2024 Air, Space & Cyber: ‘The Dangers We Face’ Panel at ASC: Expert Perspectives on Modern Threats

Gen. Gregory M. Guillot, commander of U.S. Northern Command and North American Aerospace Defense Command; Gen. Jacqueline Van Ovost, commander of U.S. Transportation Command; Gen. Timothy D. Haugh, commander of U.S. Cyber Command; and Gen. Stephen N. Whiting, commander of U.S. Space Command, participated in “The Dangers We Face,” panel at AFA’s Air, Space & Cyber Conference on On Sept. 17, 2024. Lt. Gen. David A. Deptula, USAF (Ret.), dean of AFA’s Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies, moderated the session. Watch the video below:

Panel Moderator: Lt. Gen. David Deptula, USAF (Ret.):

Well, good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to this Mitchell Institute panel on the dangers we face. I think everyone out there is aware, but it is appropriate to repeat the fact that today the United States faces more complex and dangerous threats than we’ve ever faced in our history. Our adversaries seek to undermine our security across multiple domains. The US homeland itself is no longer the sanctuary that it once was. Long-range strike capabilities threaten our logistic nodes and transportation infrastructure more than ever before. In this cyber domain, our competitors are targeting just about everything that electrons flow through.

Finally, in space, Russia and China are rapidly developing a full suite of counter space capabilities to challenge American space superiority. Today we’ve gathered an incredible group of leaders to discuss this evolving threat landscape and their command strategies for staying ahead of our adversaries.

So let me briefly introduce and welcome General Greg Guillot, Commander of US Northern Command and NORAD, General Stephen Whiting, Commander of US Space Command, General Jackie Van Ovost, Commander of US Transportation Command, and General Tim Haugh, Commander of US Cyber Command.

So, with that, it is an august group, so I much appreciate you taking the time to be here today. Let’s jump right into questions, and this is one for the group. We often speak of the threat in general terms, but it affects each one of your commands in different ways. So let me ask each one of you to look through the lens of your mission and describe the top dangers that you all face. So General Guillot, let’s start with you and then we’ll go down the chairs.

Gen. Greg Guillot, Commander, U.S. Northern Command and North American Aerospace Defense Command:

Good morning, Dave and thank you. The biggest threat that concerns me from a NORAD and NORTHCOM perspective is not a single threat like we had in the past where the Soviet Union was the threat to those commands coming from one avenue of approach, the north, through one domain, the air domain. What we face today is a variety of threats in all domains from multiple adversaries and from all avenues of approach, not just from the north. And so, as we look to counter that, it’s necessary because we need to not only defend critical infrastructure in the US and Canada, but also make sure that we’re protecting General Van Ovost’s base so she can conduct the global mobility mission, General Cotton, so we have the strategic capabilities and so on. And these threats can threaten us from much further away than even just a couple of years ago. So those are the biggest concerns I have.

I would say that the most present and persistent threat that we face on a daily basis is the cyber threat, and I work very closely with Tim on that and I think the fastest growing threat that we see is in space and of course work very closely with Stephen who’s not only our next-door neighbor at work, but also next-door neighbor at home, working really closely to identify those threats to keep that critical infrastructure and those pivotal missions operational.

Gen. Jackie Van Ovost, Commander, U.S. Transportation Command:

Yeah, thanks. Good morning. I think of three things every day with respect to the risks of logistics and transportation. First of course is the cyber vulnerability. About 85% of what we do uses the commercial networks, our commercial industry, so certainly work very closely with Tim here on the cyber vulnerabilities outside the DODIN.

The next thing I think about is coercion, both military coercion and economic coercion. On the military side. You see what’s going on in second Thomas Shoal and Sabina Shoal where the PRC is attacking logistics lines essentially. And you also see on the economic side, BRI and the influx of Chinese smart port technologies into ports around the globe, which then uncover the vulnerabilities of that nation, the supply chain vulnerabilities and can unmask military movements. On both of those areas, what we’re talking about is winning without fighting. Sound familiar? They’re doing that every day.

And then finally we talk about the long-range threat, the long-range threat to mobility missions specifically designed to touch us. And these are the risks we see playing out today on an active basis around the globe. And I just want to say that these three gentlemen up here, they work every day to ensure that transportation can be done.

