Information Network, it’s the Department of the Air Force Information Network. So Air Force networks, Space Force networks, we have a responsibility to operate, assure, secure, and defend those networks. And most of the people that are out there, when you think about network security, you’re probably thinking in terms of the NIPR systems that’s used, the SIPR, the JWICS. Some of you are probably using SAPSTO networks, so we have a responsibility to protect those. But we also protect other IT information technology type networks, the sensors and the networks that move data, that support weapon systems like the F-35 Alice capability, that support C2 functions. Think of long range kill chain, over the horizon targeting networks. Think of global logistics, think of NC3 nuclear command control and communication networks. But also think of probably the network that underpins all of those, and that’s the satellite control network. And we’ve got the responsibility to help protect and defend those networks. And from an operating technology standpoint, think of the systems and networks that don’t move data, they move physical components. Think of substations, think of water, energy, transportation, the things that we need at our bases for the bases to be able to function and to generate combat power. Whether it’s kinetic combat power that we’re generating and for deploying, or it’s combat power that’s in place at those bases. And so why is all that important? I’m kind of biased, but when you look at the air and space functions, the things that the nation expects of the Air Force and the Space Force during a time of crisis and a time of conflict. Air superiority, space superiority, global mobility, global strike, global ISR, command and control, space situational awareness. Make no mistake, we have the world’s most powerful military that the world has ever seen, and the one thing that all of those functions have in common is that they rely on networks. And General Whiting mentioned that we can’t allow to have our networks be the soft underbelly to our war making capability. And that is absolutely the case, and the people that protect those networks take that mission with pride to make sure that that is indeed not the case. And so from an offensive cyber operations standpoint, what I’ll say is in academic terms, I think people know that there are examples of where nation states have employed offensive cyber capabilities. We are in 21st century warfare where they’re using that man-made cyber domain to produce effects and outcomes. It is not constrained by geography, and it is shown where it can produce counter force and counter value type capabilities. And so those are some of the things that we’re working on. And when it comes to working with my counterparts here, for the things that we’re trying to do, it’s the placement and access that the soft forces and the space forces provide that allow us to do that. Thanks, sir.
Gen. James B. Hecker, USAF (Ret.):
I think you can kind of see the integration is required to make this whole thing work effectively, so great opening comments. In order to engage some of the emerging threats that we’ve talked about, you have to make sure that you can detect them. And that’s starting to become a problem. And I know that General Whiting is working on that a lot. What are your concerns when it comes to detecting multiple maneuvering missiles, including hypersonics, fractional orbital bombardment systems, and even cruise missiles that we’re seeing China and Russia develop today? How are you handling that problem?
Gen. Stephen Whiting:
Yeah, Scorcher, your question highlights that we’re seeing both the capacity and the capability of the threat missiles we’re now facing rapidly increase. Just look over the last 18 months in the Israel-Iran conflict, multiple salvos of missiles over those period, not single digit missiles, not double digit missiles, we’re talking triple digit missile salvos paired with one way attack drones, for example. Now historically, one of the key functions that the space community brings is missile warning, and we’re very good at tracking traditional ballistic missiles. We track it through boost phase, and once the boost phase is over, this is high school algebra, you can measure that parabola, you know exactly where it’s gonna hit. But now, the capability of these threat missiles with aero-maneuvering vehicles, with hypersonic weapons, with fractional orbital bombardment systems, those are missiles that launch into an orbit and then can do a partial orbit, a fractional orbit, or multiple orbits, and then de-orbit with a weapon right on top of a target, incredibly destabilizing. And so that’s why you see now the space community working so rigorously on developing better tracking from space. LEO and a MEO tracking layer to maintain custody of these threats, because just tracking in boost phase is no longer good enough. You’ve gotta track all the way through to terminal phase. And then we’re also dealing with threats, as you alluded in the question, Scorch, about cruise missiles, the one-way attack drones, and we wanna be able to do a better job of helping to track those threats from space, which is why you see a discussion now of moving AMTI potentially to space. And then if we can track, the really interesting question becomes, can we affect? Our missile defenses have done broadly a good job during the most recent conflicts, but most of those are focused on terminal engagement. And we wanna be able to push that engagement to the left, and eventually left of launch. And if we’re gonna do that, it’s gonna take this integration, this nexus of cyber softened space, again, to drive capabilities that allow us to affect targets before they even begin to launch, and appreciate the work that’s ongoing trying to figure that out.
