Space Force Gen. John W. “Jay” Raymond, the chief of space operations and commander of the U.S. Space Command, attends a virtual event with the National Defense University Foundation to discuss its mission, initiatives and national security, October 27, 2020.
Transcript
We’d like to thank General Raymond for agreeing to do this session. We have something over 200 folks registered from all over the world, including students, faculty, staff, alumni, government representatives and corporations. And we’d like this to be a discussion and question and answer. All of our questions and answers will be asked through the chat and I will moderate the session. We will be recording this session, and this session will be available afterwards. Thank you very much, Admiral. Row G over to you. Thank you, sir. Okay. Well, thank you, James, for that kind introduction, of course, for hosting today, Uh, do you Foundation is one of the university’s most important partners, and their sponsorship of webinars like this is but one small aspect of that support. Now, this webinar Marks are 11th national security briefing. And it’s through these kinds of discussions with experts like General Raymond that we gain valuable perspectives on national and global security issues. I really want to emphasize that every one of you joining us here today is also one of our partners. Because of our shared interest in the security of our nation. Much like the dialogue in our classrooms. These discussions enable us to come together and build an understanding of the different points of view that are essential to our education mission. Now I see that many of you have participated in earlier briefings. So to you, welcome back. And for those of you today who are joining us today who are new to this Siri’s let me offer just a quick word about your National Defense University. I’m certain that this crowd appreciates that we live in an increasingly complex, dynamic and uncertain world. United States faces many competitors and threats for our security. In fact, competitors air investing heavily to try to erode our technological advantages. So it’s really important that into you be able to create intellectual advantage by developing leaders who can out think our competitors. So it’s into use mission to prepare today’s rising national security leaders across military, government and industry and to use students will be the decision makers that our nation and our allies will depend upon tomorrow from domains from the undersea to outer space. Our students are unequal parts, military members of the U. S. Armed services, civilians from US government departments and agencies, and on our campus This year we have over 120 international students from 65 friendly partner and allied nations. And if we do well at our education mission, then these students will graduate with the ability to launch the kinds of ideas that could preclude the need to launch weapons. And so the lasting measure of our success is in the peace and security enjoyed by the United States and our friends, partners and allies. In the words of former secretary general United Nations Kofi Annan, Education is quite simply, peacebuilding by another name. It is the most effective form of defense spending there is. So let me then suggest that if you would want the leaders of your national security enterprise the key decision makers contributing to your peace and security, if you would want them ideally to be well educated on how to do so, then you should not only be partners of end you but also our advocates. I hope that that will encourage you all to learn more about the Chairman’s university. You’re our National Defense University. So now, on behalf of and to you, I want to thank General J. Raymond for joining us to provide insight into the space domain and the United States Space Force’s mission and initiatives and impact and contribution to national security. It’s my distinct honor and privilege to introduce you all to General J. Raymond, our nation’s first chief of space operations for the United States Space Force. You know. Good morning. Uh, Fritz and Dutchman, thank you very much for hosting me this today, and I’m really excited the opportunity toe to be able to share a few thoughts. And what I thought I would do if it’s okay, is I’ll start off by giving a few remarks just to set the stage for what I hope will become a robust dialogue back and forth because I really would like Toa to engage in that in that conversation. A zai view. This, you know, today represents probably one of the most defining periods in our national defense posture. Uh, there’s probably that that that environment, probably we haven’t seen that kind of significant change. Probably in a generation and in space. It might be a couple of generations. What I know is that space under my underpins every bit of our national power, uh, and and we are. We are strongest when that space domain is stable, secure, uh, for our nation to fuel capabilities that fuel our American way of life and for capabilities that fuel our American way of war. It is clear today that space is a war fighting domain, just like air, land and sea A Z I mentioned earlier in another testing that you could I couldn’t have said that five or six years ago in a public setting we didn’t want space to become a war fighting domain. And we and we still frankly don’t today. But adversaries have a vote, and clearly Russia and China are developing capabilities to the kind of two pieces. One is to have space capabilities for their own use. So they have the same advantage that we have enjoyed over the last, uh, decades of integrating space to great effect. And then the second thing that they’re developing is developing a pretty significant, uh, set of threats that would threaten our ability to access our space capabilities everything from reversible jamming on one end, all the way upto kinetic destruction on on the other hand. And so the United States, over the course of the last year in a little bit, uh, did two things that we re if we re establish United States Space Command, uh, as the war fighting command for space, it used to be part of us strategic command. Up until, uh, August of 2019 when we took it out from underneath US Strategic Command and established a separate combatant command, I had the privilege of leading that combatant command up until this past August. And General Jim Dickinson is now the commander of U. S Basic Man. A couple months later, in December of 2019 a few months later, in December of 2019 way established the United States Space