Fall 2006 - Air & Space Power Chronicle - Air Force Link

Figure. Six available integration options among four classes of military capabilitieshighly desirable, leading naturally to a need to integrate operations inboth. 1 This space-versus-air/Earth dichotomy holds equally for ISR systemsas it does for combat systems. 2Over the past 20 years, the United States has repeatedly altered its approachto military operations in space. 3 Reasons for this turmoil and uncertaintyare complex; however, one can reasonably point to shifts in the perceptionof threats and advances in technology as major drivers. Rapidtechnological advances in today’s earthbound systems for remote sensingwill likely continue this trend, as will rapid shifts in the threat environment.A desire for greater speed in acquisition, better integration, more transparency,more accountability, and more rapid deployment of capability will requirethe space community to restructure the way it does business yet again.That earthbound alternatives to space-based ISR and combat systems canchange more quickly, just when the threat is changing more rapidly, suggeststhat space-based systems may lose their primacy to an integrated combinationof space-based systems and their air-/Earth-based alternatives.The High Ground: A Two-Dimensional NotionMilitary planners used to talk in terms of space as the “ultimate highground,” but shifts in threat and technology have changed the military calculus.One can no longer assert that only satellites or only atmospheric systemswill dominate future operations. The issue is not one of either/or;rather, all will remain, and all will progress. The challenge for space plannerslies in integrating their efforts within the larger whole. Space formerlyhad a monopoly over vital military operations, but now space-based systemsprovide only one of several alternatives. In some cases, space may offer the19