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Kendall explains why success in space requires ‘transformational change’
April 19, 2023
(AFNS) – Emphasizing that space capabilities are “important to our strategy of integrated deterrence” and the reason U.S. Space Force must drive “transformational” change, Department of the Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall offered a blunt assessment April 19 of the challenges today in space but also optimism that the United States would maintain its dominance in that domain.
In a keynote address to the 2023 Space Symposium in Colorado Springs, Colorado, he noted the critical role space plays today in every aspect of national security and that maintaining a functional, assured presence is essential especially given China’s activity in space.
Unlike the recent past when the United States had virtually free reign in space, today the domain is crowded and dangerous, home to thousands of satellites operated by dozens of nations, widespread space debris, and most importantly, several aggressive and capable space-faring nations who consider space a warfighting domain.
Foremost among them Kendall said, is China.
“Among China’s military priorities, space ranks very high,” Kendall said, emphasizing a theme he has been voicing frequently since becoming Secretary. “China views space as a military operational domain and is developing and fielding forces intended to dominate in that domain.
“Second, China does not seem to be constrained by concerns about debris generation or strategic stability. This is the environment in which the Space Force must deter and prevail,” he said.
Countering these developments is why the Space Force was created and why is must be nimble and focused, Kendall suggested.
China’s advances “are particularly worrisome in light of the Chinese Communist Party’s lack of transparency regarding military space doctrine, its failure to adhere to or advance global norms, its reluctance to allow open communication between military leaders, and the corresponding risk of miscalculation,” he said.
Kendall spent most of the balance of his remarks outlining in detail the budgetary and programmatic response managed by the Space Force to confront the new reality in space and ensure capabilities such as GPS, communications and missile warning remain failsafe and reliable in a more hostile and contested domain.
“The United States and its allies and partners have some significant military advantages. One of those is experience,” he said, adding: “I believe that deterrence can succeed. Our strategy of integrated deterrence is built on that premise and on the strengths of our partnerships with like-minded nations that share our values.”
The Space Force’s budget request for fiscal year 2024, which begins October 1, is 15 percent more than the budget it has this year. (The current budget is 30 percent greater than the year before.)
But benefits from that increase are diminished, Kendall said, if Congress fails to pass the budget on time.
“My deepest fear today isn’t China; it is the loss of the only unrecoverable asset – time – and what that could imply,” he said. “I’m afraid that we face an unpredictable political situation in the US in which a yearlong continuing resolution is a real possibility. I don’t know anyone on Capitol Hill who wants to see a yearlong CR, but I also don’t know anyone on Capitol Hill who has defined a likely route to avoid one.”
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A CR has become a common device that prevents the government from shutting down while lawmakers work out differences on a new spending plan. A CR simply extends most, if not all, the rules for how money is spent from the previous - and expiring – budget year to the next with insufficient allowance for how conditions or circumstances change. Kendall and other senior leaders- worry, however, because a CR would prohibit new programs from starting while continuing to fund programs which are past their prime or those delivering capability that is no longer relevant.
In response Kendall pointed to a legislative proposal endorsed by the Department of the Defense and the White House that, if approved by Congress, would give Kendall and the other service secretaries new – the limited – power to divert already appropriated funds to new technologies. That ability is now prohibited under rules governing the way money can be spent when the government is funded by temporary, stop-gap mechanism known as a “continuing resolution.”
Restricting how money is spent costs valuable time, Kendall said and keep promising technologies from being developed and deployed at the fastest rate possible.
That is a problem given China’s focus on space. Since China declared space a “warfighting domain” in 2015, Kendall said, “it’s on-orbit presence has grown by well over 300 percent with more than 700 satellites now in orbit.”
It “has developed and tested anti-satellite weapons and “developed ground-based laser weapons and jammers to disrupt, degrade, and damage satellite sensors, communication, and navigation systems,” he said.
“We are all united in our goal of providing Air and Space forces that can deter and if needed prevail against any opponent, anytime, anywhere, including when we project power with our partners wherever it is needed, on or around the planet,” Kendall said.
“We are seeing success in these efforts. The Space Force is in the midst of a transformation.”
All of the focus and activity, Kendall said, reflects the central role space plays today in national security and critical functions of everyday life that include banking, commerce, and communication.
Because of that, Kendall acknowledged that he had to reassess – and change – his thinking for how best to respond to space and deal with the rapidly changing dynamics.
“Throughout most of my career, I’ve focused on step-by-step evolutionary change which I think has been effective at maintaining the military superiority that has allowed security, prosperity, and democracy to flourish across the globe,” Kendall said, reflecting on his 50-year career in government service, often at senior levels in the Department of Defense.
“However, during my time as Secretary of the Air Force, it has become increasingly clear that deeper transformation is essential for our Space Force,” he said.
https://www.spaceforce.mil/News/Article/3368123/kendall-explains-why-success-in-space-requires-transformational-change/
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DOD assessing document disclosures and implementing mitigation measures
April 19, 2023
WASHINGTON (AFNS) – The Defense Department continues to actively address the incident involving the unauthorized disclosure of classified documents, said Deputy Pentagon Press Secretary Sabrina Singh at a news conference today.
Massachusetts Air National Guard Airman 1st Class Jack Teixeira, 21, was arrested April 13, by the FBI at his family's residence in Dighton, Massachusetts, in connection with an investigation into alleged unauthorized removal, retention and transmission of classified national defense information.
The department is taking this breach seriously, Singh said. Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III and senior Pentagon officials "continue to convene daily meetings to examine the scope and scale of this disclosure, as well as ensure that appropriate mitigation measures are being taken."
In support of this effort, the secretary has formally directed Ronald S. Moultrie, undersecretary of defense for intelligence and security, in coordination with John Sherman, chief information officer, and Michael B. Donley, the director of administration and management, to lead a comprehensive review of DOD security, programs, policies and procedures, Singh said.
