Schriever Wargame 2010 - Air Force Space Command

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Senior Leader Perspective The Challenge of Integration: Lessons from Schriever Wargame 2010 Lt Gen Larry D. James, USAF Commander, 14 th Air Force and Commander Joint Functional Component Command for Space US Strategic Command Vandenberg AFB, California The 2010 edition of Air Force Space Command’s Schriever Wargame (SW 10) explored the complex world of 2022 … a world comprised of peer space and cyberspace competitors; a world where reliance on coalition space and cyber capabilities would be key to warfighting success; and a world where space and cyberspace capabilities would be challenged both kinetically and non-kinetically in the air, sea, land, space, and cyber domains. The SW 10 Wargame For nearly a week, almost 600 participants and supporting staff worked through the 2022 scenario. Similar to the 2009 Schriever V Wargame, SW 10 was designed to evaluate leveraging all national government instruments of power in a strategiclevel engagement. However, SW 10 also sought to expand on Schriever V by exploring how the US could leverage capabilities provided by commercial and coalition partnerships. More specifically, the wargame’s objectives were to: 1. Investigate space and cyberspace alternative concepts, capabilities, and force postures to meet requirements. 2. Examine the contributions of space and cyberspace to future deterrent strategies. 3. Explore integrated planning processes that employ a whole of government approach to protect and execute operations in space and cyberspace domains. As the scenario unfolded, participants gained a number of significant insights regarding the employment of space capabilities in future conflicts between space powers. Key among these insights was the realization that space force organization, military-industry integration, entanglement with cyberspace and the reconstitution of space forces would be fundamentally important concepts. Certainly, SW 10 was too brief for the participants to appreciate the full implications of these insights. That will require deliberate and comprehensive study over the coming months. The concepts outlined here are intended to contribute towards that effort. Space Organization and Construct The SW 10 scenario validated the importance of coalition space capabilities. It illustrated the need for mechanisms to employ those capabilities in a way that is consistent with national objectives while being value-added to the coalition. The game explored three related organizations to achieve this: a Combined Space Operations Center (CSpOC), a Combined Joint Task Force-Space (CJTF-Space), and a Space Council. The CSpOC provided a means to direct the full range of coalition space capabilities at the operational level of war. The CSpOC concept, exercised in Schriever V, was matured considerably for SW 10. Its responsibilities were expanded and more fully developed, its size was increased considerably and coalition personnel were added to its membership. These changes enabled improved communications across the coalition, facilitated more rapid deployment and employment of coalition capabilities, and allowed coalition partners to be fully integrated in strategy, planning, and execution. The CSpOC was one of the clear successes of SW 10 and, as such, it is as an excellent model upon which to base a real-world combined operations center. If the adage that we must train as we expect to fight is true, then the lesson of SW 10 is clear: we must work to establish a CSpOC today if it is to be employed successfully in a future time of crisis. In keeping with US Joint Doctrine, the CSpOC reported to a CJTF-Space, which served as the single, integrated military structure to direct the employment of coalition space forces. SW 10 was the first use of a CJTF-Space in the Schriever Wargame series. As a result, the roles and responsibilities of the CJTF were not sufficiently developed to allow full concept development. Still, the CJTF filled an important gap identified during Schriever V—that the CSpOC needed a higher level military organization to guide its efforts. Similarly, to ensure the CJTF employed each coalition member’s space capabilities in accordance with its national constraints and in pursuit of its national objectives, SW 10 employed a Space Council. This council brought together high-level policy representatives of each coalition nation to develop strategic guidance. Like the CJTF-Space, this construct needs further development. In particular, SW 10 highlighted the need to examine the authorities that a Space Council requires, the relationship of the Space Council to the combatant commander and his/her staff, As the scenario unfolded, participants gained a number of significant insights regarding the employment of space capabilities in future conflicts between space powers. 9 High Frontier
Subject matter experts from industry are uniquely qualified to understand how best to employ their space systems; thus they are ideally suited to develop employment strategies and identify how their assets fit in broader strategy-to-task planning. and lines of authority from the Space Council to the CJTF and participating nations. While it was clearly valuable to explore strategic-level organizations at the SW 10, the CJTF-Space and Space Council concepts, as employed, were relatively new and immature concepts. Still, both organizations showed promise. As such, policies and operating concepts for a CJTF-Space should be further developed and re-evaluated in future wargames and exercises. One of the primary recommendations stemming from SW 10 is to create an International Space Cooperation Working Group, with appropriate sub-working groups focused in particular functional areas, to work through the task of establishing a CSpOC and CJTF- Space. US Strategic Command has begun discussions with key coalition partners to develop the way ahead for establishing a CSpOC. These early discussions suggest the initial iteration of the CSpOC will likely be based on virtual connections and data sharing between coalition nations’ space operations centers and the US Joint Space Operations Center. Industry Integration Much as