Faith reported in late 2020 that if he were a Russian or Chinese space warfare theorist, thinking about a future war with the United States, it might be reasonable to bet that the newly-minted U.S. Space Force was planning for a kinetic space conflict, starting on Day 1. Understandably, the U.S. Space Force keeps a tight lid on broader discussions of its capabilities. There isn’t a lot of direct information one way or another. Without a clear understanding of what the U.S. can do, an analyst might start trying to figure out U.S. intentions.
The culture of the Space Force might still be unformed and changing; it does bear at least a family resemblance to its sister services in at least one significant respect. In the services, the purveyors of kinetic mayhem — the shooters and the killers — tend to be culturally dominant within their respective services. The Space Force has been no exception to this. Whether or not the Space Force shooters want to or not, they present a louder, more muscular, aggressive face of the Space Force. Conversely, non-kinetic approaches to space dominance get little discussion indeed.
Between the relative boldness of the kinetic space warfare community and the comparative silence of the non-kinetic warfare practitioners, the overall message suggests a Space Force with a strong bias towards kinetic warfare. Compounding this problem, the USSF does not speak a lot about the activities of its potential foes. In public discussion, there's little to suggest that U.S. opponents are hostile and aggressive and that need a muscular response. Keeping malicious actions secret makes the cultural bias towards kinetic action appear spontaneous — that it is not a response to unfortunate real-life conditions, but more of an itchy trigger finger.
As space conflict planners know, kinetic action in space comes with an immense risk associated with orbital debris. An anti-satellite weapon, like the Chinese weapon demonstrated in 2007, can generate huge amounts of debris. The Chinese test itself created more than 3,000 bits of space shrapnel. Keep in mind that orbital speeds are immense, so an impact by even a small bit of debris can have a devastating effect producing vast clouds of junk. Those bits of debris themselves become unguided, uncontrolled, kinetic anti-satellite weapons of their own. Should the debris get thick enough, collisions can create a sort of feedback effect, called the Kessler Syndrome, where each bit of space shrapnel hits and annihilates additional satellites, creating more debris and so on.
Thus, at the very far end of kinetic space conflicts, we may see some echoes of strategic deterrent thinking about nuclear warfare in decades past. An orbital debris chain-reaction starts to take on at least a passing resemblance to the more familiar idea of Mutually Assured Destruction. Without getting into the entire history of the nuclear deterrent, the fundamental problems should be familiar to people thinking about space conflict everywhere: Difficulties with escalation control, issues with massive retaliation as a doctrine, deterrent credibility, and so on.
At a strategic level, the USSF would probably benefit from steering conversation in a slightly different direction. First, by clarifying the kind of environment we are operating in, one in which a kinetic response is a legitimate response, not just an itchy trigger finger. Second, the U.S. has a variety of tools at its disposal, enabling the U.S. to control and manage escalation of a space conflict. Explain that the U.S. can do all kinds of things to zap a satellite without going the full Skywalker and blowing it to smithereens.
These suggestions are really just a small part of learning to think about space operations in the extensive political-social-media context that is and will continue to be the backdrop to combat operations for the foreseeable future. Maintaining a very tight lid on what the reality of space conflict today may be a matter of winning the security battle versus losing the messaging war tomorrow.
Ryan Faith is a space policy consultant who previously served as a professional staff member supporting the House Subcommittee on Space and Aeronautics. Prior to that, Faith was VICE Media’s Defense and Security editor and a research analyst for the Space Foundation.
[Could there be potential enemies other than Russia or China in space? ...]
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The U.S. Space Force plans to make “a lot of announcements” during the month of December (2020) as the service approaches its one-year anniversary, Deputy Chief of Space Operations Lt. Gen. B. Chance Saltzman said Oct. 16. “We’re going to roll out some things that will be kind of new to everyone,” Saltzman said on a live webcast event hosted by the Air Force Association’s Mitchell Institute.
One of the most anticipated announcements is the official name of Space Force members, who are currently still “airmen” because the new service has not yet selected a moniker for space personnel. Thousands of Air Force space operators who have begun the process of transferring to the Space Force informally call themselves “space professionals.” Having an official name is seen as an important step in building a service culture and attracting recruits, but the process has taken longer than expected. “We are definitely taking too long on many things that maybe could be done faster,” Saltzman said. “I don’t have an easy answer … we know that almost every decision we’re making is a first of its kind.”
He said leaders worry about rushing to pick a name and then regretting the choice, “We want to get it right,” said Saltzman. Space Force senior leaders don’t want their successors to “undo a lot of the things and the decisions that we made in haste,” he said. “So we’re really just trying to be deliberate and I know that’s frustrating.” The chief of the Space Force Gen. John Raymond has said he wants to soon announce a name but he also wants to lay out long term plans for the future of the service. “We really want to look forward at what’s next, what can we expect next year, and in the third year,” said Saltzman. “General Raymond is laying out a plan now for his remaining time as the chief of space operations. The first birthday is going to be a big deal.”
Another pending decision are the ranks and insignia for officers and enlisted personnel. A rollout was expected this summer but had to be put on hold after the House passed an amendment to the 2021 National Defense Authorization Act to make Space Force use naval ranks. The Space Force now has to wait for that issue to be resolved in a House-Senate NDAA conference later in the year. Saltzman touched on other topics during the Mitchell Institute event.
The Space Force is not pushing to take over Army and Navy space programs.
The Space Force is being built from former Air Force organizations but the Pentagon said it would look at consolidating Army and Navy space programs under the Space Force. “We have those discussions routinely,” said Saltzman.
Although bringing in the other services would bolster the Space Force with with additional resources, the Space Force would support the other services having their own space capabilities, said Saltzman. The Army, Navy and Marine Corps operate fleets of aircraft separately from the Air Force so space should be no different, he said. “It’s a very nuanced discussion and it’s happening at the highest levels.”
The Space Force supports replacing large satellites with proliferated low Earth orbit constellations.
The service is coming around to the idea of proliferated LEO systems, Saltzman said. “We’re recognizing that these enormous satellites that do everything for everybody also make for really good targets. And so that might not be the best approach from a redundancy, from a resiliency standpoint.” “As we start to disaggregate those requirements and go to smaller satellites and distribute that architecture over far more systems, it creates a targeting problem for the adversary,” he said.
The Space Force plans to be a bigger customer of commercial satcom.
“I think there is so much that can be gained by taking advantage of what the commercial sector offers us in terms of satellite communications,” said Saltzman. Rather than focusing on building satellites, the Space Force can concentrate on “how we protect our data,” he said. Step one is to “leverage more of the commercial sector in terms of the bandwidth, and then put our resources against the best way to protect the data that moves through that network.” (more)
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