Gen. James B. Hecker, USAF (Ret.):
Obviously, General Whiting went to a different high school than I did, because figuring out where ballistic missiles are gonna go with high school algebra, I couldn’t do, but good work on that. General Farrell, we’ve seen small UAVs over our cities, over our bases, here in both the US and in Europe. What are some of the capabilities that your command has to offer when it comes to detecting and then neutralizing this threat?
Lt. Gen. Sean Farrell:
Yes, sir. Our journey for countering small UAVs or UASs or UXSs goes back about ten years. Eight years ago, we created a counter UXS task force inside the headquarters to be able to attend to the threat that we saw for our fielded forces, largely in the Middle East. The lessons that we were able to learn from that, we are applying iteratively, and to your point, we’re seeing more examples, whether it’s in the Red Sea, whether it’s examples from the 12 Day War, or examples from Europe, that are helping us learn at speed. We’ve been able to translate that campaign of learning to fielded systems. We’ve been able to field fairly rapidly in support of soft forces, but the application obviously goes beyond soft. Now, our requirements force us to think about size, weight, and power that can be handled by smaller formations. But the applications are definitely crossover to some of General Whiting’s points about applications for General Geo, North Com, when it comes to homeland defense. So that was the first step, was trying to protect our forces, understand how we could bring both kinetic and non-kinetic capabilities to bring down threats. And that non-kinetic options include both the domains to my left and right. The evolution of how we account for countering UXS is, I think, taking a non-linear step change, and probably in the last couple of years. The Army, the Department of the Army has just stood up a JTF-401 to attend, I think, first to small airborne UAS, but the remit may grow. I think that’s gonna be a contribution that we’ll all benefit from. General Whiting spoke about left of launch. We have been working left of launch on behalf of the department to try to understand how we can get after the threats before they become a threat. I think a lot of that will translate as well if we’re able to synchronize and plan together at the strategic level on where we can bring left of launch attention to a layered approach to homeland defense.
Gen. James B. Hecker, USAF (Ret.):
Thanks, appreciate it, Sean. Tom, obviously cyber plays a very important part against all these threats. How are we controlling and synchronizing our non-kinetic fires, cyber, space, EW, to counter these threats?
Lt. Gen. Thomas Hensley:
Sir, thank you for that question. I really do appreciate it. And so earlier today, there was a panel on long-range kill chains. And so as we talk in terms of our long-range kill chain, I think everybody knows that our adversaries are developing their long-range kill chains. And so it’s really, really important to see how we can integrate the non-kinetic fires to counter the adversary’s long-range kill chains. So that is absolutely a high priority for all of the folks that are involved with that. So when you think about synchronizing the non-kinetic fires, first off, you look at the authorities. General Whiting has mentioned a couple of times, we gotta get greater clarity with the authorities when it comes to employing non-kinetic fires. You’ve got cyber comm authorities, you have space comm authorities, you have EW authorities. What effect are you producing? Is it a permanent effect? Is it a temporary effect? Are you using ones and zeros, changes in that domain to produce an effect? What domain are you producing the effect in? Is it the terrestrial domain? Is it in the air domain? Is it in the space domain? So that is something that we are actively thinking through to get better clarity on the authorities for those different types of fires. But the authorities aside, so the command and control and the battle management of cyber, space, and EW, that is something that is actively being worked right now. And when you think about the different non-kinetic fires that are out there, and you look at the mission threads that the adversaries have with their long-range kill chains, the non-kinetic fires, they can attack the same types of targets. So how do we ensure that we don’t have like kids’ soccer happening where we’re all targeting the same thing? How do we ensure that we’re picking the best athlete, giving the target timing, tempo, and capability that we’re talking about? When you look at the adversaries’ mission threads, there’s also instances where there’s multiple targets that can be affected by non-kinetic fires. Do we really need to go after every single one of those? Or is there a key node that we can produce that effect on? And there’s also instances where one non-kinetic fire can complement another non-kinetic fire. One non-kinetic fire can enable another non-kinetic fire. And then there’s the way you bundle all of this together so that you can better synchronize it with the kinetic fires that are happening so that you can have true joint all domain operations. And then finally, you