Force toe elevate the organized, trained and equipped pieces of space, uh, from a major command underneath the United States Air Force is part of United States Air Force to its own independent service. And today, what you have is very analogous to the Marine Corps model where on the on the Navy side, you have a secretary of the Navy with a commandant of the Marine Corps and the chief of naval operations on the on the Department of the Air Force right now, you have a secretary of the Air Force that has chief of staff of the Air Force and the chief of space operations. Um, as I look at, you know, why would Why would a country stand up a separate service? The reason why we did was to elevate space to the level of important store national security. And and if you look at what independent services need to do, there’s a handful of things in my opinion. First, you have to develop your own people. And that’s why this session today is so important with National Defense University because you’re a critical part of that education of our joint and coalition force. The second thing you have to do is you have to have your own doctrine, and we just published our own doctrine. If you haven’t had a chance to look at energy to get a copy of it, it’s called Space Power. It’s an independent view of space. Power is our doctor. Very similar toe what the Air Force did in 1947 leading up to 1947 there was an Air Corps tactical school where experts got together and developed the theory of air power that grew into then the foundation of this service. So we’ve done that on the space that the other thing, that captives, you have to have your own budget. And over this, of course, of this past year, we’ve taken all the dollars that were associated with space out of the Air Force and put him into the space Force. And we have our own budget. We just submitted our palm and our budget for the first time as an independent service over the last couple months. The other thing you have to do is you have to design your force. And so one of the things that our big focus areas on this coming year is to do that force design. Uh, that brings unity of effort across the Department of Defense and with our allied partners, um, to be ableto develop a force that can operate effectively in a contested environment and then fifth. Once you design that force, you have to present those forces to a combatant command. And so we’re also working new force presentation methodology because they, the way space forces air presented, is through it. The air component on it’s really focused on the Centcom fight, not a national defense strategy focused, uh, conflict. And so those are kind of the five things that I see an independent service needs to do to get. After those five things, we’ve got some lines of effort that we’re working. First of all, we’re gonna build the service, and the first year has really all been about creating this service. I use the term, create or invent this service purposely because it’s not just business out is how we’ve done business in the past. It’s building something new with a clean sheet of paper. And so we built the service to be light, lean and agile. We do not wanna be big. We have to go fast. If you look at the challenges that we face in the space domain, with the size and the scope of the domain, you have to move its speed. And so you’ve seen us do the largest restructure of the space enterprise in our history. And a flattened already two layers of command, uh, in flattened our staff here, the Pentagon, from a planning planned number of over 1000 toe, a planned number that gets us to 600 over the next next couple years. Um, we’re also needing to develop joint and coalition more fighters. And again, this is why into you it’s important that I talk to into you. I will tell you. The one thing I can say for certain is that nobody that comes to your schools understands the space domain to the level that they need, understand space domain to be successful in their business. And it’s not just space. It’s the whole multi domain aspect of warfare going forward, and you have an opportunity to be the leaders in that in that effort, and we need you to be leaders in that effort. It requires, from my perspective in the space domain, developing space operators that have a better a better understanding of the joint, the joint environment and, uh, have what you and I might consider more traditional joint warfighters to have a better understanding of space. We have to build capabilities that operationally relevant speeds and in your school, uh, schools, you can help us with that as well. We’re moving too slow, and if you look at how long it takes us to build a clone of a capability that we already have on orbit. We’re talking 5 to 60 years for a clone. Not fast enough. And so we want to capitalize on the again a bad word to use in the commercial in the space business. But the explosion of commercial space companies, uh, and are large partners in the in defense contractors to be able to move at speed. One of the ways that we’re gonna get it after that is to shift towards a digital digital engineering model we wanna build the service is a digital service upfront. Uh, that means having a digital headquarters having people on the force that are digitally fluent and third developing this, uh, digital engineering and adopting this digital engineering standard as our model for all acquisitions going forward. And that’s what we’ve done. Three other thing that we have to do is we have Thio integrate with partners and we’ve got to integrate with our joint and coalition partners historically for for our allies that are on the net today, our partners, we haven’t had the partnerships in space that we needed to, because in the past we really didn’t need thio. It was a benign, peaceful domain and there wasn’t a threat. That’s not the case today. And we’re hard at work at developing those partnerships, and I’m really proud of of that line of effort is probably the area that we’ve made the most significant gains over the last several years. Um, again, I appreciate the opportunity. What I’d like to do now is use that to kind of prime the pump for questions and and look forward to a good dialogue as we go forward. Thank you, General. Raymond, this is Bill Bender. I’m late the joint, but certainly have been in on your comments here and had all kinds of challenges over here in light us today and as a sponsor of this event and slow. But I have had an opportunity to collect a number of questions that I’d like to share with you, if I may. Sure. I’d love to