Gen. Timothy D. Haugh, Commander, U.S. Cyber Command:

Well said, well said. So, I think from our perspective in cyberspace, the clear persistent adversary that we’re focused on is the PRC. We have now done extensive reporting at an unclassified level around what type of threat that the PRC is to both our economy, to the department and to our critical infrastructure. And we want to continue to do that. We want to expose this threat first where PRC has been targeting the intellectual property of our industry, which is really the foundation of our and the underpinnings of our department’s security. Also, how they look at over time the critical infrastructure of the United States. We’ve exposed how they target our critical infrastructure and what that means for us as a nation that we have a competitor that is willing to use those type of tactics to target not only the department, but our citizens.

And to counter that, it really comes back to partnerships. And what we all talk about routinely is how do we get unity of effort in our ability to secure our networks, but also to ensure that we have the ability to command and control and we have the ability to think about that globally. And we can talk today about what that means in terms of our relationship with industry, how we work together as combatant commands, and how our components like Sixteenth Air Force are working to be able to ensure that we’re fully leveraging their capabilities so that we can be secure within the department and our operations.

Gen. Stephen Whiting, Commander, U.S. Space Command:

Yeah, thanks, General Deptula. Great to be here with my fellow combatant commanders. In the space domain, we’d look at probably two buckets of threats that are what most concern us. The first, as General Guillot highlighted, is the rapid pace of the counter space weapons that we now see being built particularly by people’s Republic of China, but also Russia. And it’s the whole gamut. It’s reversible non-kinetic jamming of SATCOM and GPS, it’s cyber, which can be non-reversible as well. It is high-energy lasers, it’s direct-ascent ASAT weapons, it’s co-orbital ASAT weapons on orbit. All of that has moved breathtakingly fast. It’s not a future possibility. It’s the reality of the domain that we operate in and now we have to be able to operate successfully in the face of that to achieve space superiority.

And then the second bucket, which should be of concern to all terrestrial warfighters is that the PRC in particular has gone to space for the same advantages that we have, not because it’s cool, I mean it is, but that is not why they’ve gone to space. It’s to give themselves the ability to operate on ocean-wide, on continental-wide, on global scales. And so, they have gone to space to enable their air force, their army, their navy, their marine corps to be more precise, more lethal, and more far-ranging. And we’ve got to deal with that fact to make sure that we help protect the joint force from the space-enabled attack of others.

Panel Moderator: Lt. Gen. David Deptula:

Well, very good. That was a nice initial rundown. Here’s one for General Whiting and General Haugh. The relationship between space and cyber is significant and nearly all our military data and services involve space and cyber capabilities, but both commands depend a high degree on terrestrial infrastructure. What challenges do we face in defending this infrastructure and what needs to improve?

Gen. Timothy D. Haugh:

So I think from our perspective, this is a really good example of where unity of effort matters. So, the collaboration in this case, and I think one of the responsibilities that I have is from a command-and-control perspective to be able to organize how the department defends insecure networks. And we do that through our components, joint force Headquarters DODIN, the element that’s looking across the whole globe and then through our components, and in this case in support of US Space Command is Sixteenth Air Force F-Cyber. We work through that command-and-control structure, not just through our components but also with the other services. So as the other services present capabilities that are underpinned by their networks, how do we bring a unified approach to use all of the capabilities we have to assure command and control, to assure that we’re able to identify threats and communicate those threats back to General Whiting as he makes decisions. So those are the things on the defensive side, how we work together, how we leverage technology, how we leverage industry partners.

But the other thing that we owe are multi-domain options and our ability to be able to generate options in cyberspace in partnership with US Space Command gives our policymakers and the secretary different options in a crisis or how we’re planning for the future. And that collaboration absolutely essential and we’re really proud of the progress that we’ve made together in generating multi-domain options.

Gen. Stephen Whiting:

Yeah, I really appreciate the question because cyber really enables the entire space enterprise. Not only are space networks by definition global, but they extend out to 22,000 miles above the Earth’s surface to geosynchronous orbit. We’ve got to defend all of that novel cyber terrain because we’re only as strong as the weakest link in our cyber chain. And I’m very fortunate that I think three of my component commanders also are component commanders for General Haugh, so I get to leverage that capability that he just highlighted.