don’t wake up one day and just start doing all this command and control and battle management synchronization of non-kinetic fires with kinetic fires. You gotta exercise it. And we have absolutely been exercising the non-kinetic fire piece with Elite Constellation, a joint staff tabletop type exercise that we thought through some of the concepts and the processes to get better at that. And this last Bamboo Eagle, we had the first instance of live cyber, live space, live EW fires synchronized with live flying operations. And so that’s incredibly important. From a cyber standpoint, we used physical range to be able to exercise those processes, but we also used our JIOR, our Joint Information Operations Range. And if you’re not familiar with the JIOR, that’s a global closed network, multiple classification, high fidelity cyber range that we’re able to use to be able to collaborate, to test and evaluate TTPs and tools against adversary capabilities. And so if you take nothing away from that, just take away that we’re not white carding cyber effects anymore in exercises. And the implementation and integration of non-kinetic fires live in CAF exercises moving forward is gonna be a routine thing. Thanks, sir.
Gen. James B. Hecker, USAF (Ret.):
Thanks. General Whiting, your space capabilities are really counted upon from you two as well as others. And I know it’s becoming harder and harder to make sure that those capabilities are gonna be there when the people need it and they’re persistent. What are you doing to make sure that those capabilities are gonna be available, not only for special operations and cyber, but for everybody else in the armed forces?
Gen. Stephen Whiting:
Yeah, Scorch, your question is really highlighting the fact that Space Command is both a supporting command and a supported command. And let me talk about the supporting role. Certainly we care about being a supported command for our unique missions, but we think being a supporting command is so important that we say it’s our number one of three moral responsibilities. And that moral responsibility that we have is to make sure that we’re providing space capabilities, the space effects that the rest of the joint force, the nation and our allies have become dependent on, that we’re providing that through all levels of conflict. And so how do we do that? When I got this job, just amazed at the level of teamwork that happens between these combatant commands and others. But it happens because we’ve put structures in place to make it happen. So for example, at US Space Command, when we stood up just over six years ago, we decided to model Cyber Command and build integration elements that we call Joint Integrated Space Teams, and embed them in the headquarters of the other combatant commands. So at SOCOM, we have a team, at Cybercom, we have a team. And then fortunately, these two combatant commands, they care enough about our mission that they’ve done the same thing. Cyber Command has their COIPIs, the Cyber Operations Integrated Planning Element. And it just so happens that my Joint Force Headquarters Cyber is General Hensley in 16th Air Force, so his command provides that COIPI to me. And then I have an 06 Liaison Officer from SOCOM headquarters, and we’re in their battle rhythm, they’re in our battle rhythm. We’re persistently making that happen. And then at the component level, we have an LNO at JSOC. JSOC has an LNO with us. Some of our service components have space officers embedded at all echelons inside the special operations formations. And so anytime General Farrell, General Fenton, the JSOC team are doing any kind of planning, there is space expertise embedded there to make sure they have access to whatever they need to be successful. And in our headquarters, we’ve even now stood up a special operations integration branch, whose full-time job is to think about how do we best support special ops. And then on the cyber side, I’m really lucky. General Hensley is technically not a component commander. He’s a supporting component commander, but he acts. He’s in every battle rhythm meeting, he and his team. They do everything all our other components do. But I have two other cyber commanders who are dual-hatted as space commanders for their services who sit in my battle rhythm as well. And that’s Admiral Clapperton, the NAV CyberNAV Space Commander, and then Major General Matos, the Marine Forces Space and Marine Forces Cyber Commander. So three of the four cyber comm service components sit in my battle rhythm, because they’re my components too. And that’s incredible for us. And sitting in the audience today is my Space Force component commander, Lieutenant General Schess. And he’s our combined force, combined joint force space component commander. And I tell you, each and every week I get a report from one of these commanders that their people are in each other’s headquarters enabling space cyber integration, just like we’re doing on the special ops side. So I think it works because we’ve set up structures to make it work, but we’ve gotta keep driving that integration, cuz we certainly can do better, as Sean said, to make this a strategic effect, not just a series of tactical anecdotal effects.
