honoring 9/11 commission cochairs. that is a 7:00 p.m. eastern. 30, coverage of the event from new york city. huber said when all is said and done, accomplishment is all that matters. when you think about it that is a rather unsentimental, the sort of thing you would expect an engineer to say. that is one of the keys to understanding his life, his success in everything but the presidency. >> sunday night at 8:00 eastern. and uniformedn

leaders of the pentagon and a former nasa administrator spoke of the center for strategic and international studies in washington dc about the trump administration plan to create a u.s. space force. this is just over 90 minutes. >> i congratulate you for being the brave ones who came to the terrible reign. it dissuaded some of our colleagues. of csi s.resident when we have public events, we start with a safety announcement. i am responsible for all of you. wewe have to do anything, will go through that door over

there because it is the closest to the street. to ground level through the emergency exit and take two left-hand turns and a andt to national geographic i will buy everyone's tickets to see titanic. it is a great show. discovering the titanic was a cover story for the navy finding the scorpion. we lost the scorpion, one of our submarines, and we wanted to learn its condition so the whole thing that was done was a cover for the navy. it is a fabulous story. thank you for coming. defendinglk about space. everyone, ifourage you have not seen our latest goodcation, it is a pretty unclassified accounting of where we are.

that was behind a lot of the thinking on creating a space force. whether that is the right answer or not, i think the starting point is we are living now in a different world. this is not a safe enclave where only america controls the atmosphere or the space environment. quite the contrary. urgency thatnse of lead some people to say that a solution is to create a fifth department. other people will say that is going to hold things back. when you get into washington wrestling,cratic arm you're not going to accelerate it you will delay it. we are going to get into those issues today with these remarkable colleagues. i will not spend a long time introducing them, but i want you to get a sense of the structure of the panel.

career at nga. she is the chairman of the board of nsa. i wanted her to be a part of this to show the perspective of the intelligence community. bob's last job, he never stopped working, was as deputy secretary of defense. he was under secretary of the officer, hea marine has deep experience and was really the pioneer of the third offset revolution. thinking about bob sharing with us a broad perspective of war fighters in the department. sean, secretary of the navy,

also administrator of nasa. i have asked him to come in many ways to bring in the perspective since 1958, we made a decision to separate military space and civilian space. it is a profound division in american government. what does this do? one we are talking about a fifth department? bob was the head of the strategic command and space command. he is a very distinguished retired general officer. heinside and out. he is not a parochial man. i have had many conversations with him. i know his thinking. he is a truth seeker. that weinsist articulate the real reality here, not just adopt slogans. we will make a good morning of this.

i'll will ask each of them to take a few minutes from this perspective. i want you all to have a feel .or why they are here then i will try to integrate a little bit with a few questions them i will turn it over to you. let's work our way up this way. very carefully positioned myself at the end of the row so i would not be first. i was delaying standing right here. thank you. issues a very important and i am happy to be a part of the conversation today. i will make a few quick points. i am an air force officer. force and its relationship with spaces part of the conversation here but i want to remind you, i am not a pilot. five of the last six commanders

of air force space command have not been pilots. the other one was but he was a space shuttle pilot. a view is anyone who has been satellite is clear to command people who fly them. since the space commission in 2001, all of the commanders of space command have not been pilots except for kevin chilton. know, an air force guy, but i do not come from that background of the aviation piece of the air force. i think it say that is a very good thing that this subject is being talked about publicly. i am very reassured by the fact that the government is talking about these. all the way up to and including

the president, they are talking about the importance of space to our economy, scientific advancements, national security. they have all been expressing their concern about why some steps have to be taken and why it is we need to act. sagree that the csi unclassified population -- publication is very good. thanology is going faster our system has been able to assimilate. that time isdge not necessarily on our side here. warssume during the cold that our space assets would be threatened by the soviet union. the difference is that today, the loss of our space assets could be decisive in our ability to prosecute a military campaign. that was not true during the cold war. because of the way we used space than in the way we use it today to infuse in everything we do

and it is critically important. our adversaries have noted that. no one should be surprised. if you have been involved in national security, you should not be surprised that we are where we are today. that, is pretty clear. we have been reluctant as a a conflictalk about that would either begin in or extend to space. another reason is, we have had a different set of priorities since 2001. since 9/11 of 2001. secret is in the national defense strategy in the national security strategy that our ability to confront a near. adversary declined over that time. that was a decision about

