Gen. James Dickinson
WASHINGTON: Space Command is considering opening the doors to wider allied participation to other parts of command operations traditionally reserved for US nationals, says new SPACECOM head Army Gen. James Dickinson.
“We’re looking internally to my headquarters here at Peterson to bring some of our great allies and partners into our staff and into our operations and processes here at the Combatant Command level as well,” he told the Space Foundation’s Space Symposium 365 web series today.
The annual highly classified Schriever War Game also included seven allies this year, he noted, and focused on “strategic messaging” to increase public (read political) focus on threatening activities by Russia and China. France, Germany and Japan joined the usual 5 Eyes partners of Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the UK this year. (The game was held virtually using the Battlefield Information Exploitation and Collection System intelligence sharing network, a Space Command press release says.)
This isn’t the first time the Schriever War Game has expanded beyond the traditional 5 Eyes partners; the same group of seven participated in 2018. But for the first 50 years of US military and intelligence space operations, the majority of information was highly classified and barred to allies except when exceptions were granted. The trend in the last decade has been to bring more and more allies into the embrace of space operations because they are so central to the new American way of war. For example, as Dickinson noted, Germany and France recently joined the 5 Eyes partners in the CSpO, the Combined Space Operations initiative.
“International partners provide systems and capabilities across the multi-domain spectrum. Space and cyberspace efforts focus on key areas, including but not limited to space domain awareness, rapid launch capabilities, improved ISR, enhanced environmental monitoring, and increased communications bandwidth,” a SPACECOM spokesperson said in an email today.
Dickinson said that the coordinated messaging effort was spurred by Russia’s launch last November of Cosmos-2542, which ejected a maneuvering sub-satellite Cosmos-2543, that Gen. Jay Raymond back in February charged was shadowing a US spy sat. Cosmos-2543 in July ejected an object that the US dubbed a ” high-speed projectile,” in what most observers believe was a non-destructive antisatellite (ASAT) weapons test.
“We started a process by which we worked with out allies and partners to hold accountable the Russians for what they were doing in some on orbit activities, which were significant, to say the least,” he said. “So, bringing our allies and partners into that type of function and working closely with them is very useful for what we’re doing in terms of monitoring the space domain.”
“Today’s partnerships are vital in the contested space environment to strengthen our integration and interoperability along with promoting the peaceful use and development of space,” said Lt. Gen. Stephen N. Whiting, commander of Space Force’s new Space Operations Command. He spearheaded the war game.
Space Operations Command (SpOC), which just stood up on Oct. 21, is in essence the reincarnation of Air Force Space Command. “Space Operations Command provides Combat Power Projection, Information Mobility, Space Domain Awareness, and Space Mobility and Logistics. Further, SpOC will foster and incubate innovation from all levels of the force, and fully support the drive to build a Digital Space Force. SpOC is the primary force provider of space forces and capabilities for Combatant Commanders, Coalition partners, the Joint Force and the Nation,” a Space Force fact sheet says.
Dickinson said that one of the tasks now facing SPACECOM is figuring out the command’s new role as a warfighting command. As Breaking D readers were the first to know, the fact that SPACECOM was established last August as a geographic command means that, unlike its previous (1985-2001) incarnation, it can call in support for its own operations from other Combatant Commands.
“Space professionals have always been enablers of warfighting capability in other domains. We always will be. Today, however, we are the warfighters too,” he said. “What’s interesting is the evolution and the adaptation of the necessary doctrine for this new operating environment.”
“But we’re also creating doctrine, new tactics new standard operating procedures, even new nomenclature,” Dickinson added. “For an old Army Air defender such as me, that means we’re looking at applying new definitions to terms and concepts like beyond-line-of-sight, and the forward line of troops, and the forward edge of the battle area. So, how we adapt those concepts to a domain where the lines of communication are measured in 10s of thousands of miles is a challenge, but we will. … We are creating the reality to match the rhetoric behind what it means to fight and win in the space domain.”
Indeed, the Joint Staff issued a revision on Oct. 26 of the key joint doctrinal publication on space. The changes primarily reflect the shift in responsibility for space operations from STRATCOM to SPACECOM, and SPACECOM’s shift to both a supported and supporting command. It also includes a new section that expands on the fundamental role for “Space Mission Assurance,” that include more specific definitions of the underlying concepts such as “resilience” and “diversification” — along the lines outlined by the Obama administration.
Further, as Breaking D readers know, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley has reviewed the Unified Command Plan (UCP) to delineate SPACECOM’s authorities more clearly, and set the boundaries on its relationships with the other commands. The current UCP was signed by President Donald Trump on May 24, 2019. A spokesperson for the Joint Staff confirmed today that the draft now has been signed by Milley, and awaits approval by Defense Secretary Mark Esper before going to the White House.