If I was to point to one challenge though, I still don’t think we have a common risk lexicon for talking about cyber. I had the good fortune in my career of commanding two installations, and if you think about the physical security of an installation, we know how to talk about and accept risk. I knew the status of my fence line of my alarms, I knew the readiness of my security forces members working with folks outside the fence, I knew what the threat picture was like, and I could make it risk-based decisions.

Today, I don’t feel like we have that common lexicon of where should we invest the next dollar? Where should we accept risk? Where should we not accept risk? Is it in the DODIN level that we need to do the next investment? Is it on persistent cyber forces sitting on a weapon system? Is it the mobile cyber forces? Is it remediating cybersecurity vulnerabilities? All of that’s important, but I don’t know how yet to talk about where I’m taking the most risk in our enterprise. And that’s a conversation I’ve had with General Haugh, with General Hensley, our Sixteenth Air Force commander, and I know there’s just work to be done there.

Panel Moderator: Lt. Gen. David Deptula:

Very good. General Guillot, our national defense strategy makes it clear that the homeland is no longer a sanctuary, and the Arctic approaches are becoming even more of a concern. How’s NORTHCOM adapting to these potential challenges from the North?

Gen. Greg Guillot:

Dave, I agree that the Arctic is extremely important now, probably the most strategic area in the world and becoming more and more strategic each day. And we face a lot of challenges there. If you’ve looked even in the open-source news the last four days, we’ve had four straight nights of intercepting Russian aircraft that have penetrated inside the Alaskan ATIS and NORAD fighters, AWACS and tankers intercepted them all. Everything’s safe and professional, but it shows an increased presence.

Also, China has declared itself a near Arctic nation and spends a lot more time up there, both in the maritime and then in July he saw the first time ever that the Chinese were up in the Arctic with a bomber in a combined bomber patrol with the Russians. Now it was just coordinated, not integrated like the NORAD response between the two NORAD countries, Canada and the US was very well integrated as opposed to just coordinated. But it shows on a daily basis that the Arctic is an area where a number of nations are showing interest not only for military purposes but also for scientific purposes. And it takes up 52% of our AOR. So, we spend a lot of time looking at that.

How we’re adapting to that is pursuing sensors that go from sea floor all the way up to space in multiple layers and domains to make sure that we can detect all of those adversaries not at the ranges that we did five, 10 years ago, but much further away because of the increased complexity and capability of their weapons. We’re also trying to increase the number of exercises that we conduct up there and the complexity of the exercises and even looking to see if we move out of the period of the year where it’s nice and hospitable up in Alaska, for example, and doing some training during the more harsh periods. We’re working very closely with the services to identify specific units that are Arctic trained and equipped.

As you know, any one of our fighter squadrons for example, could do great work up there, but they’re not necessarily used to working in that environment on the flight line. And that’s something that takes specific training and in cases, specific equipment, and that goes for all of the joint forces that work up there. So, we’re spending a lot of time trying to build those capabilities up there for those reasons.

Panel Moderator: Lt. Gen. David Deptula:

Very good. A bit of a follow-up. The Air Force recently delayed procurement of the over-horizon radar, which is a crucial part of Arctic domain awareness. Now, until the northern warning system is modernized, do you see the use or the potential use of high endurance low operating costs UAVs as a potential gap filler for air surveillance of the Arctic domain?

Gen. Greg Guillot:

Yes, certainly. Potentially, we need a layered approach, as I mentioned, from space with space capabilities all the way down in the air layer, certainly the terrestrial on the surface and subsurface. As we look to see which of those capabilities can be fielded first, having a gap filler with a high-altitude long endurance UAVs to help us utilize the flexibility and the agility of that platform to go where we need in that vast, like I said, it’s 52% of our AOR, so in that vast landscape, being able to move quickly is really important. I’m very intrigued by what General Kurilla and CENTCOM are doing in the high altitude, long endurance UAV realm. Of course, they need different sensor suite than we do. And so, I think the challenge, not challenge, but the thing we’ll have to look at is to make sure that the type of payloads we need would work on those platforms so it doesn’t take away the endurance and the altitude capability. But I certainly think it’s something that we could look at.