SW 10 built on the lessons of Schriever V regarding coalition space capabilities, SW 10 also sought to expand the role of the space commercial sector by improving on the limited industry integration experienced in Schriever V. The intent was to tighten linkages between industry and CJTF-Space. Representatives from key space industry organizations were attached to the CSpOC to participate in operations planning and execution. With these representatives, the CSpOC was able to rapidly identify and leverage industry capabilities to meet operational needs. By all accounts, the inclusion of industry representatives in the CSpOC was a clear success. However, the game highlighted two challenges we must overcome to realize the full potential of a partnership between industry and CJTF-Space. First, CSpOC planners need a better understanding of how to leverage the industry “order of battle.” That is, planners need to be familiar with the assets industry has available for use, capabilities they provide, costs for using those assets, and how long the assets might be available. Gathering this information from companies and consortiums in multiple countries will require considerable time. We need to begin compiling this “order of battle” information now. The second challenge is the need to involve industry in CJTF- Space deliberate planning processes so that the information identified above is included in concept of operations, concept plans, and operational plans (OPLAN). Subject matter experts from industry are uniquely qualified to understand how best to employ their space systems; thus they are ideally suited to develop employment strategies and identify how their assets fit in broader strategy-to-task planning. Finally, as demonstrated in SW 10, once open conflict extends to space, protection and liability become primary concerns for industry. These concerns must be addressed explicitly during deliberate planning. There are several hurdles that must be overcome before industry representatives can become a routine part of military deliberate planning—for example, ensuring proper security clearances, determining the best and most appropriate representatives to represent industry, constructing a legal framework that governs the government-industry collaboration, and so forth. Despite these challenges, SW 10 was a pivotal event in ongoing efforts to explore how best to integrate industry capabilities with government and coalition space capabilities. Certainly, there is more work to do, but the lessons of SW 10 suggest that the outcome will be worth the effort. Space and Cyber Entanglement SW 10 offered an important revision to what was, perhaps, the central lesson of Schriever V; namely that conflict in space would most likely begin in cyberspace (e.g., cyber attacks on networks, links, command and control systems, etc.). As the SW 10 scenario unfolded, however, it became clear that space and cyber are “entangled” across the entire spectrum of conflict. In other words, space and cyber systems are so intertwined, that the opening actions of a conflict could take place in either medium—and, more than likely, the effects would be felt across both domains. This suggests a critical need to understand linkages between the mediums and employ a fully integrated strategy. Although SW 10 participants understood the need for fully integrated space and cyber operations, the coalition executed a campaign whose space and cyber courses of action were often developed independently and were more often than not disconnected. This was a result of the speed of space and cyber engagements, the inability to accurately assess and attribute adversary space and cyber engagements, the lack of doctrinal integration processes, the lack of joint integration tools, and a relative void of personnel steeped in the integration of space and cyber activities. There were certainly exceptions to this general observation, but most participants recognized that, in the aggregate, there is much to do before space and cyber are truly integrated. The team identified two specific recommendations to improve space-cyber integration. First, space and cyber planners should develop standing integrated space-cyber branch plans to anticipate plausible or probable events. For example, an antisatellite launch from an adversary, jamming of communication downlinks, or a launch of a critical allied resource offer opportunities to develop standing branch plans codifying how space and cyber communities will react. Much like standing OPLANs, these branch plans should be exercised regularly to ensure a robust, integrated, and ready capability. The second recommendation is to develop processes and tools enabling continuous integration between space and cyber. Planners and operators need tools that provide an understanding of High Frontier 10
Page 1 and 2: INSIDE: Schriever Wargame 2010: Tho
Page 3 and 4: Introduction General C. Robert Kehl
Page 5 and 6: In the confused aftermath of a coor
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Page 13 and 14: Senior Leader Perspective Schriever
Page 15 and 16: Given the spectrum of effects achie
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Page 19 and 20: It takes far more intellectual hors
Page 21 and 22: A factor related to economies of sc
Page 23 and 24: Senior Leader Perspective Beyond Sc
Page 25 and 26: While we did introduce cyberspace i
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Page 29 and 30: Successful people are always lookin
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Page 33 and 34: ing the luxury of being located tog
Page 35 and 36: Senior Leader Perspective National
Page 37 and 38: are costly and scarce; dependent on
Page 39 and 40: Schriever Wargame 2010 Science Supp
Page 41 and 42: may be willing to host such sensors
Page 43 and 44: The Schriever Challenge needs to cu
Page 45 and 46: Industry Perspective A Comprehensiv
Page 47 and 48: Dynamic, Multi-Layered, Defense-in-
Page 49 and 50: Industry Perspective When the Futur
Page 51 and 52: of the world. Sticking with a Cold
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Page 55 and 56: Book Review National Security Space

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