Gen. James B. Hecker, USAF (Ret.):
Thanks. Sean, General Whiting mentioned earlier about the attacks on April 13th, 2024, Iran on Israel, multiple ballistic missiles, one way attacks, cruise missiles. We knew that was coming, we were prepared, we worked with our allies, we worked with Israel, and we shot down almost all of them. A few got through, but it came at a price, and that price was a lot of our weapons. In a lot of cases, million dollar weapons that take down $40,000 drones. What are you doing in special operations command to help right size that and get us on the right side of the cost curve?
Lt. Gen. Sean Farrell:
Yeah, you’re right, the balance sheet does not favor the defender in these situations, the way we’re approaching it currently. So General Whiting mentioned hundreds of either ballistic missiles, long range cruise missiles, one way attack vehicles. Sir, you said it, of those that we chose to intercept, we had a 99% success rate between Israel, the United States, and our partners and allies. So that’s a pretty good scorecard, but it comes at a cost that we, in my judgment, we can’t afford to continue down this pathway. And this is really where Nexus, I think, is driving to think about how we consider these threats in a novel and improved way. It’s a layered approach, it’s trying to detect, track, understand at the talk jock level through a battle management system that’s able to move across combatant commands. In some cases, open to our partners and allies. So we can defend ourselves in a way that puts us on the other side of that cost curve. It involves a lot of non-kinetic options. It takes advantage of all the domains that you see on the stage. But it’s exploring those domains, it’s exercising, and bringing those to the combatant commanders for their evaluation. And it’s iterative, and we just have to get after it in a joint fashion to bring the joint warfighter ideas and solutions that we haven’t exposed them to previously. Now there’s been a lot of great work over, I would say, the last five years to put us on this pathway. I think we’re really at a precipice where we see the example of the 12 day war. We see the example of the Red Sea operations. And we see examples, frankly, not only in Ukraine, but other parts of Europe, where we are still fighting the threat with billion dollar weapon systems in combination that we need to understand how to get on the other side of that cost curve. So I think to your earlier question, it goes back to understanding how we can intercept, whether it’s group one all the way through group five, one way attacks, small UAS in the land, sea, and in the air. And then pacing that with how we can see over the horizon, get indications and warnings sooner, apply and have available to the secretary and the combatant commanders options that go from non-kinetic irreversible or kinetic options so we’re not constraining ourselves. That’s the approach that it’s harder said, it’s already done than said. But the team’s working through it. I think there’s a lot of opportunities as we refocus on the Western Hemisphere and the homeland to really focus our efforts underneath the supported commander of Northcom and others that have the remit to protect the homeland. So I’m very hopeful that we’re gonna be able to do it.
Gen. James B. Hecker, USAF (Ret.):
Well, thanks, Sean. I’m glad that you guys are getting after that because this is getting very expensive the way we’re currently doing it. And I know we’re working hard to fix that and come up with cheaper solutions. Let’s switch over to base defense. When we think of base defense, a lot of us think about ballistic missiles, one way attack, cruise missiles, airstrikes, those kind of things. But what we often don’t think about is cyber security. And what are we doing to protect information and operating technology networks so that they can do their job when it comes time to defend the base? And I’ll hand this one over to you, Tom.