use a lot of interest, obviously, an sda m d a s m c for inclusion and use of intel community data. I know that you, in your role as the Air Force base, uh, command commander really inspired a lot of partnership. Could you talk a little bit about you know, the importance of that in some of our joint programs of projects and specifically as it relates to space force working within our Oh, absolutely. Well, I would, uh, first of all, we’ve never. First of all, it’s great to see And glad glad you’re your computer. You got, uh, I got on the net. I First of all, the partnership that we enjoy today with the national Constance office has never been better. We worked that very, very hard over the course of the last handful of years in, uh uh, today we share a strategy. We share a con ops. We share an operation center. We shared people you know about, uh, you know, a significant number of space professionals from from the Space Force and therefore, historically our work over the National Reconnaissance Office. We, uh um we’re also sharing programs. You know, we were gonna build a program on the Air Force side. When way we’re still in the Air Force. That wasn’t going to meet our needs. And the general was building a capability that would, until we killed ours and and shifted dollars to them on. And so that integration is really, really strong. What’s driving us together largely is the threat. And so if you look at the end or omission, set dinero has a distinct mission. Set D O D Space has its distinct mission set, and where we come together is in this protect and defend going forward, I think we need to broaden that relationship even greater. Uh, and if you look at the mission sets now that smaller satellites arm or operationally relevant, I think there’s, uh, areas or room for the space force to be in. For example, some of the tactical I s are missionaries. And so you’re going to see that relationship continue, uh, continue to be one of our one of the strongest. And again we operate very seamlessly with the with the intro. So thank you for that. I read very recently that a bipartisan group of House lawmakers announced the creation of Space Force Caucus, focused on advocating for the news service and educating lawmakers and staffers about the services, objectives and priorities. And then the Senate likewise established its own space caucus about a month ago, and so obviously they’re serving to advocate for US face force and the vital role that the new service plays in maintaining space power. As you’ve discussed, what specific advocacy do you believe would be most important in the earliest days of the stand up of the command, Uh, in your relations with Congress. And so, you know, at first of all, you know that back on 20 December when the president signed the National Defense Authorization Act? Yeah, he signed our birth certificate. And so Congress, by bipartisan support, uh, wrote this act, uh, that, you know, again established our service, and we’ve had really strong by bipartisan support as we’ve gone forward. Um, I have I have told both house, uh, members in the House of Representatives and members of the Senate that we wanna have a very close partnership and that we frequently provide them updates going forward. Um, in fact, in the law that mandates, uh, updates every 60 days, we’re overachieving on that front. I don’t want any daylight. Is we build this service, uh, that the congress gave us a lot of homework right up front. The first thing that they said to do was, uh, developing independent acquisition strategy, uh, for space. And we’ve done that. They told us to do a human capital management plan, and we’ve done that. They told us to do a study on how the best integrate reserve the reserve component into this service. We’ve done that and so way are working very, very closely with Congress on on those and on, uh, just standard programmatic, uh, issues and, uh, providing greater fidelity on the challenges and the threats that we currently see in space. And so as we look to build this service, we have an opportunity again to start with a clean sheet of paper. We wanna be really bold in that in that vision, and it’s gonna require support from Congress, and we’re working very closely, keeping them for being on the work that we’ve done. So thank you for that. Um, you know, you mentioned that the overall galvanizing, uh, point with the stand up of us Space Force is that of protect and defend. And although space is a global commons, it’s also a domain of intense international competition. You alluded to that in your remarks asses. Well, so how do we maintain just maybe a couple of high level thoughts are competitive edge over a rapidly growing Chinese face program that I’ve read and you would probably know much better is assessed to overtake or at least compete directly with the U. S. And Russia in five years. Is the US Space Force pursuing partnership with members of the U, for example, for innovation and combined advantage beyond what we have with the today’s International space station And he thoughts then, Yeah, absolutely. Um, we’re working. And so we first of all, were the best in the along with our partners were the best in the world in space, and and that shouldn’t be lost on anybody. Uh, the reason why the Space Force and U. S Space Command was established was because competitors were moving fast. This is this is a critical part of the national defense strategy and to compete to turn, win. And so our job is to make sure that we don’t get over taken, that we stay ahead of that that threat, And I’m convinced that we’re gonna do that. We’re gonna do that in very close partnership with their partners. I talked about before, just a little bit ago, that that we didn’t have the partners that we needed in spaces or we didn’t have partners in space historically, because we’re on the military side, because we really didn’t need them. We are working that very, very hard. In fact, when we stood up U S Space Command when we planned that command I activated established a combined for space component command out of Vandenberg. So the operational component to us Basic Man is a combined command. First time ever, we have opened up significantly more training, uh, opportunities for Allied partners. Way play War games together with our allied partners were developing normally behavior, uh, with our ally, uh, partners. We are now looking to not just do we share data broadly with our allies. Partners are our operation centers are connected together, Uh, and in the future, Uh, not just in the future. And