Schriever Wargame 2010 - Air Force Space Command

ing the luxury of being located together under the same roof.
This challenge will be exacerbated tenfold when trying to accomplish
it virtually from remote geographic locations in what
could be a communications denied environment. Focusing dissemination
on an effects-based discussion, vice specific ends,
ways and means can significantly improve the process. The
intelligence community and special operations forces models
of stripping sources to increase releasability are a good starting
point.
Whole of Nation Challenges
SW 10 bore out how integral space and cyberspace capabilities
are to the ‘whole-of-nation’ strategy across the DIME
spectrum. However, they bring unique problem sets that complicate
their role. Senior leadership, both civilian and military,
are conversant and comfortable with conventional air, land,
and sea actions and reactions—much like a chess game, the
adversary reaction to such moves are relatively predictable for
an experienced player. However, the same leadership does not
share the same level of knowledge and comfort with space and
cyberspace actions—consequently adversary reactions are not
as predictable or understood.
Add to the fact that the multi-use nature of space and cyberspace
capabilities can rapidly complicate decisions by denying
communication paths that carry both military command and
control (C2) and civil emergency broadcast services; this multi
use nature can give rise to law of armed conflict quandaries.
The multi-use non-kinetic target sets require the same attention
and assessment required for kinetic targeting such as targeting
insurgents hiding in a mosque.
One of the most critical lessons we learned in SW 10 was
that actions in space and cyberspace are inherently global, and
cannot (or will not) remain constrained to the theater of operations.
Effects generated against commercial services being
used for military purposes had a palpable impact on the global
economy, and often expanded the conflict to neutral third-party
players.
However, the complexity of the problem does not abrogate
our responsibility to consider the use of space and cyberspace
actions. Many of the capabilities available provide a reversible
and hard-hitting impact that is not as easily achievable
through conventional forces. They simply carry with them the
caution that miscalculating outside perceptions and reactions to
our own efforts and activities may have a stronger ‘whole-ofnation’
impact than desired or anticipated.
Core Enablers
Our reliance on space and cyberspace is well understood by
anyone watching US operations evolve over the past twenty
years, and it has been identified as a lucrative pressure point
in potential adversary’s military doctrine. During SW 10, the
adversary immediately focused on exploiting and denying US
and allied access to space and cyber enablers as a preemptive
action shaping the operational environment.
USPACOM understands the trials and tribulations of war,
and we train to operate with losses to conventional forces,
but there remains minimum and essential resources required
to achieve objectives in a given campaign. Within space and
cyberspace, we found an analogous set of core enablers the
GCCs must have access to, with clear certainty, in order to operate
through the contested environments of tomorrow. Core
enablers are the basis of a GCC’s tipping point—that critical
juncture where the risk to accomplishing the assigned mission
is too high to guarantee success with any degree of confidence.
These enablers include capabilities and services that support:
strategic and tactical communications; intelligence, surveillance,
and reconnaissance; position, navigation, and timing;
missile warning and integrated air and missile defense; space
situational awareness; and network operations. These enablers
clearly support the ability to achieve primary mission sets (i.e.,
protecting the homeland, defending US/allied/coalition forces,
etc.), as well as supporting tasks (e.g., neutralizing adversary
power projection, posturing for full combat operations, supporting
other joint operations areas, etc.). It is critical that the
GCC articulates these requirements clearly to the FCC to ensure
the proper level of priority is given to maintaining their
capability.
Command and Control of Command and Control
As the adversary challenged our access to space and cyber
critical enablers during SW 10, it was difficult for military
leadership and the National Security Council to appreciate and
predict the full impact of those actions. There was no robust
common understanding or methodology to fall back on in their
experience or “toolbox” that aided them in making well informed
judgments and decisions.
In our theater, Adm Robert F. Willard, USN (as commander,
Pacific Fleet and now as commander, USPACOM) has propagated
a concept known as C2 of C2. It is a concept whereby
commanders and their staffs are educated and trained to recognize
and understand the impact of denied, degraded, exploited,
or disrupted C2 capabilities in the same way that they recognize
the effects of attrition and hindered operating environments on
a traditional conventional force. However, situational awareness
alone, while valuable, is not the only requirement. Commanders
and staffs must maintain the capability to quickly and
proactively mitigate the operational consequence of space and
cyberspace losses. The commanders are empowered to direct
C2 mitigation efforts that are truly synchronized with maintaining
appropriate military capability and operations.
One of the most critical lessons we learned in Schriever Wargame 2010 was that actions in
space and cyberspace are inherently global, and cannot (or will not) remain constrained
to the theater of operations.
High Frontier 32