US Space Force’s role in national security, by commander

US Space Force
May 11, 2024

General David Miller is the United States’ Commander of Space Operations. Speaking at a New York Foreign Press Center briefing attended by United States Bureau Chief OLUKOREDE YISHAU, Gen. Miller discussed the Space Force’s critical role in America’s national security. Excerpts:

Space Operations Command

Our service is by far the youngest of our military services. We’re four years old, approaching five here in December. We oftentimes – because particularly as we rolled out this service, everything has the word “space” in it or “command” or “force.” So it’s a lot of sometimes confusion about what – who we are and what our difference is between maybe U.S. Space Command, which is the combatant command, and United States Space Force, which is the military service. So I came today to talk to you a little bit about that – about the origins of the service, maybe give you an opportunity for your questions, obviously, as most important right now, but just a little bit of backstory.

Our service was established in 2019. It was in direct response to some activity and trends that we saw in the domain that were concerning. If you look at the logic and arguments used in Congress, either on Capitol Hill or from the Department of Defense, we had seen some things occurring or trends in the domain that led us to believe that the space capability that resided principally in the Air Force at the time – and this was in 2019 – that the military services and the nation would be better served by setting up an independent Space Force, and that was because of a few things.

We had some trends of adversaries developing specifically counterspace technologies designed to deny or defeat the advantage that the United States military has garnered from space in the past, and that’s an ability to see over the horizon, shoot over the horizon, move and communicate. We rely on space in almost every military formation we have. Carrier strike group through infantry brigade through marine expeditionary unit, all of them were built and have some level of dependence on integrating space into their formation. So we were concerned because increasingly adversaries were building capability to deny that space capability to those – the joint force.

The second piece was, as we watched, adversaries saw how the United States prepares for and conducts operations, how we garner quite a bit of advantage in precision, range, lethality, coordination of forces, and began building their own space capabilities to find, fix, and potentially target United States military forces.

So in 2019, a lot of quick debate, but we had been studying this for 30 years prior to that. When I was a captain in 1998, I met – at the time he was the former secretary of defense – Don Rumsfeld, who was leading a study on standing up an independent space corps in the United States Air Force at the time. So this was something that was long studied. But in 2019 it was quick because the previous administration, there was a quick discussion in some sense relative to the standup of the Air Force, which was six years of legislation before the Air Force was stood up.

So because it was so rapid, we recognize that maybe we haven’t gotten the word out, talked enough about what Space Force does for the nation, what we do for allies and partners, and how we are integrated into your daily lives whether you are aware of it or not. The most visible manifestation of that is in our Global Positioning System and the position, navigation, and timing signal that that Global Positioning System, which is operated by one of my units – 2nd Space Operations Squadron – and provided by the Department of Defense. I Ubered last night to a restaurant. If you don’t have that PNT signal, you won’t know where your car is, where it’s going, and when it’s going. Similarly, banking, gas pumps, international trade – the encoding signals, signatures for secure communications, all are dependent on that timing signal from GPS. We often – that’s the easiest manifestation for people, not to mention satellite communications, surveillance and reconnaissance, your weather that you get and you see on TV. Those things all come from space capabilities that the United States military provides.

So, again, we organized the service in 2019, stood it up in December of that year, and right now we have an opportunity to be here in New York, and I wanted to take – seize the moment to maybe talk to some partners who we don’t usually get to, to give them a chance to hear a little bit about our service. So I’ll stop talking for now, but I appreciate folks who are here today and I look forward to any questions you have.

Spacefaring

The domain is becoming increasingly congested. Many, many more active satellites or spacecraft on orbit than there were even five years ago, certainly way more than there were 10 or 20 years ago. And it’s also becoming increasingly contested, that competitors and potential adversaries continue apace at developing counter-space systems and fielding them that are of concern to the United States military and the Department of Defense.

An example of the latter first. In November of 2021, you may recall the Russian Federation launched a direct-ascent anti-satellite weapon that destroyed one of their satellites, created about 1,500 pieces of debris, many of which are still on orbit, many of which provide a risk to the International Space Station where their cosmonauts are, similarly to other spacecraft that are at orbits at that altitude or below. Obviously that concerns us. The amount of trackable debris has increased coincidentally, obviously, with that, and some of that debris is very small and it’s harder to track than we have had in the past. So we get concerned about sustainability of the domain, right?