today, and more so in the future, we want to share programs. And so, uh, we just for example, uh, put, uh, came into agreement with Norway to put two hosted payloads on Norwegian satellites that saved us almost $900 million. And because their their satellite program was a little ahead of us in timing, they will get escaped building on orbit faster than if we would have to build the satellite yourself. We’re putting hosted payload on a Japanese was called accused DSS satellite, which is a GPS augmentation satellite. Putting an s s a payload on that satellite again. Uh, we’re developing the C two systems together because our operation centers are linked. So I couldn’t be more excited for where we’re headed with our partners. And we think that’s a critical part of this competition going forward. Yeah, and likewise, you’ve been very vocal on the, you know, the fact that the space force needs to be a disrupter innovator. You talked to that again. And you’re one of your lines of effort to drive the significant and rapid change that’s required. Rapid being key, the need for speed. How do you see robotics, autonomy, artificial intelligence, advancements and things of that nature in this digital transformation, Uh, world that we’re living in playing in the future for space operations? And what strategic investments in particular around R and D do you believe must be made in the next 2 to 4 years? Yeah. So not only is it important to the space force, it’s My personal opinion is we’re gonna be leading that effort. Uh, it’s critical. Dark toe, successful operations in the domain. Just think of the size of the domain. You know, if you look at the the UCP for for the U. S. Space command mission it it’s the UCP uh, assigns the U. S. Space Command with a Naor. In fact, when U S Space Command stood up, it was it stood up Is a geographic combatant command. It has an A r and that a R is 100 kilometers above the earth’s surface and higher, that is, that is huge. And if you look at the operations that happened in that the main, uh, whether it’s military operations, commercial operation, civil operations, um, intelligence operations, those operations happened at a speed that is way faster than anything that happens on on the sea or on the lander and or in there we’re talking, you know, objects in space, traveling 17,500 miles an hour just to stay into orbit just to stay in orbit. If you look at threats that come from the ground like China did in 2007 launched a missile to blow up a satellite that reaches low Earth orbit in a matter of minutes. And so you can’t operate in that domain in a contested space domain without the tools and capabilities that you described. And we want to be on the front line Frontline of that, our first big step going forward is this digital engineering to get us the ability to go fast. And this engineering, we want to get industry there with us. Help us get there. I think autonomy is going to be a significant piece for for the space Force. And I think reusability is also going to be significant. Provide a significant advantage for the spacewalks going for Yeah, thank you for that. The other thing. But I’d say the ability you’ve heard the Yeah, the joint joint forces talk about jazz. See to you know, that ability to connect sensor to shooter. Uh, the space force developed. We don’t have a C two system that we need in space today. So we’ve been building this for a couple years and and way built the data infrastructure for that jazzy to all. Came out of the space Force and, uh, called you d l. So we are all in on that on jazzy Tua’s Well, having the standards to be ableto connect sensor to shooter across multiple domains and be ableto come up with, uh, decisions that the speed that we’re gonna need them to be successful is where we’re heading. It’s very interesting that you bring up jazz. See to it it seems the perfect storm in terms of between the chairman and the vice chairman and all the service chiefs. As we understand it, sometimes you have to pick it up in separate periodic ALS or whatever. But every service chief is aligned on the need for jazz. See to to be successful, stay inside of the enemies. Ouda Loop, if you will. And so I take it from your comments that is a service chief. You are also very much, you know, to that way of thinking as a number one priority. I’m sorry. Repeat that last but jazz see to specifically as a high priority from where you sit in your part of the larger enterprise. Absolutely. It’s in fact, I would say it’s our highest party. Okay, Great. Um, so again, you mentioned very briefly in your remarks that thes space force while the reality now is just building clearly under the wing of the Air Force. Initially in terms of relationship but now separate and distinct on you mentioned the resemblance, if you will, to the Marines and the Navy. If you talk to a Marine, uh, they’re going to talk about the significance of their independence in terms of their history, their imagery, the perception that people have this Marine, every Marine being a rifleman and so on and so forth. How can you ensure that the U. S. Space Force has a strong, independent, identifiable presence in national life? Do you see that as being significant where you are today? I absolutely do see a significant, in fact, chief golfing. And I talked a lot about this and and Chief Brown and I continue to talk about it. But, you know, when we started this, Chief Kofi and I talked about, uh, you know, wanting to get this right and he has a story where he talked about. He has two granddaughters. They’re the same age. And, you know, in 20 years from now, when they graduate from the Air Force Academy, one of is going to join the Space Force and one of them going to join the Air Force. And if we do this right there, the services, they’re gonna be built on a foundation of trust. And so we’re committed to doing that. The other piece of this, though, is that we are independent, and I laid out the five things that we have to do. In my opinion, they have to do separate if you’re gonna be an independent service. And so there is that level of independence and there is a risk, uh, that the Air Force could hug us too closely, and so that would not be helpful to us or them. The Air Force is gonna need us, uh, to be an independent service with the full weight of an independent service to be able to ride them what they need to be able to support their Mrs, as is all the other services. So Aziz were planning this? Uh, you know, the way the space force was was constructed in law? Was that really the only thing that