Lt. Gen. Thomas Hensley:
Yes, sir, thanks for that question. And sir, thanks so much for that recognition. I think it’s absolutely true. And but from a cyber security, cyber defense standpoint, again, that’s what the team is working on every single day with as much fervor as possible. So I had a panel discussion on Monday. We talked about the cyber threat, the growing cyber threat. And I went through a number of items that we’re working on. Due to the time constraints, I won’t go into the same level of detail, but I will do a little bit of a recap. But I will add one piece to it that I didn’t talk about on Monday. And so we have cyber security service providers, CSSP Airmen. They do the persistent monitoring 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days out of the year. That falls underneath our 688 cyber wing. We have cyber protection teams that fall underneath the 67 cyberspace wing. And they’re the ones that are responsible for more point defense, a deep look into different portions of a network to find the adversary, mediate, and harden that network. Their role is more temporary, as the other one is more permanent and persistent. And so we’re developing a DCO strategy campaign plan to better synchronize what those two elements do. Prior to this, we’ve always kind of looked at them as separate missions. But they’re really doing the same thing in a different way. So we wanna harmonize that better. From an enterprise standpoint, there is work on Zero Trust, Next Generation Gateway, the integrated defensive cyber system. And for those that aren’t familiar with IDCS, that is a tiering of sensors at all of our air and Space Force bases. The tier one sensors will protect the base, going all the way down to tier three small form factor sensors for our weapon systems and for our C2 systems. So that we can monitor the activity there, persistent monitoring. With that, that’s gonna require a very good sensor strategy that we are working on and a very good data strategy that we are also working on as well. I mentioned the things that we’re doing with public utilities. We can defend our bases, but realize that we rely on public utilities outside those bases to help those bases operate. And so through CRADA’s Cooperative Research and Development Agreements, we’re establishing agreements at key bases within the Air and Space Forces that we wanna help protect to make sure that we have public utilities protected to counter malicious cyber activity. I talked a little bit about universities, academia. They’ve got cyber programs, they’ve got PhDs, they’ve got students that are trying to become PhDs. They’ve got SCIFs or some are getting near having SCIFs. They can get classifications and clearances. So how can we tap into that capacity to do research and development, to do tool development, to help with foreign material exploitation? So that’s sort of a recap of what I talked about on Monday. What I didn’t talk about on Monday was the things that we’re doing with the JEPR range, it’s the Joint Electric Power Range. And this is a range that we have where we can hone our skills at doing cybersecurity search specifically for the OT networks that we have. And the vision is to have red teams employing red tools, red TTPs to attack these OT networks to hone our skills at defending against them. And quite frankly, the next step is to be able to connect the JEPR range with the NIDA range, the NELIS test and training range, so that we can integrate that into CAF exercises so that we can stop white carding those pieces as well. Thank you, sir.
Gen. James B. Hecker, USAF (Ret.):
Great, thanks. All right, I think we got time for just a couple more questions. So I’ll go to General Whiting. China and Russia are doing the same thing, trying to integrate. How do we counter that and how do we outpace them and make sure that we stay ahead of them?
Gen. Stephen Whiting:
Yeah, clearly China and Russia have demonstrated they can take us on in the space domain with their non-kinetic jammers, with direct-to-send ASAT weapons, with high-energy lasers, with co-orbital anti-satellite weapons. But they would much rather take us on using cyber or their special operations forces because it’s cheaper for them and harder for us to attribute. So how do we outpace them? I think we’ve got to, in counter to them, we’ve got to out-integrate them. And so I really appreciate the teamwork with SOCOM and our cyber com teammates. Just here in the last few months, we’ve done a tier one joint exercise called Apollo Nexus, where we brought together these three combatant commands plus US Stratcom to really rehearse how do we elevate this beyond just a tactical application but bring a strategic effect. And so leveraging this work plus integration across the intel community and the interagency, we’ve got to out-sense the environment compared to our adversaries. We’ve got to out-decide and we’ve got to out-act. And if we do that, I think we can sustain that advantage. But they are moving fast and they’re determined and we’ve got to continue this work to make sure we’re ready for that.
