PETERSON SPACE BASE, Colo. (AFNS) — The current international order, which has provided decades of relative security and stability, is under threat from authoritarian regimes seeking to advance their own self-interest. An ambitious China and an overtly aggressive Russia are aggressively challenging the established rules and norms on which global security and stability depend.
These security challenges have now extended into space, with both regimes conducting devastating anti-satellite missile tests, hitting their own satellites to demonstrate their ability to target American and allied satellites. These tests have produced more than 4,000 pieces of debris, threatening human lives and requiring orbiting assets like the International Space Station to maneuver out of harm’s way.
Both countries are also developing and deploying orbital anti-satellite weapons and intelligence and surveillance systems to find, identify, track, and target U.S. forces. Moreover, China demonstrated a partial orbital bombardment system in July 2021, and more recently, to the concern of many in the international community, Russia appears to be pursuing a space-based nuclear anti-satellite capability.
These actions and ambitions have turned space into nothing less than a “war zone.” The irresponsible behavior of Russia and China threatens not only our national security, but also systems vital to the smooth functioning of the global economy, and everyday necessities such as GPS, satellite communications, arms control verification, and international banking.
Formation and Mission of the U.S. Space Force
That’s why Congress, with bipartisan support, created the U.S. Space Force in 2019. Our purpose is clear: to provide “a space-enabled combat advantage to outsight, outmaneuver, outcompete, and outcompete any adversary,” and to protect the Joint Force from space-enabled attack. Our mission is to “secure our nation’s interests in, from, and to space!”
The United States remains the world’s leading space power, but that supremacy is continually challenged and threatened. Rest assured that the Space Force is responsive, evolving, and delivering combat-ready capabilities in, from, and to space, enabling the United States and its allies to deter and, if necessary, defeat any potential threat to U.S. space capabilities.
SPAFORGEN: A New Readiness Model
To meet the demands of great power competition, July 1 marks the implementation of a new U.S. Space Force readiness model that provides enhanced, mission-oriented readiness for combatant commands and service-specific missions. Our Space Force Generation (SPAFORGEN) model is an unprecedented improvement in how we organize, train, and equip our Guardians, as well as our joint and coalition teammates. This groundbreaking approach builds on the successes of the past five years in fielding combat-credible space forces and better positioning our Guardians and Airmen to defeat threats to the United States, our allies, and our partners.
Organize to Deter and Win
SPAFORGEN organizes forces into combat squadrons and combat detachments with integrated mission planning; mission support; and the intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance, and cyber capabilities required to accomplish the mission. Combat forces increasingly leverage our network of facilities as force projection platforms to provide force protection and security, combat maintenance and support, mission enhancement, and engineering capability. These combat squadrons will be committed to USSF service component commands worldwide to execute warfighting missions.
Training for Deterrence and Victory
We are taking a completely new approach to training our combat forces. SPAFORGEN combines unit and mission area training developments tailored to the latest threat intelligence and combatant commander needs and requirements. This ground-breaking approach allows unprecedented access, and speed, across U.S. military units to establish the mutually supportive relationships needed to confront any threat.
Advanced training that goes beyond the procedural operations of weapons systems and day-to-day operations enables Guardians and Airmen to better understand the threat and combat mission requirements of their weapons systems, enabling innovative solutions to warfighting scenarios. Future investments in training and simulator development will increase the rigor of training and cover a continuum of conflicts, providing our Guardians and Airmen with a more realistic environment to hone or challenge our current tactics, techniques, and procedures.
Preparing for Deterrence and Victory
Our Airmen and Guardians are committed to the safety, stability, and security of the space domain, and therefore need the right tools to perform their missions. To accelerate weapon system improvements and sustainment, the Secretary of the Air Force and the Chief of Space Operations have designated the Commander of Space Operations Command as the Executive Agent for Weapon Systems Sustainment and activated the Integrated Mission Delta to harness the power of our operations, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance, cyber, and sustainment specialists under a single chain of command.
This important step will allow mission area commanders to better balance current and future risks to their weapon systems and align resources and accountability to drive readiness improvements. Additionally, we are accelerating the removal of historical security barriers to advanced capabilities through joint training and adherence to a new security access baseline for planning and employment. Finally, we are increasing the resiliency of our existing space architectures by deploying space systems and hardening our weapon systems infrastructure, all while modernizing legacy systems to meet 21st-century challenges.
Committed to Deterrence and Victory
After properly preparing and equipping forces, Space Force strategically allocates and assigns personnel and their inherent capabilities to operational missions under the command of combatant commanders. This mission assignment ensures that these elements are employed effectively, maximizing their impact and support to the joint and combined force. Among the force elements provided by Space Force are operational combat squadrons, which are assigned to combatant commands such as U.S. Space Command through component theater commands. Additionally, Space Force provides deployable combat detachments that can be assigned to other combatant commands, as needed. This flexible approach to readiness allows the space service components to provide real-time feedback to their combatant commanders and space operations command so that future force projections can be tailored, as directed, and reallocated to effectively respond to evolving scenarios.
Our Guardians and Airmen have made significant progress and evolved to meet the growing threat in space in this first cycle of the SPAFORGEN program. We will continue to strengthen this model base with feedback and critical analysis from our most important source of process improvement—the exceptional Guardians and Airmen who make up the SPAFORGEN force.
Implementing the new SPAFORGEN model provides the framework to deliver the synchronized, combat-focused space forces that combatant commanders demand to address the growing threats to the joint and combined force. The increasing recklessness and irresponsible behavior of our competitors requires a critical shift in our thinking about generating and delivering a combat-ready space force.
As China and Russia continue to act aggressively in space, we will remain acutely aware of the challenges ahead. By remaining flexible and putting our Space Force Guardians at the forefront of deterrent concepts, we will ensure that the United States and our allies continue to have unfettered access to and use of the space domain now and in the future.
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