comes into the space force? Our space operators, engineers, acquisition experts, cyber, some cyber experts and some software programmers everything else we’re gonna rely on the Air Force where all the support functions, you know, um, security forces, civil engineering we are focusing on the space superiority missing and being ableto provide space capabilities are joining coalition partners that are assured. And so there’s always gonna be this close partnership. But we are independent, and we’re making sure that we plan this, that we that we purposefully build that independence, where is needed and that we rely and where it’s where it’s not needed, that there’s a seamless partnership with Air Force. So if I could just follow on there because you’re initial strategy doctrine for space space power really talk significantly about space superiority, Um, as part of that future doctrine. What doctrinal shifts, if you will do you forsee coming that deviate from the current Dr Established an Air Force or joint doctrine? Yeah, we’ve had doctrine space doctrine for years, and it was largely if you look at it. It was largely about taking space capabilities, integrating them into the joint in Cola’s and fight, making those other domains better on DSO. You know, that largely stemmed from Desert Storm and from, you know, coming out of Desert Storm, where we first integrated space capabilities into the fight, Uh, in a in a Naor, it proved very advantageous. And, you know, is a young captain at that time. Uh, you know, after Desert Storm, General Horner, who was the J fact for Desert Storm hey, got reassigned as the commander of Air Force Space Command. And that was purposeful. That was bringing the war fighter in that just had the experience of just beginning the integration of space into theater operations and trying to take that to a new level almost my entire career. Since that time was spent integrating space into those into the into that fight. And we’ve done that. We’ve done spectacularly. Nobody can touch us on that. I mean, if you look at how we’ve we’ve integrated, there’s nothing we do is a joint and coalition force today that isn’t enabled by that integration. The challenges are adversaries have had a front row seat on, and they have are developing threats. Thio deny us that advantage. And so it’s no longer good enough just to think about spaces that benign domain. And how do I integrate space in this benign domain you have to treat It is a war fighting domain and you have to look at what else can space do besides just making the other domains, uh, more effective? We want to continue to do that, but we also want to develop independent officers from the space domain, which we think can help amplify the deterrence message. A za beginning. So how would you imagine or envision planning to use commercial space assets? There’s been this proliferation. For example, in Leo Constellations, How comfortable are you with using such assets? First, relying on, you know, sort of dedicated military developed and deployed space systems like you’ve been used to coming up see huge opportunities with that going forward. Historically, where we’ve leveraged commercial industry is twofold. One is on commercial launch. And if you look at the launch, our launch capabilities today we buy, we buy services people. So with both u. L. A. And Space X today, um, the other area that we relied very heavily on his commercial big, large commercial communications satellites because those were the things that were viable and commercial industry. Now that technology has allowed smaller satellites to beam or operationally relevant. Hence the, uh, what you just talked about proliferated Leo constellations uh, we think there is a great, uh, role to be played by those. And so this forced design that we’re going to develop is all is all about, uh, you know, where What’s the best orbit to do? The mission. Uh, how, uh, how fast can you get it on or what’s the cost? And can you protect it? And if you balance those attributes, I think what you’re gonna see is you’re gonna come up with the hybrid hybrid approach on. It’s not just gonna be the one off big, very expensive handmade wooden shoes, architecture er it will be more proliferated. Architecture. That’s that’s more defendable going forward. So let me let me give you an example. I talked up front about Thea. Other thing it does is it helps us go faster. And so, if you look at, I mentioned earlier that if you look at what if we wanted to buy a clone today of, let’s say, a GPS satellite on exact replica of what we have on orbit today. It’s gonna take us a handful years just to do that just to buy a clone and commercial industry is building satellites, uh, at a pace much faster, much, much faster. And, you know, uh, designing, building and launching hundreds and hundreds of satellites, Uh, in in months rather than years. We want to capitalize on that business model where it makes sense, Not all mission areas. It doesn’t make sense for all mission areas, but in a lot of them, it does so maybe switching topic a little bit. But I think very much tied thio, you know, sort of commercial uses in space and and a shared responsibility in our national security enterprise. The question comes in from a commander, Mike Bull Trumbull, and it’s I would just as a service chief, asked for your reaction to this and maybe a few thoughts he says You mentioned in the intent to establish light, lean and agile team Lighten, lean historically is challenging, given the concern about being realistically achievable in light of the growing great power competition, according to the N. D. S. And so some might argue it’s viewed is a tactic to get on, you know, sort of some kind of funding. Reality, I believe, is the point that he’s making, and he’s just kind of wondering in terms off the receptive as to, um, you know, funding what you are being asked to do in building out the force on them, you know, sort of developing a future where we keep our competitive advantage in space s I think there’s a balance A Z I mentioned up front, and I believe this in all sincerity. We do not want to be big. I felt a lot with commercial industry. And one of the things that I hear every time I meet with the CEO of a innovative commercial industry company is that big is slow and we don’t wanna be slow. And the reason why we don’t wanna be slow is because of the domain in which we operate. I told you, we start out. Air Force had planned for about eight months before the law was signed, establishing the space force. The Space Force had done