Gen. James B. Hecker, USAF (Ret.):
Great, thank you. And for the last question, I’ll go to you, Sean. SOF has been kind of the model when it comes to working with allies and partners. Everyone else is trying to do it, but you kind of really started it and got it moving. Given that many of our countries and allies have unique both cyber as well as SOF capabilities, but not near as much on the space side just because it’s so expensive and they’re catching up. How can we integrate and use our allies and partners to number one, get an effective mission but do it at a cheaper because they’re helping us out? How’s that working out?
Lt. Gen. Sean Farrell:
Thanks, sir. Since SOF’s modern inception, working by, with, and through partners has been a key feature of how we do business. I think that that’s no different when we talk about the themes of Nexus, which is identifying opportunities and our partners understanding their access, their placement. Taking advantage of that and being able to deliver their access and placement to cyber and space in a way built upon our existing relationships. No different than the integrated strategic planning we’re attempting to do across our combat commands. We need to bring our partners and allies into that same type of strategic planning to be able to identify well left of need where our partners, where our allies can in some cases share the burden, in some cases own the burden of whatever problem we’re trying to solve. They do have, we do have them in space. I think in some cases when you talk about counter UXS or cyber, they’ve got a lot of game they can bring to the table. They’re using the experiences of the conflict in Ukraine to modernize their unmanned systems forces in ways that I think, frankly, we’re taking a look at to see if there’s ways, lessons that we can learn that they’re learning first hand. So it’s exposing them to our requirements, understanding their capabilities, and then introducing them into this Nexus framework is how we’re gonna be able to, in a good way, leverage our partners and take best advantage of our relationships and our alliances.
Gen. James B. Hecker, USAF (Ret.):
Yeah, and as you kind of mentioned, our allies and partners in all three of your areas sometimes have more authorities than we have or sometimes more capabilities than we have the authorities. So figuring that out beforehand and practicing it is obviously important. Okay, we have looks like about 50 seconds each for closing comments. I’ll start off with you, General Whiting.
Gen. Stephen Whiting:
Yeah, thanks, Scorch, and thanks, Sean and Tom. Really appreciate the opportunity. I’ll just close with space is a team sport. We’ve said that for a long time. No one country, no one command, no one service, no one agency, no one company can do all that we need to do in space. We’re gonna, to be successful, it’s gonna take partnerships and teamwork with the joint force, with the interagency, with our allies and partners, and with commercial companies. And these two gentlemen represent two of our most critical teammates. And we appreciate the work. We know we got a lot more to do, but I think we’re on the right path. We just gotta keep driving hard.
Gen. James B. Hecker, USAF (Ret.):
Sean.
Lt. Gen. Sean Farrell:
Thank you, sir. One of the tenets of soft has always been that no soft operation can be completed successfully without non-soft support. I think that’s the micro of the macro that we’ve been discussing, which is no joint force operation can be done without cyber and space. And I think Nexus is the attempt to further develop that and bring it forward to the combatant commanders and the department in a way that really gets the best out of our capabilities. So I again appreciate the collaboration and the teamwork. And that’s the only way we’re gonna get it done. So thanks for the opportunity.
Gen. James B. Hecker, USAF (Ret.):
Great, thanks, Sean. Tom.
Lt. Gen. Thomas Hensley:
Sir, thank you very much. And with the shot clock ticking, what I’ll say is, from a cyber standpoint, I think most people think about cyber and cyber effects as using the Internet, which is true. And so that’s IP-based approach to producing cyber effects operations. But what if they’re not on the Internet? What if they unplug? Quite frankly, there are other ways that we can produce cyber effects. But it’s not without the ability of our partners in space and our soft partners to provide that placement and access that can help us produce those effects. That partnership is extremely, extremely valuable, and we will continue to work on that. Sir, thank you very much.
Gen. James B. Hecker, USAF (Ret.):
Well, great. Well, thank you on behalf of the audience here and myself. This is very important stuff that you’re doing with Nexus. And it’s not getting the headlines everywhere, and not everybody totally understands it. But I think with what you just did in the panel here, I think people understand how important it is and how we need it and how we need to make sure it’s funded and exercised and everything else. So thank you guys very much, really appreciate it.