Panel Moderator: Lt. Gen. David Deptula:

Thank you for that. General Van Ovost, we just passed through an era of permissive logistics. The certainty of highly contested logistics ushers in a new reality where logistics simply can’t be an afterthought in war planning. Today there’s pacing threats in the Indo-Pacific and that fight’s wholly reliant on logistics and mobility. However, we have a rapid global mobility fleet based on a different strategic environment which is going to be challenged by the vast distances in the Pacific. Are there midterm actions that can improve both survivability and capacity of our airlift fleet?

Gen. Jackie Van Ovost:

Yeah, thanks. We have to be able to project and sustain the force at the depth, duration and volume required by the joint force commander. And we look into this new environment and to do that we have to have what I call credible capacity. It’s got three components, actual capacity, the readiness of that capacity and the capabilities of that capacity to operate under all domain persistent threat. So daily, as we work on the actual capacity, ensuring we have aircraft availability and the readiness, our ability to respond, our ability for our crews to be able to operate in the high-end fight, we fight that fight every day to ensure that we can meet the needs. But on top of that, the capabilities, the number one thing we can do for survivability and mission assurance to complete those logistics chains is to have battle space awareness through secure communications and data.

That is absolutely something we’re getting after. We have seen it. It is not rocket science. It is out there, and we’ve seen it at smaller rates than in prototypes. So, we’ve got to scale and get it on there, but that will not be enough.

At Christmastime, which is FedEx and UPS’s wartime, they have to scale five times. We have to scale 10 to 12 times, flight plants, Dip clearances, access spacing and overflight, schemes of maneuver, turning times on the ground. We have to have new C-II tools and processes that can scale and include our commercial partners and our allies and partners.

And then the second thing beyond that connectivity where we can see red and blue and make those decisions at Echelon would then be on and off-board protection. So, we’ve seen some prototypes and on and off-board protection and that’s some of the things that we’re trying to invest in in the future. Thanks, Dave.

Panel Moderator: Lt. Gen. David Deptula:

Bit of a follow-up for you. One of the airlift issues involves aircraft awareness of threats while airborne. How important is it that we increase situation awareness to mobility aircraft in conflict so that they know exactly what the specific dangers are that are facing them?

Gen. Jackie Van Ovost:

Yeah, I think we think that without understanding Blue Force scheme maneuver and the Red Force order of battle out there, it is hard to ask for decisions at Echelon. And how does an aircraft commander make a decision about what needs to be delivered when and to maneuver to meet joint force commander requirement if they’re blind? So, it is an absolute critical component and the most important thing we ought to be shooting for.

Panel Moderator: Lt. Gen. David Deptula:

Appreciate that. General Haugh, advances in artificial intelligence are enabling significant changes in the art of the possible when it comes to cyber. This opens the prospect of novel and potentially new targeting of both US and allied critical network. So, here’s a two-part question for you. One, how is CYBERCOM leveraging AI in cybersecurity? And two, how are we postured to respond to AI-enabled cyber-attacks?

Gen. Timothy D. Haugh:

So, we look at artificial intelligence of course as a critical technology as we go forward, and it really characterizes the environment that we operate in. As we look at the environment, it’s really about who moves with the most agility will be the most effective. It is the fast eat the slow. So how we adopt these technologies and employ them as tools just critical for us to be able to stay in front of our adversaries. So, the approach we’ve taken in US cyber command last year in the NDAA, we were tasked by Congress to work with CDAO and the Department of Defense CIO to produce a five-year AI roadmap, which we did. We’ve out-briefed it to Congress, we’ve out-briefed it to the department and it’s really built on how we adopt technologies inside of US Cyber Command and our components in partnership with the services and in partnership with NSA, really using the unique service-like authorities of US Cyber Command.

So, the approach that we have taken is we have made our AI lead, our Cyber National Mission Force commander. So, our lead for conducting the activities that defend the nation in cyberspace owns our AI task force. And we did that intentionally so that we could align operational requirements with our high-end force to be able to rapidly adopt the technologies and then sponsor them in ways that we look throughout our individual service cyber components as what are the individual pilots that we should be accelerating this year and next year.

