Space Superiority as an Air Force Core Competency
In 1994 the secretary of the Air Force set three goals for the Air Force
in space. The first of these goals was to make space support to the war
fighter routine. Air Force Space Command has made significant progress
toward this goal and continues its intensive effort to provide timely,
effective space support to war fighters commanding and executing conventional
campaigns. As we rapidly move toward routine space operations for war-fighting
support, the need to establish and maintain freedom of operations in space
becomes increasingly critical. In a speech to the Air Force Historical
Foundation in the fall of 1995, Secretary Sheila E. Widnall stated, "Space
superiority has emerged as a critical element of today's military operations.
Support from space is becoming the quintessential force multiplier."69
Indeed space superiority is one of five core competencies illuminated in
the secretary of the Air Force and AF chief of staff's recent Air Force
Executive Guidance (fig. A-1). Core competencies are fundamental contributions
provided by the Air Force for national security.
Figure A-1. Core Competencies.
These core competencies are founded on readiness and sustainment, and they support global reach, global power, and global awareness as air and space forces project power around the globe.70 Space superiority as a core competency derives from deep historical roots dating to the 1950s in which the Air Force has led the way in space. Today, as the leaders in space, the USAF controls 80 percent of the Department of Defense (DOD) space budget and incorporates 90 percent of DOD's space personnel. The Air Force supports this core competency with an annual budget of $5 billion.71 USAF space assets make a real and substantial contribution to US national security.
Space superiority involves a sufficient degree of control to ensure US and allied forces freedom of position, maneuver, employment, and engagement in space, and it involves the ability to deny this freedom to adversaries. To date the US has not had to fight to gain and maintain space superiority. This will change as the US becomes increasingly reliant on space forces to fight and win its wars, and as the use of space systems proliferates to more and more nations around the world. In recognition of this, the Air Force Executive Guidance states the following assumption and guidance, "Air and Space superiority will continue to be an essential element of US war-fighting capability (as well as) fielding relevant, capable space forces is a modernization priority that spans the near-, mid-, and long-term."72 In its discussion of Air Force core competencies, the draft Air Force Doctrine Document 1 (AFDD 1) equates space superiority to air superiority in terms of critical importance, and it recognizes that control of space may actually secure freedom of operations in all geographical environments.73 Having explored space superiority as one of the five Air Force core competencies, it is now important to take a look at the evolving Air Force doctrine for this critical area.
Evolving Space Superiority Doctrine
Space superiority is achieved through counterspace operations. The current Air Force Manual 1-1 (Vol. II), Air Force Basic Aerospace Doctrine, March 1992, provides a limited treatment of counterspace under "Aerospace Control Missions." The document categorizes offensive counterspace operations as those conducted against an enemy's systems which operate in space, and defensive counterspace as missions to defend against attacks by systems operating in space. The key discriminator in differentiating between counterair missions and counterspace missions is the location of the target. If the target resides in space then the mission is counterspace regardless of the medium from which the force is applied. If the target resides in the atmosphere, then the mission is counterair.74 New and evolving doctrine gives more thorough treatment to the space medium.
The new draft Air Force Doctrine Document 1, Air Force Basic Doctrine, lays out space superiority as one of the Air Force's five core competencies. This new document along with a new draft Air Force Doctrine Document 4, Space Operations Doctrine, provides a more extensive treatment of those aspects of space forces which support control of space. Space control assures a level of freedom of friendly use of space while denying this freedom to the enemy. Counterspace controls activities both in and through the space environment. An important aspect to understand is counterspace operations may be conducted by air, land, sea, special operations, as well as space forces. Like counterair it includes both offensive and defensive aspects.75
Offensive counterspace operations can be of a lethal or nonlethal nature as they disrupt, deny, degrade, or destroy the enemy's space systems or the information they provide. Disruption is considered to be the temporary impairment of the use of space systems and normally does not involve physical damage. Jamming is a good example of disruption. Denial refers to the temporary elimination of the use of space systems but still does not normally involve actual physical damage. An example of denial would be cutting off power to critical ground nodes. Degradation takes things a step further by permanent impairment of the use of space systems, normally through physical damage. Attacks against ground nodes would be an example of this. Finally, destruction is physical damage which permanently eliminates the utility of the space system. Use of airpower to bomb a space uplink or downlink facility falls into this category. Offensive counterspace actions are taken at a time and place of our choosing and can include attacks from space- or terrestrial-based forces on any or all segments of the enemy's space systems to include space vehicles, ground stations, and the signals emanating from both.76
Defensive counterspace preserves the ability to operate freely in and through space by reducing or precluding the effectiveness of the adversary's counterspace capabilities. There are two types of defensive counterspace operations, active and passive. These are defined below.