Simultaneously we’re concerned about the security implications of nations fielding destructive anti-satellite capabilities, which is why you saw a couple of years ago our Vice President lead with a declaration that the U.S. would no longer support or do those activities of destructive anti-satellite tests. And you saw a bunch of nations jump on board with that. Not everybody has. So it’s increasingly contested and that’s why you have a military service that’s focused on this now.

From a congested standpoint, there’s challenges there but there’s also a lot of opportunities. Many commercial vendors have begun to field proliferated constellations that offer a level of resilience, coverage, and capability and capacity that is remarkable compared to where we might have thought 10 or 15 years ago. It’s not just in on-orbit operations for communications, let’s say, like Starlink. You may have heard of that. It’s also in the launch enterprise where there’s more vendors providing more options for launch. That has exploded in both technology opportunities. We’ve also seen it, though, in some of the missions that we have done in the past. So where in the past, maybe 10 years ago, the primary and almost exclusive provider of spacecraft positioning data was the United States military, you see commercial vendors now getting into that space and providing radars or optical tracking of debris or objects on orbit.

So I think that that trend of both contested, which is – certainly has a level of being disconcerting to us –I wouldn’t – none of that I would say was a surprise to us. We predicted it. That’s why we stood up a service. That hasn’t changed. But certainly also congested. And like most things, there’s both challenges and opportunities in each of those.

We continue – and I’ll re-emphasize this again and again today. While we are certainly the newest branch of the United States military, you’ll hear a consistent theme from us: We are not looking for or do we seek any conflict in, through, or from the space domain. We view that the opportunities – it is the ultimate global commons, as we call it. The civil, commercial, and just general benefit that the American people, but our allies and partners throughout the world, get is incredible from operations in the domain. We want to keep that sustainable. Our job is to deter it – conflict – and not seek it out, but it’s also our job to be ready for it, and that’s, I think, the main purpose of why you see five years ago – well, not yet five years, but in December five years ago the United States stood up a separate service focused on this.

Cooperation with the Russian colleagues

I think so the – in this case maybe the U.S. Government as opposed to just the United States Space Force, but I can give you a couple of examples. So obviously we continue in the civil space arena to cooperate with the Russian Federation on – NASA continues to work with the Russian Federation on the International Space Station, launch and recovery of astronauts, coordination. I think that that continues with Roscosmos, and I think that if you could speak to NASA specifically, but I think that they see that that’s an important relationship and they want to sustain it, keep going.

Our partnership from the military perspective with the Russians may be not as continuous or formal per se, but that doesn’t mean that there’s any – perfect example: In advance of that November destructive anti-satellite test, we did send a delegation to talk with our Russian partners about the potential dangers of that, why we thought it was irresponsible, and specific examples of what we thought would happen – which, frankly, turned out to be very accurate – of what we thought would happen. That did not deter them from doing that.

We have also at times engaged – and you may recall this – in 2019 there was reporting about what are now several on-orbit anti-satellite demonstrations that the Russians did. In 2019, our first chief of space operations, General Raymond, remarked about this and we sought to engage on this to demonstrate what – how it was irresponsible to launch anti-satellite weapons in the vicinity of U.S. national security assets and then do tests of anti-satellite technologies in and around those.

What we’ve tried to do since then – and you saw this in late ’21 – was the Secretary of Defense has released tenets of responsible behavior that we advocate for. They’re things that you would anticipate us saying, and if you looked at other domains, they are consistent: do not create long-lived debris on orbit; avoid harmful interference; conduct yourself with due regard of other spacecraft; notifications if you have an emergency or problem so that we can all work together to try to resolve that problem; operating at safe distances and in a manner that’s not provocative – things that you might anticipate the Navy would do.

We have actually, frankly, between our allies and many partners gotten, I think, a good result and reception from that. We continue to hope and seek out opportunities for competitors to try to get them to align to those as well. While it may not be something that I could say – and it’s really for the State Department – something that’ll lead to a treaty and tomorrow, declaratory policies and behaviors are reinforcing of stability. We believe in that. That’s why you’ve seen us take those actions ourselves.