One of those we’re going to do with the Army really looks at how do we see ourselves better? So, when we identify a vulnerability, those risk discussions that General Whiting was talking about, when we identify a vulnerability, how do we rapidly find where that vulnerability exists across the department, areas that AI can really help us move more quickly and present data back to a defender so that we can prioritize based off risk those actions. That’s one example.

As we look at it through the lens of the National Security Agency, we have prioritized really how we partner with industry. And our team that interacts with industry, we’ve now created an AI security center and that was really to inform multiple things. One, how can we come back to the department with advice on how to leverage this technology in a safe, secure manner consistent with both our laws and our values as we look at the enabling technologies of artificial intelligence, but also how do we inform an industry that is moving so rapidly with this technology what the security implications are? And so, we see this as an area that we’ll partner very closely with industry and provide value through our lens of understanding the adversary’s intent, adversary capability and how to secure. So, if you go to NSA.gov today, you will see a product at an unclassified level, how to secure a large language model. And it’s an example of where we’re contributing to be able to start thinking about the application of this technology, but also how we apply it in a secure and efficient way.

Panel Moderator: Lt. Gen. David Deptula:

Thanks for that. General Whiting, earlier this year there was significant congressional concern regarding Russia’s exploitation of space vulnerabilities. What are the potential repercussions of a Russian satellite armed with a nuclear device?

Gen. Stephen Whiting:

Yeah, it’s highly concerning. Number one, it would be a violation of the outer space treaty. Number two, it’s an indiscriminate weapon that would affect virtually every man, woman and child on earth. In 1967, the United States and the Soviet Union and many, many other countries signed the Outer Space Treaty. And one of the things it says is countries agree not to place nuclear weapons or weapons of mass destruction on orbit or on celestial bodies. And that’s been an expectation my entire life. That was the year I was born. I’m 57, so for 57 years, which is almost the entire space age, that has been an expectation that countries won’t do that. And Russia is the OG space power. They put up a Sputnik, the first man, the first woman, they know better, they should know better.

Secondly, it’s indiscriminate. It’s not just going to potentially affect US satellites, it’ll affect Russian satellites, Chinese satellites, Indian satellites, European satellites, Japanese satellites. And those kind of impacts will have a real repercussion for those of us here on planet earth. So, the world can’t and shouldn’t accept that somebody would place a nuclear weapon on orbit.

Now in the US military, we’ve had to think about that threat for many decades and of course our most important missions are prepared for that. But if we see a future where mankind is going back to the moon, going to the asteroids, going to Mars, where commercial industry will continue this golden age of going to space for all these benefits, we should not accept a world in which nuclear weapons are on orbit.

Panel Moderator: Lt. Gen. David Deptula:

TRANSCOM, SPACECOM and CYBERCOM’s success hinges on close partnerships, whether with industry or international allied and partners because each brings vital capabilities to the table. I think everyone’s well aware of that. How are each of your commands working to strengthen these partnerships and build coalitions to better defend space and cyberspace? Anybody.

Gen. Jackie Van Ovost:

Yep.

Panel Moderator: Lt. Gen. David Deptula:

Go ahead, Jackie.

Gen. Jackie Van Ovost:

Thanks. We have a really close relationship with industry through our National Defense Transportation Association. We meet with CEOs and COO levels at least every quarter. We do tech on tech exchanges, and we work very closely with Cyber Command to provide these no cost solutions and opportunities for data exchanges and tech on tech exchanges to help them protect government data. And we walked them through on contracts. And in fact, they’re supposed to protect DOD data when we move it through the system. And so, for seven years now, they have been implementing 110 these standards and they’ve been grading themselves and we have also been over the shoulder grading them for seven years and they’ve gotten better and better. It certainly has their attention.

But this is a never evolving threat. So, the close partnership that I have with Tim to ensure that our commercial partners understand the threats and can react to those threats is really critical. It does take time and energy, but again, it is our biggest concern. It will disrupt and degrade and we’re all looking around and we’re seeing it happen around us. So, there’s an incentive there to work closely together.