The objective of active defense is to detect, track, identify, intercept, and destroy or neutralize enemy space and missile forces. Active defense operations include maneuvering the satellite, deploying mobile ground links and terrestrial elements, and deploying decoys.
The objectives of passive defense are to reduce the vulnerabilities and to protect and increase the survivability of friendly space forces and the information they provide. Passive defense includes measures such as encryption, frequency hopping, and hardening.77
The new draft doctrine also identifies two important contributing capabilities to the counterspace mission: surveillance and reconnaissance of space and ballistic missile warning. Surveillance and reconnaissance of space provide the situational awareness and targeting which are essential to conducting effective counterspace operations. In addition, both space-based and ground-based systems perform detection, tracking, and reporting of ballistic missile events. These functions are critical to determining potential ballistic missile threats to the North American land mass, US operations worldwide, as well as space systems.78
The preceding discussion of current and evolving doctrine is intended to provide a departure point for discussing counterspace operations in 2025. To circumscribe the remaining discussion, we must look to where the Air Force leadership wants us to go in the relative near-term as we then leap to 2025. The Air Force Executive Guidance document provides vectors across all areas of core competency including relevant assumptions and specific guidance statements. These assumptions and associated guidance are of such importance that they are quoted here from the Executive Guidance:
Assumptions:
Guidance
Assumptions:
Guidance:
Although fairly general in nature, the three guidance statements above give us a leaping off point to imagine the road down which the Air Force must travel to achieve a truly robust counterspace capability in the year 2025. One last data point for framing the challenge of future counterspace operations is to understand what counterspace capabilities the Air Force employs today.
How the Air Force Does Counterspace Today
Today our counterspace capabilities are limited and primarily defensive and passive in nature. To the extent possible, US military satellite systems are hardened against electromagnetic pulse and radiation. Currently, secure command, control, and communications techniques (frequency hopping, low probability of intercept/low probability of detection, and signal encryption) are employed. Communications crosslinking provides added survivability against ground station attacks and robust system employment. Satellite subsystems are designed and built with double and triple redundancy. Large satellite constellations such as the global positioning system are dispersed to allow for graceful degradation should a small number of satellites be lost from the constellation. In addition, satellites carry fuel on board for station keeping operations which, given sufficient warning, could be used for maneuvering to attempt to avoid attack. Clearly these measures fall into the defensive counterspace realm whereby we are trying to reduce the vulnerabilities and increase the survivability of friendly space forces and the information they provide.
Perhaps the greatest amount of infrastructure and effort in defensive counterspace today lies in the extensive battle management and command, control, and communications (BM/C3) capability of the Space Defense Operations Center (SPADOC) at Cheyenne Mountain Air Force Base, Colorado. The SPADOC is responsible for defense of US and allied space systems through monitoring and reporting on unusual space activity and planning possible defensive countermeasures. It assesses possible threat attack information and determines which friendly systems are vulnerable. The SPADOC is a data fusion center with wide connectivity to all space systems owners and operators through the Space Defense Command and Control System.80 In a hostile space environment such as that expected in 2025, today's simple countermeasure will not be sufficient to protect US space systems and critical nodes such as SPADOC will be vulnerable.