planning. And the plan was to have 1000 and 35 people in the space staff in the headquarters at the Pentagon and I, you know, 20 December I was named the CSO, and I inherited this plan and I started reviewing and I said, Okay, what are 1000 35 people gonna do, And you and you and I served as, uh, partners here on the air staff a few years ago. And there was nowhere near that on their staff is related to space. And so the challenges you could be to light and to lean and you can’t be effective. Uh, but you can be too big in the challenges hitting the sweet spot. And I think, Aziz, we operate in a department of Defense. You have to have enough mass to be able to operate effectively inside the bureaucracy. But we also want to be a leader of change and be an incubator for change. And so we whittled that down 40% That staff down 40% and we’re not even and we’re still growing. We only got a couple 100 folks on staff today. It will grow to 600 over the next couple years. On the budget side, we inherited the budget that the Air Force had for space. And so we’ve already carved that out in every bit of those dollars are now part of the Space Force dollars. Then we’ve we’ve submitted our first parliament first budget, uh, to Congress. So its purpose. Its purposely being built is being small, based on the the strategic environment that we face in space. We’ll see if we have it, right. If I can press on that and this is you, you’ll probably have to correct me to 100%. But it seems as if the least the initial majority of your force came from the Air Force by design. But that is certainly not the long term plan. Right? So the Associated Subordinate organizations and units as they are further developed and built out, you mentioned your headquarters size. But what is the what can you share with us in terms of the service? Compliments from the other services. And how large is US face force currently envisioned to be in total once complete. And so, um uh, let me start with that last part today on. So on 1 December, when the president signed the National Defense Authorization Act establishing the U. S. Space force. That night we took Air Force Space Command, which was a major command of United States Air Force, and we assigned those forces to the United States Space Force. There’s roughly 16,000 people that were assigned to that. And then since then, uh, we went across the Air Force and said, Okay, what else is the Air Force doing in space? That what? It wasn’t part of Air Force Space Command, for example, air education and training command. During the development pieces for space, we pulled that over some intelligence functions. We pulled over some cyber capabilities We pulled over. I mean, we went through the rest of the Air Force Research Lab capabilities. We pulled over warfare center capabilities. We pulled over and so way excise space out of every piece of the air Force. Now, in doing so, you can’t break the Air Force. And when you stand up a space force Although there was no sheet music on how to stand up the services, we haven’t done this since 1947. There’s no checklist. But you could do is break the Air Force. We worked as I mentioned. We worked really, really hard over the course of the last couple decades of integrating space and everything. That video. So now what will happen is General Brown, uh, in the Air Force will say Okay, space wars. I need x number of space experts at the warfare center. And then we’ll assign those folks back home for that for that assignment. So we’ve done that. The Department of Defense’s goal is to have a preponderance of space capabilities in the United States Space Force. We stood up a service for a reason. That also means you can’t break the Army and you can’t break the Navy. You can’t break the Marine Corps in doing so. So we’ve been going through an effort to study, um, what should come over and what shouldn’t come over eso we don’t do harm and we’ve come up with a really solid plan. Were about the 98 97% complete. There’s a couple little pieces were doing some more analysis on, and then I would expect a decision here in the very near term of what other pieces will come over from the other services. But you’re right. Today, the Space Force largely has come out of the Air Force with Cem, um, augment teas from other services to help us get going so close to a, you know, sort of a final decision there and some announcements in terms of the other service components. Okay, Thank you. Andi, You mentioned early on in your answer to that question about taking piece parts out of the Air Force, Air Education and Training Command. There’s a question from a lieutenant Colonel Sanders within the Space Force through any plan for an independent education outside of their university. How is that looking? Yeah, absolutely. There is a zay a Z I mentioned. I think one of the things that you have to do is an independent services. Develop your own people. And so, um, what we’ve done initially So, for example, basic military training. We just had our first seven recruits that got recruited for the Space Force show up at basic training, and they’re basically going through the Air Force Basic training. But we’ve we’ve modified it slightly for those. Airman is an initial piece for air command and staff. College is another example. We stood up a couple years ago, something called the Schriever Scholars, and we took a seminar that was, you know, don’t call me on the number seven is, like, 40 seminars that a CSE and one of those, uh, what became a space focus seminar. And so they would they would go through a CSC but would focus. They’d have independent space focus areas as well. We’ve doubled that, uh, this past year to two seminars. We’re gonna double that again before, which is which gets us to about 40 or 50 folks. And then we’re gonna split that off. Azan Independent, uh, school focusing on developing air command seconds. We’re doing the same stair step approach for Air War College. We just set up for the first time a seminar focused on space. And we’ll do that. Um, you look a, uh, uh, Airman leadership school, those air assigned at bases in the Air Force. And so if you’re on a space force base in the future, that Airman Leadership School will be designed to teach you about leadership. Uh, as it relates toe has it relates the Space Force Priorities, N c o. Academy. There’s an N c. O. Academy, But Peterson Air Force Base, we’re gonna make that the, uh N c O Academy for Space Force. And so if you’re a member of the space Force, you will go to that academy. And so we are. You know, none