priority and it was also an assessment of risk. not because we are of malice of forethought not because of neglect, but because we made some clear choices. we accepted some risk. the second major point i would make is that we need to come to some understanding about what is the problem we are trying to solve. we are off solving a problem. the you understand what problem is. a lot of panels have looked at what is wrong with space. foremost a warnd fighting readiness program. we are not ready to fight a conflict that unfolds in a certain way against a near here kind of competitor. that is a readiness issue. myself, if we said we are not ready to fight a conflict that begins or extends to the air or the sea or the land, would we know what to do?

the answer is of course we would. take the word space out of the title and put the word air or land or sea in their and that is we have to go do. this is a joint war fighting problem and an organized train and equipment program that supports joint forces. that is important that we think about it that way. today's problem is a war fighting readiness program -- problem. it has to be solved today. the next thing we should think about is what success looks like. what do we need? in order to be ready for a conflict that begins in or extends to space. i think we need policy that enhances deterrence and enables war fighting effectiveness. is whatnd thing we need i would call the grunt work of joint war fighting. procedures,cs

battle drill and exercises, joint training, all of those things that we do for conflict. haveed to make sure we pulledinto the entire mixture. the next thing we need is an acquisition system that delivers affordable operational capability not science projects. in aeds to deliver them technically and operationally relevant timeframe. we need a resilient architecture and more effective capabilities to confront the problems that we will face today. threats against space may largely come from the ground. we need to prevent jamming threats. it's those kind of things that we need to make sure we can account for. account for those architecturally and with new capabilities. we need space operators that have the right amount of technical and tactical skills and experience.

to include combat experience. i would say that in my view, we have space operators today. we do not have combat space operators. what is the difference? you can go be an airline pilot a superb pilot with thousands of flight hours but you are not a combat pilot. we trained combat pilots differently. have space operators today. we need combat space operators. they need to tactical skills. as well as technical skills. i would ask myself how you get that? this is two parts. first, the joint piece of this and that is the purview of the combat commanders. the first step that the department has been proposing in terms of reorganizing or good. these changesng

directly to capabilities and the issues that are described in the strategy. they use legality as the metric. they are looking to enhance both acquisition and speed. they are addressing today's problems today. it is improving joint war fighting. i support those kinds of changes they are making. the commanders on the scene have a voice in how we need to go about this so i am supportive of what it is they say they need to go do. moment, weate for a say space force and that wraps into a lot of things. i would not make that synonymous with a separate military department. in that case it is a matter of timing. some people have said it is not if but when. i have said that before. concerned that if the

wedding is right now, this may be premature. a lot of things have to happen to make sure we are in the right position. sayme end there and just thank you for inviting me and i appreciate the opportunity. >> thank you. >> to pick up a bit from the introductory comments in terms be on theerest would part of nasa from a space standpoint, that one is fairly easily addressed. it was intended in the 1958 act to articulate a national policy aspiration. preserved would be of removed from any prospect

a war atmosphere that would develop over the course of time. if it ever existed, it doesn't today. the technology doesn't discriminate over where it is used. this is an aspirational goal. it is virtually unenforceable. that is no prospect at all you can eliminate the possibility of the use of technology for any conflict or belligerent purposes outside space regardless of the intent of any treaty implications could be. there is not one that now. an this becomes artificiality between the two institutions of government. the defense department clearly has the wherewithal means in space and nasa

as a civil agency that has the capacity to develop capabilities to achieve different but comparable kinds of goals. the opportunities to collaborate between the two are still there. wheres never been a case the original means to communicate between the two elements of the government, there is plenty of interchange and activity between defense and nasa in terms of sharing of technology and basic principles and engineering opportunities and architectures. capacity as an launch capabilities that can be employed. differenceeen a real of what mission objectives have driven with each of the

