Schriever Wargame 2010 - Air Force Space Command

Schriever Wargame 2010
Science Supporting Space and Cyber:
Insights From Schriever Wargame 2010
Dr. Werner J. A. Dahm
Chief Scientist of the US Air Force, HQ Air Force
Pentagon, Washington, DC
Col Eric Silkowski, USAF
Office of the Air Force Chief Scientist, HQ Air Force
Pentagon, Washington, DC
Early Schriever Wargames were conducted to understand
the value of advanced space technologies in various conflict
scenarios, and later evolved to address the cyber domain as
well. More importantly, over time the games broadened their
scope to increasingly address factors such as strategy and policy
dimensions, diplomatic and economic considerations, integration
with joint and allied partner operations, and even whole
of government approaches for escalation control and coalition
warfighting. Today, the primary focus of Schriever Wargames
is no longer just on understanding the value of advanced technologies.
This is appropriate given the intense interdependences
that the space and cyber domains have created among nearly
all elements of the military, political, and diplomatic spheres of
conflict. It is in these broader challenges where the Schriever
Wargames seek to derive some of their most valuable insights.
Yet ultimately it is still science that will provide the advanced
technologies for addressing many of these broader challenges of
space and cyber domain conflicts. Indeed, space and cyberspace
are inherently technical domains, and continued innovation in
them is essential to provide our own forces with the greatest
freedom to operate while denying adversaries the ability to interfere
with our use of these domains or their use by others for
peaceful means. Each Schriever Wargame has examined potential
future capabilities derived from science and technology, and
these have been increasingly informed by the policy and decision-making
insights from previous games. Indeed, for Schriever
Wargame 2010 (SW 10) it was recognized that the wargame
provides an opportunity—and a particularly valuable one—in
which scientists and technologists can gain further insights into
space and cyberspace operational needs as driven by contemporary
thinking about these broader challenges. These insights in
turn enable the science and technology (S&T) leadership of the
Air Force, and of our international partners, to more clearly understand
where investments in technology development should
be focused to maximize their value for meeting these challenges.
SW 10 thus for the first time included a S&T cell as an integral
part of the wargame to ensure that these key insights would
be obtained firsthand and in their proper context. This was additionally
motivated by the value seen from having an S&T cell in
the previous year’s Air Force Strategic Plans and Programs-led
Future Capabilities Game. It was also recognized that addition
of an S&T cell in Schriever Wargames could further increase
the technical fidelity of understanding the future environment
that the wargame is presumed to occur in. Such a cell also helps
inform and support technical aspects of decisions being made by
other cells in the wargame as they formulate their moves. This
latter role is provided on a non-interference basis, observing
and offering support to other cells as needed. In so doing, the
S&T cell obtains additional important insights that collectively
provide a clearer understanding of the science investments that
will most effectively support our broader space and cyber needs.
Those insights, together with major efforts such as the recent
Air Force “Technology Horizons” vision for S&T over the next
decade and beyond, 1 are essential for guiding the Air Force’s
technology development efforts and those of our international
partners.
The Air Force chief scientist thus assembled a team of a
dozen scientists and technologists for this purpose and led the
S&T cell in SW 10. The team included representatives from
the Air Force Research Laboratory, Air Force Space Command,
Air Force Plans and Programs, the Defense Advanced Research
Projects Agency, and others, as well as science and technology
representatives from Australia, Canada, and the United Kingdom.
On each day of the wargame, cell members attended the
game brief and then met to discuss key challenges being faced
in the game and potential technologies for addressing these.
They then spread out across the game floor to interact with other
cells as the next move was developed, observing and engaging
in discussions to identify issues being addressed by these cells
and providing information to support their decision making.
Cell members later reconvened to discuss their observations of
key issues and corresponding technical implications, and then
attended the end-of-day game move brief. This cycle was effective
in providing support to the wargame while enabling the
insights needed to inform future S&T investments in space and
cyberspace capabilities. The S&T cell also interacted with and
briefed the senior leadership cell to ensure that these insights
would inform their decision making during the wargame.
Key Insights
SW 10 revealed a clear need for developing cyber posturing
tools and methods for signaling to an adversary our changing
perceptions of the level of tension during periods of approaching
conflict. Such tools are essential ingredients for an effective
ability to control conflict escalation. Today, there are few
sufficiently nuanced tools available in the cyber domain for expressing
varying degrees of satisfaction or dissatisfaction with
changes in an adversary’s posture or actions in the cyber domain
and elsewhere. Information operations conditions do not serve
this purpose. They are a relatively coarse threat level system to
High Frontier 38