of this. It does. All this can’t happen overnight You can’t just flip the switch and say, Okay, we’re up and running, but we’ve got an incremental approach. Thio phase those into a independent capability to be able to develop the the space force leaders that we need in the future. And it won’t just like all other service schools that won’t be. All space experts will have Air Force and Army and Navy and Marines and coalition, uh, partners in the in that class with us as well. So a similar question and maybe a softball. Um, can you tell me in terms of the service acquisition executive has that decision been made? Is two separate and distinct from the Air Force, or is it co joined for the foreseeable future? How’s that developing the law’s the law is really clear. It says we’re gonna have separate ESA, and it gives a time frame of one. That is, I think that’s, uh, beginning of fiscal Year 23. So that’s what’s in the law, and that’s the way we’re headed. Okay, um, you’ve mentioned the need or concerned to protect and defend space assets as actually as the galvanizing reason Force a separate space force. How do you view the trade off of protecting assets versus making them sort of replaceable. Reconstitute herbal, which is, you know, always talked about as a possible way Teoh skin this. Yeah. So that’s all part of this force design bill, and that’s all work that has to be done. And you’re right. There’s a There’s a trade off there. Um, on do you build big disposable lighters that you could just launch. And if they fail, you just, you know, launch another batch or are there more significant? I think again you have tow. It has to be taught through, as it relates to the mission that those satellites are doing the orbits, that they’re in, the threats that they may face, Uh, and so all that and gets gets rolled into, uh, the capitalist. When you then build this horse design one of the things that the Space Force is working on a zoo we build This design is thio bring unity of effort across the department. And so, you know, leading up to the establishment of the space force, you know, Congress would highlight the 65 different organizations that had some role in space acquisition. There’s like 30 something different. Organizations that that have some kind of either internal to the department about external department have some kind of role in architectures. And so we really believe you stood up service for a reason that should be the That service should be the leading voice in that partnered with all the other. This this isn’t just hey, share a man’s opinion is this. It’s bringing everybody together and having the analytical underpinnings toe just support that decision. But we want to get an r A force design. Uh, that, uh, meets the needs of the joint coalition warfighters that we support and also is defendable. And that’s the hard work that we have going forward this next year. So for those interested in joining Space Force as you develop out, you know the force design that you’re talking about? Um, can you maybe describe initially and then the continuum over time? As to what we would expect our space operational force to be a doing into the future in terms of where they would be deployed to. Are they deployed in place for the foreseeable future? How does that work out for us? Yes. So, um you know Where is the My leadership has been very clear to me. At the highest levels were building the space force not just for today, but for 100 years from now, people will talk about Yeah, uh, culture. And you just think about, you know, the service that we came from the Air Force and what we were like in 1947 compared to the air force of today s. So we have to build a service that that can do what it needs to do today, but also has the the vision of where it might go and, uh, eso today largely the forces that we have are employed in place. Their their systems that don’t that don’t deploy. We have. We have capabilities that we do deploy, but the vast majority are employed in place. Um, I do think I get asked this a lot about Do you see a role for for space force folks in the future in the, you know, in the domain. And I do. I mean, maybe not today or tomorrow or 10 years from now, But I do believe if you look towards ah, space economy, that’s gonna be, you know, over a trillion dollars. Uh, between here and the moon, I really believe there’s gonna be a role for for enhanced security in that domain and the role of the space forces to provide that stability across the domain. So commercial companies and and nations in Florence. And so I do. I wouldn’t rule it out. I don’t think it’s tomorrow, but I wouldn’t rule it out that there’ll be a new increased presence in the domain from space for folks going forward. Well, I would certainly echo that in talking to young people who were fired up about joining Space Force some of those air interested because they think they will be deploying to space. And it’s actually refreshing to hear that in a future fight. They may very well have that opportunity. We’re gonna One of the cool things here on our birthday on the 20th birthday is the 20th of December 1 of things that were planning if all goes well, is one of the astronauts that will about the launch here on the next space. X launch up to the International Space Station is a is A is an airman, and we’re looking toe swear him into the space force from the International space station. Hope that hope all all those well enough. But I do see, I do see in the future that, uh, that could be, uh that that’s a future that would be riel today. Are focused largely is making sure that we can provide our joint coalition partners that space capabilities they have become to rely on very, very heavily. Those capabilities provide this great advantage. And to make sure that analogy I use is the light switch. When you walk in the room and your kernel in light, you hit the light switch lights always come on way. Need to make sure that you know when you go into the room and you need space and hit the lights, which it’s always there. And so that’s our focus. That’s, uh, competing. Deterring and winning is part of the national defense strategy. I think they’re standing up. The establishment of the Space Force was part of that implementation of the nds. Andi, I really believe, uh, we will provide significant significant advantage to our nation into our call us and partners that way deeply, uh, respect the need. So, General Raymond, we’re getting close to the end. Probably a question or thio mawr if you can indulge if your time allows and I’ll