institutions to solutions. ofre could be an opportunity any effort to integrate the broader elements of the defense department, military space access capacity into a more focused unified capacity to plug into this capabilities from a place like nasa. in that respect, this is from a very purely administrative bureaucratic standpoint, a benefit of some note that would not be this positive as a reason to do something like this. it does provide a clear kind of interface and opportunity rather than based on individual missions or whatever else. i must also focus from a standpoint of having served as a military department, the department of the navy secretary. entirely with bob's

assessment of this. this is an operational issue. importantly, it is a solution desperately searching for a problem to apply itself. respect, there is an clarity at all of the nature of the problem. much less, any application of assessment of whether or not either as proposed by the latest defense department proposition coming forward which attempts to answer the nature of the public debate today. application in those kind of cases it is very much about operational elements. to the extent that you define the problem as elegantly as bob did, the very clear expression of direction of where the

opportunities could emerge, and whether could be focused to be in a partialesides endorsement of the defense department focus that was issued here a few weeks ago of looking at a unified space command. that is an opportunity to emphasize operational demands of pulling together the aspects across the defense department in each of the military services that exist today. and coordinate those and integrate them in a manner in which you can benefit to the extent that technology is of xoed in those kinds atmospheric conditions in space. can you employ the full range of hasbilities of the military ? respect that is a

unified space command proposition. that is something that was probably emerging its way towards initiation as it was anyway independent of the current debate involved. effort organizational beyond that, the idea of creating a separate military department is simply an invitation to start debating and ofuing over what the size that new overhead structure would be. the reality is none is required. the fundamental issue is to the extent you define a problem, that is in search of a solution, an area that it pertains to recruit trained and equipped as a focus -- option of what a military department should do, that is charged to the department of their air force currently. the assessment of what the

problem is the needs to be addressed from that standpoint is at what priority does the space related assets within that address theeally nature of the national security policy and strategy as articulated at the highest level of government? if the answer is it is deficient, then you change the top thatto be of the you seek to emphasize as part of expressionsery, the from the president and the white house national security council in terms of the primary function of the air force should be as follows. restated if necessary. that is a well organized structure for the purpose of trying to obtain this. the issue is, there isn't sufficient priority place there, articulated differently.

that is a part of their purpose is what is articulated at the national level at the national priority overall. in that respect, the nature of the issues is how you go about the process of delivering the assets necessary for a unified space command to operate efficiently. that would be in the realm of acquisition and how organizationally it is structured. theacquisition standpoint, idea of severing this and creating a whole new organization where one exists right now, the opportunity here is to incorporate a few basic principles. on theuld be to focus dimensions capabilities of components rather than end product. regard, this is a

well-worn path. has anense department opportunity to incorporate a different component capacity in certain different technologies to beat different objectives. nature of whathe space related assets incorporate overall. secondarily would be to look at the technology management of a potential technology or rapid prototyping kind of capacity. that currently is not present within the context of how most military department's are organized. they don't have the unilateral capacity. there are some notable exceptions. that operating matter doesn't happen as a regular cents. to create that would be a straightforward proposition. the last part in terms of the

overall acquisition function would be to streamline the decision-making process by simplifying top-level requirements. potentially creating to the extent the congress would agree, structure which would establish the means for the department of the air force in this case to integrate the assets of research and development investment accounts and operating accounts as necessary between and among those functions and funding opportunities. and learn to be as agile as they can be to meet those kinds of rapid prototyping spiral development opportunities that emerge. is a fairly straightforward set of bureaucratic answers of a solution to what you may defined as a problem of failure to establish the right priority. if that is in fact the nature of what the issue is.

the reality is that is amply handled that today or could be by the department of air force on behalf of the department of defense overall. opportunity is an to emphasize the operational dimensions and to the extent you see deficiencies to emphasize how you would streamline within the existing structure. is the very important subject. have said what is the problem. that was stated by congress and it was space and has not been able to get the attention it needs culturally or resource wise.