Gen. Timothy D. Haugh:

From a cyber perspective, we’re unique as a warfighting domain. Our warfighting domain is largely built by industry. So, when we start to think about how we gain reach and how we underpin the partnerships with TRANSCOM, with NORTHCOM, with Space Command, industry has to be at the center of that. And our partnership with Congress and within the department to give both Cyber Command NSA authorities to work directly with industry has really been an enormous enabler in how we can influence the understanding of threat with implications for how that secures the department.

From an NSA standpoint, we have over 1200 partnerships with industry and that is really focused on the defense industrial base, and it’s about us being able to have day-to-day relationships and share threat information and have analytic exchange and to do that in ways that allow us to get their insights, but for us to be able to provide them things that today we’re pretty comfortable sharing sensitive information at an unclassified level and being able to then enable them to do their defense.

We’re also providing services to industry that the department is funding to make our defense industrial base more secure. We’re scanning their networks at their request, providing them back a private report so they can secure. We’re going to continue to look at pilot activities through NSA that helps secure our DIB.

From a Cyber Command standpoint, our authorities in our under-advisement program allows us to also look at threats through really a detailed way. If we see malware, let’s have a conversation about it and let’s now see how we can work collaboratively to make both the department more secure, but also our nation and our allies more secure. And deriving for those partnerships from the other combatant commanders is one of the areas that I think we’re really proud of the work that’s going on to prioritize those relationships that will allow us to do the things that are most valuable to the joint force.

Gen. Stephen Whiting:

Yeah, like has been said, we think partnerships are absolutely vital and it’s part of our secret sauce that our competitors don’t have. We like to say in space that it’s a team sport. No one country, command, service, agency, department, company can do all that needs to be done in space, so we’ve got to work together and that’s what really makes us stronger. If we think about the joint partnerships, those have been highlighted, we have placed joint integrated space teams into the headquarters of our fellow combatant commands that just hired the last of those teams, the first representative now at TRANSCOM, and proud to say now we’ve gotten all the other 10 combatant commands. With our interagency partners in the National Reconnaissance Office and with the intel community, we plan together, we do protect and defend operations together out at the National Space Defense Center. Just a fantastic partnership there.

With commercial, much like General Haugh just said, it’s about sharing threat information, and we have a number of ways that we do that as well. Principally out at the commercial cell at Vandenberg Space Force Base with our space force base component.

And then with our international partners, there’s a lot I could talk about. We have ways that new nascent space countries who you wouldn’t think we partner with in space, we have a way to onboard them. But at the top of that pyramid partnership, if you will, is our Operation Olympic Defender, where today we operate with United Kingdom, Canada and Australia at the highest classification levels each and every day to reduce risk in space, know what’s happening together.

Just two weeks ago, New Zealand announced they’re joining Operation Olympic Defender after we invited them. And I hope in the near future, France and Germany will have a positive response on our invitation as well. But it just shows the commitment of like-minded countries to act responsibly together in space and make sure we can continue to enjoy the benefits of it even in the face of the threats we now have.

Panel Moderator: Lt. Gen. David Deptula:

Now, one of the most significant and unanticipated conflicts that we saw erupt in 2022 was Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. For your respective mission areas, two-part question, what are your takeaways in terms of lessons learned? And then second part, what lessons should we not take away because the character of the combatants in that conflict are very different than how the United States might engage in warfare?

Gen. Greg Guillot:

I think the first big lesson that we’ve seen is that partners are the difference, certainly on the European countries banding together. And it’s not just in Europe. If you look in the Middle East, if you look in the Pacific, and certainly even in the homeland, the fact that we have strong partnerships, and as I said earlier, we don’t just coordinate together, we actually can integrate and seamlessly operate together is a huge difference.

Next, as those partners look to monitor what’s going on in the Ukraine Theater, the rise of CJADC-2, the ingestion of live layers of information, not just an air picture or a land picture or a maritime picture, but medical, logistics, all being tied in at your fingertips, not just for that region, but shared globally I think is a big lesson.

And then last is the importance of counter-UAS, both kinetic and non-kinetic capabilities to defeat that rapidly growing threat that we see out there and in other parts of the world.