Space Force’s current recruitment targets for 2024

I’ll give you the approximate numbers, Ralph, of where we are for 2024. Military right now for the Space Force in 2024 – I think we’re just over 9,400 is what our authorized end strength is for the United States Space Force military personnel. That’s our people in uniform. Our civilian component is over 8,000 – not quite 8,500, as I recall – but we’ll get you specific numbers. So you add those two together, you’re 17,500 personnel, by far the smallest military service, Ralph. And that was, frankly, part of what we talked about as we stood up the service, that this was going to start with a very focused group of folks and then as needed would grow.

You’ll notice that the number I just gave you is about a thousand bigger than where we started four-plus years ago, and you say, well, why is that? Well, it’s like I said in the opening, Ralph: The demand for space power across the joint force and our coalition partners just keeps going like this, and as a result, we have not stopped any missions that we have started and had going on, and we are taking on new missions all the time.

A mission in 2024 that you’ll hear the Secretary and my boss, General Saltzman, talk about – the service chief – is ground moving target indicator capability in space. That’s not something we had done in the Space Force previously. That’s a new mission, right, Ralph, so that’s something that we have to take on. That has to – because we’re not turning off any other missions – in fact, we’ve gained more new weather capabilities, new surveillance capabilities, and so on – we’ll grow to that.

In terms of our recruiting, we do not have a challenge on recruiting great people. For – we’re going to open up for an opportunity for inter-service transfers, Ralph, which is folks from the Army, Navy, Marine Corps, and so on to transfer into the Space Force. We’ll have another round of that. Typically, Ralph, we are – we usually get dozens of applications for every seat that is open, and I don’t project with our size right now, because we’re – if anything, we’re on a graceful growth as missions come on as needed – I don’t anticipate a challenge, Ralph, meeting our recruiting goals at this point. Like I said earlier, I swore in five folks this morning. It was the highlight of my day. Don’t get me wrong, I love you guys; it’s good to see you. But the moms and aunties and brothers and sisters who are there, they make you smile. Those folks were some of the most talented that we have. America continues to give you the – give us the best in their sons and daughters. So I have no concerns whatsoever. In fact, I think our prospects are brighter than ever.

In terms of your specific situation, there’s always waivers in the United States military if you’re persistent. As far as why the recruiting age increased in the department, that’s a great question. I don’t have a specific answer to that. We can certainly take that for action, for a look. I guess what I would say is we’re on the hunt for great talent, and if that great talent is 10 or 20 years over what the mean age of the service member is, that’s just what it is.

In our service, I will point out to you – I’ve pointed out two different folks who are serving in the Space Force, Ralph. One of them is our military folks who wear a uniform like me; another is our civilians. So even if, let’s say, there’s not an opportunity for someone to join the military because of an age restriction or something like that, that doesn’t mean you can’t serve. Half of our force, almost, is made up of impressive, impressive civilian teammates, and they are just as vital to our operational missions as the military teammates, and they work literally side by side with our military professionals.

It’s just there’s some things that are inherently military that we do – targeting functions and some other functions that we say, no, those are military functions because they have consequences in rule of law or in international law, and we have responsibility to the military chain of command to execute those. Those are things that we tend to reserve. But the space is wide open for our civilians, whether that’s in our forward disciplines – there’s only five, Ralph, that we have – space operations, which is mine; cyber operations; ISR – intelligence, surveillance, or reconnaissance; engineering; and acquisition. That’s it.

My installations – in my command, the defenders at the gate, those are airmen. The civil engineers who are working in my power plant keeping the mission systems going, those are airmen. The people who work in personnel and administration, those are airmen. But that’s the relationship we built, was to keep our Space Force team mission-focused, Ralph, and we’ll rely on our combat support and combat service support to be provided by the United States Air Force. And in my command, half of my team is airmen.

So there’s about somewhere – depending on how you’re counting – between 13-5 and 15,000 people in Space Operations Command; half of that team is airmen. So there’s plenty of opportunities to serve, Ralph. I’m sure – depending on what you’re trying to do, there’s a good opportunity. I don’t know if that’s, like, a made-up background sitting behind you, though; you’re not going to get that background in the Space Force, probably ever where you’re working. (Laughter.) But it looks beautiful.

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