hand back Thio James Schmeling at the end for a couple of final comments. Um, back to the discussion around commercial space assets. Three D o. D is occasionally offering space capabilities to civilians. A great example. Being GPS may be the most obvious example. Do you forsee future defense space capabilities being offered to the public and, um, in you know, if we use GPS is the example. Are you comfortable with some of those capabilities basically becoming ubiquitous, too, The American way of life or really, you know, the industrialized world’s way of life similar to GPS, such that the dependencies air so critical that you really can’t live without it. Any thoughts there? Of course. I mean that Z you know, spaces, ubiquitous spaces fuels our American way of life. It’s not just GPS, and you think about weather satellites and communication satellites, and that’s just what that’s who we are. And so I absolutely see that continuing going forward, I think as technology advances and we get innovative people thinking about the domain, there’ll be even more things that are out there that will that will provide benefit to Thea average person in the on the planet. Yeah. The average person might not understand just how alliance they are on space. It’s just because the light switch is always on. But But, I mean, there’s every day. Yeah, human on the on the planet Earth, if you will relies on space capabilities routinely. I mean, almost, uh, everything that they do with GPS is a great example of its more than the blue dot that tells you where it is. But it’s the timing synchronization for all the all the, uh, information age business that we’re in. Uh, it it’s just part of our It’s part of our American way of life, and I believe that there be other capabilities that will develop in in the future that will will do similar things. So I’m gonna do my level best to tie together three questions all that are really touching on your mission sets one talking about in confronting the emerging. They call them gray area tactics by our competitors in space on. Then you know, just doctrinally around the various priority missions. That’s if our space assets are attacked. What kind of retaliation could be considered and where? You know, how does that develop over time, where you’re building a command today. But then you get to space tactics and answering some of these very tough doctrinal questions. And just in general, the distinct missions that you see is your priority is you step through the continuum of space missions that are out there for you. Thio Satisfied? Yeah. So, first, let me, uh, there’s been this is kind of common that people blur the lines between the U. S. Space Command and the U. S. Space force. And I think one of the reasons why I was blurred is for the For the first year. E commanded the US based man and was the service chief. But there’s two distinct functions. One is the one that does the war fighting and conduct operations. And then, on the Space Force side, we organized, trained and equipped to provide those capabilities to the Combatant Command. Our job is to make sure that I can provide the capabilities that the combatant Commander needs to be ableto too, and not just U S space command command manner but all the combatant commanders that provide the capabilities that they need to conduct their missions on the on DSO. That’s a full spectrum set of missions, and it’s, you know, everything from birth toe death. I mean, it’s launching its developing satellites, launching those satellites, making sure that they work when they get on orbit, making sure that they don’t run into anything while they’re on orbit. That we can track him making sure that we can integrate those capabilities against sensor integrating sensor and shooter and, uh, across the joint and Coalition force to protecting and defending those capabilities while they’re on orbit, which is largely new business since the threat has emerged. And then, at the end of life, the orbiting those to keep the domain safe for all. And so that whole spectrum, from from cradle, that death is what we’re focusing on. Uh, and we’re focusing on providing capabilities that our nation needs again on the American way of life for American Way award. Everything from on on the U. S. Space force side. Uh uh, communications, GPS, uh, missile warning space, situational awareness, weather launch capabilities. Uh, space control capabilities. That whole suite against that whole spectrum of operations. So So I thought that asking a clunky question trying to tie together three would help us get that elaboration. So I really appreciate the distinction between your responsibilities for DNA and that of the war fighting commanders. With that, I will simply wrap up as moderator and thanking you for the transparency and the willingness to, uh, you know, pretty much touch on every topic that the audience brought up today. I think I’ve exhausted my list of questions and you’ve been straight on with them. And so thank you for that. You Thank you very much. First off, General Raymond, thank you. That was one of the most informative discussions that we’ve had. The questions from the audience were outstanding is also one of our best attended webinars. And so clearly there is a strong interest in this, and I think that it represents the overlap between the private sector government and D O. D, and the importance of all of these partners for space. I think the distinction between space commanded space forces exceptionally important, and I think that that answered off a lot of questions. I’d also like to thank you General Bender for your moderation today, the informed aspect that you bring to this was exceptional. And I appreciate that we may have some follow ups with you in the future. We are very excited for you to have spent some time with us. And I know that the n d u students, faculty and staff gained a lot from this. So thank you very, very much for all of this to our audience. Thank you for joining us. We’ll have more sessions coming up after the beginning of the year. We are wrapped up mostly for this year. There is a very busy couple of months with a lot of other things happening, but we appreciate all of your participation. And please feel free to follow up with suggested topics and other other areas for us again. Thank you to everybody. Thank you, Admiral. Rogue. You thank you. To the foundation board members and to our sponsors for this Siri’s lighthouse. And via I appreciate you all very much. Thank you, sir, for setting up Be happy. Thank you. Thanks. Bill. Yeah,