What probably concerns me the most from the NORAD and NORTHCOM standpoint, cause those are all benefits that we have, is the illumination on how Russia will target and has targeted, going after critical infrastructure with a variety of new and advanced weapons, and also going after non-military targets. So as the command’s responsible for homeland defense and defending that critical infrastructure, that’s certainly been an eye-opener. Of course we knew that that was a potential, but to see it in action and then figure out how we would defend against an adversary that would not have regard for military versus non-military targets and going after critical infrastructure in the way that they have is probably the thing that we think about the most from learning in Ukraine and the Russian/Ukraine and seeing how that could apply here in the homeland.

Panel Moderator: Lt. Gen. David Deptula:

Jackie.

Gen. Jackie Van Ovost:

Logistics is under attack; number one target sets for both, and they’re adapting and continue to go after logistics. Why? That’s the staying power of the nation. So, as we think about that, know that we’re under tech right now. We talked about on the cyber side and even in space. So, making sure that we’re ready to operate in that condition and operate for a long time, we should be prudent in our thought about our ability to operate under all domain threat for a protracted period of time.

And the second thing is that Ukraine right now, it’s a whole of nation effort to kick Russia out of their nation. Russia is not having a whole of nation effort. China is by design a whole of nation effort. We should think accordingly.

Gen. Timothy D. Haugh:

Three areas. One is use of intelligence, two resilience, and then three is communications with allies and partners. So if we think back to what predated the unlawful invasion by Russia of Ukraine and the work that went on to downgrade and declassify intelligence as a tool for policymakers to build the alliance, that’s a critical component of what we as a nation were able to do to be able to ensure that everyone understood what Russia was doing, what they were intending to do, and what lies they were going to tell. That enabled our policymakers to take action.

Second, the choices Ukraine made to become more resilient. Right before the conflict, they made changes in their law that allowed them to offshore their critical data to US cloud providers becoming more resilient in their data. If they hadn’t done that, Russia would’ve been much more successful in their initial cyber operations.

What lessons do we need to take away? As General Whiting talked about in terms of, we need to be able to talk about risk, right beside that we need to be able to talk about resilience. And not just in multiple communications paths, but where are we going to get resilience in ensuring the right data is available to the right commander at Echelon, the right compute is available to the right force at Echelon. We need to think about this differently when we start to think about alternate scenarios.

And then finally, how do we talk to our partners? One of the areas that was really challenging at the outset is how do we enable EUCOM to be able to share intelligence with their partner in Ukraine, ensuring we have secure communications and that they are resilient and will be certainly modern in all the cryptography that we would give them. We have to ensure those mission partner environments are ready for whatever scenario so that we can leverage our strength, which is our partnerships. We’ve got to be able to ensure that those are ready for any scenario.

Gen. Stephen Whiting:

And I would offer, I think three areas of lessons learned from a space perspective. And number one is cyber. While Russia and China have built systems to take us on in the space domain, it’s much cheaper for them and harder for us to attribute if they try to attack us in cyber. And on the opening night of their invasion of Ukraine, they actually conducted a cyber-attack against a commercial SATCOM company and knocked off tens of thousands of modems off that network in their effort to try to undermine Ukrainian command and control. So, we’ve got to be robust in cyber.

Number two is the importance of commercial space. It is incredible the amount of capability that is now on orbit from commercial companies. General Haugh mentioned the issue with classification. If you go to commercial, you can overcome many of those classification issues. And it’s been a way for us to partner with others more quickly because of what commercial space brings us.

And third, I think I would say a lesson is you do not want to be a military that is not space enabled on a modern battlefield. You’re not going to survive very long, unless you’re just dug into a World War I style trench. And so, you want your forces to have all the advantages from space. And that drives a requirement on us at US Space Command to protect and defend those capabilities so you can have the confidence that they’ll be there in a conflict.

Panel Moderator: Lt. Gen. David Deptula:

Well, thanks very much. Unfortunately, we’ve come to the end of our period of time, but your insights have been illustrative. And again, thanks for taking the time to be here and everyone in the audience, please help me in thanking our panelists.

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