Within 45 days the secretary will be provided with initial findings and recommendations to improve the department's policies and procedures related to the protection of classified information, she said.
The department is in close contact with the White House, Congress, interagency partners, and allies and partners, she said.
Addressing the media, Singh said: "We'd encourage you to be mindful of how you are reporting and repurposing these images due to the classified nature of this information and the potential impact on national security, as well as the safety and security of our personnel, and those of our allies and partners."
Separately, Singh said the department has publicly acknowledged previously that there is a small U.S. military footprint in Ukraine which is providing mission-critical support to the U.S. embassy and the defense attaché office in support of security assistance programs. This is not new news, she added.
"To be clear, there are no U.S. combat troops conducting combat operations in Ukraine," she said.
On another Ukraine topic, Singh said Austin spoke with Oleksii Reznikov, Ukraine's defense minister today.
Both leaders discussed the security situation in Ukraine and the secretary looks forward to his own meeting later this week at the Ukraine Defense Contact Group, she said.
https://www.spaceforce.mil/News/Article/3368123/kendall-explains-why-success-in-space-requires-transformational-change/
Correct sauce
https://www.spaceforce.mil/News/Article/3368262/dod-assessing-document-disclosures-and-implementing-mitigation-measures/
‘Complacency’ must be avoided to maintain U.S. superiority in space, Saltzman says
April 19, 2023
(AFNS) – Chief of Space Operations, Gen. Chance Saltzman April 19 praised the United States’ proud and trailblazing history in space but said the rapidly changing and more dangerous domain requires new actions, thinking and focus.
“This crowd is passionate about space; I see no signs of apathy,” Saltzman said during his keynote speech at the 2023 Space Symposium, a large gathering of government, military, industry, and experts in space held annually in Colorado Springs, Colorado.
But, he said, “I’m worried about a far more subtle form of complacency. One that grows out of the comfort of continuity, the comfort of our expertise, the comfort of our successes. What we have done and how we have done it has worked and worked well, but I fear we think it will work well forever.”
Saltzman, who became the Space Force’s highest-ranking military officer in November, declared, “now is not the time to allow for any measure of complacency. … We are now at the precipice of a new era in space.”
“This new era,” he said, “comes with new challenges and new opportunities and mandates that we adopt new methods and mindsets to address them. The Space Force, our industry partners, our allies, and inter-agency teammates must collectively pivot to new ways of doing business to keep up with the new operating environment.”
Space today is “far more contested and U.S. access to space capabilities is not a given,” Saltzman said.
It is defined by “increased competition from adversaries able to execute space-enabled attack on our forces in air, land and sea,” he said.
It also is a time of “rapidly diminishing launch costs and the ability to manufacture small, highly capable satellites with speed and scale.”
Saltzman’s appearance was the concluding portion of a “one-two punch” first from Department of the Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall detailing the changing nature of space. Both highlighted space’s critical importance to both national security and everyday life and each outlined what is needed to meet both the threats and growing number of nations and private entities now active in space.
Like Kendall, Saltzman enumerated the activity and threats but, in more detail, to support the Space Force’s mission and its goals.
“We are seeing an incredibly sophisticated array of threats including the traditional SATCOM jammers and GPS jammers to more destabilizing Direct Ascent ASATs across multiple orbital regimes, on-orbit grapplers, pursuit satellites, nesting dolls, directed energy weapons (and) cyber-attacks,” Saltzman said.
Like Kendall, Saltzman said China is one of the most active and capable competitors in space.
“The PRC, our pacing challenge, has doubled the number of their satellites just since the U.S. Space Force was established. Now they have over 700 operational, with approximately 250 dedicated to ISR,” meaning intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance.
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The picture is further complicated, he said, by a vast proliferation in space of privately maintained, commercially available and sophisticated services.
“What was once state of the art and limited to only a few well-resourced nations is now the state of the world and far more accessible and even commonplace,” he said. “I think you will agree that things are quite different from a threat perspective but also all of the other elements contributing to congestion and competition,” he said.
It falls to the Space Force to spearhead the nation’s response to these changing and challenging conditions. To do that, Saltzman has outlined three “lines of effort” that, together, form the 3-year-old service’s broadly drawn blueprint for success. The three focus areas are: Field Combat-Ready Forces, Amplify the Guardian Spirit, and Partner to Win.
“But this is just a framework to focus and organize our activities. The real work is to go about these activities in a fundamentally different way acknowledging that new problems require new answers derived from new thinking… old ways of doing business will come up short,” Saltzman conceded.
“We must pivot,” he said. “This is an imperative for the collective national security space enterprise, our industry partners, and our allies. The old ways of doing business are too slow, too late to need, and too behind the times to meet the challenges we are facing today.”
In real terms, Saltzman said the budget proposal for fiscal year 2024, “underwrites the pivot to a more survivable posture, with investments to the tune of $2.3 billion for proliferated LEO missile warning and tracking architecture.”
It includes $300 million to further develop novel programs that will yield higher fidelity simulators, advanced ranges for tactics validation and training against simulated adversaries.
Despite the challenges, Saltzman said he is optimistic. The U.S. industrial base, which Space Force considers an indispensable partner, is “an innovation engine” that will provide solutions.
“Finally, for the U.S. Space Force, the asymmetric advantage that I lean on every day is the talent of our remarkable workforce,” Saltzman said. “The character, courage, connection, and commitment that the Guardians of the U.S. Space Force demonstrate each and every day assures me that we will be ready whenever and wherever the call to action comes.”
https://www.spaceforce.mil/News/Article/3368200/complacency-must-be-avoided-to-maintain-us-superiority-in-space-saltzman-says/
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