that was the problem statement. they jumped directly to a solution to create a separate space force to segregate the space professionals. that is where we are right now. first, the u.s. has the most capable national security space constellation in the world. .ar none if space had not been given the attention that it needed, we would not be in this envious position. forely upon these forces strategic intelligence surveillance and reconnaissance. indications and warnings of attack, and global level management and command and control. as bob said, a now form the backbone of what we call operational battle networks that we assemble. it provides direct space-based

combat support not only to u.s. joint forces, but to our allies. these capabilities since the end of the cold war have contributed in no small way to our advantage in conventional warfare. no other competitor comes close at this point matching the full spectrum of u.s. space capabilities. that explains why our two great power competitors have expanded and amount of resources and effort to threaten our national security space constellation using connecticut and non-kinetic means. the russians and the chinese and particular are now pursuing space capabilities to improve their own theater wide what we refer to as anti-axis area denial networks. bigrussians refer to these networks as reconnaissance strike complexes.

the chinese refer to them as operational systems. time,esult for quite some prior to 2007 but essentially since 2007 when the chinese capabilities, the department has fully anticipated that a terrestrial war with either of these two great powers would quickly extend into space. the vernacular of the department, we say that space is no longer considered an operational sanctuary. it is now viewed as a contested operational domain. department ofis a defense has been ignoring this development is laughable. we are well aware of the chinese and russian actions. the department argued for more responses. authoritatively about the bush administration but i can say that the obama administration did not want to

hasten for -- further militarization of space. president obama and the nsa believed that if we openly talked about space war fighting, we would essentially make that a reality. departmentbed the from talking about it and they were very cautious about approving space control capabilities in the budget. the department pushed back throughout the time saying the situation is changing. the threat against u.s. space assets is becoming more dire. carter gave aash presentation to the president and the full nsa -- national , saying herecil are the threats to our space constellation. on, although the

department was not authorized to speak in unclassified forums about space war fighting, we were given a green light to start to pursue in earnest space superiority. let me say that we did this in a variety of ways. that this wased about space war fighting problem. it was about space war fighting readiness. the first organizational construct of the third strategy was the joint interagency and combined space operations center. it was a space operations center that was set up jointly between the dod and intelligence community to fight the u.s. constellation while under attack. to do that, we had to create this battle management and command and control. the way we described in the spottment was that the j

joint space operations center would still look down and provides space-based combat support. two officials agreed to a common space enterprise vision. something that we had not had in quite some time. it became the architectural the constellation. we established a space doctrine and tactics for him under admiral cecil haney. they would look at the tactics and doctrines and feed it into and we would experiment with assets. we strengthen the space defense counsel inside the dod to provide better investment recommendations. that didn't work as well as we had hoped.

we pursued a variety of space control capabilities classified and unclassified. in all of this we received terrific support from the white house. from june 2013 on, everyone was all in. some members of congress did not think we were taking the threat seriously enough. i can say with some confidence that given the post budgets and all of the competing requirements that were faced, we were moving at the fastest speed possible given available resources. you can say why wasn't space number one? time, i assessed that my two immediate predecessors the problem onen the right path. i did not need to develop a lot of time because we had a cyber

i spent most of my time as deputy focused mostly on the space problem. i know that without any partisan rank or all, the obama administration never once received as many resources as it requested in the defense legit. congress could have easily said that we are going to give you more money and we want you to it into space. can we pursue the space capabilities faster and better? yes, and by all means they should do so. would creating a separate space guarantee that we will? not the ceremony, i agree with sean. it isis still a lot to go clear that they had directed the department to do so and the department had said that this is the first step you -- cap.

think that shanahan threaded the needle my sleep. we never should have gotten rid of unified space command in the place. we did it at the time when great power competition wasn't considered a problem. we made a mistake. giving back the unified space command total sense and allows for the focus on space. having the space development agency, that's one of these things where i'm willing to say, let's try that. i'm from the missouri school of .hot -- will thought, show me if it had a culture of innovation and really without the capabilities that, it doesn't, tinker house for space but really focuses on applications and capabilities on orbit to provide war fighters, that's a good idea or you having case operations or's is critical because it really is about culture, here.

we want to instill upon all folks to control assets of's raise and support a joint and allied force that spaces can no longer be considered a function. space can along you must approach it from a war fighter perspective and really get after it. attack, beare under ready, have those battle drills, all sorts of things. if anybody who has gone out to the national space defense center, it is unbelievable how far we have for couple. the leadership of the department getting after space and whether or not we get to specialties might be the right

in the department of proctors -- that is a crock of smelly stuff. [laughter] >> thank you. so that lineup me the little bit easier but your definition of the problem here more fighting readiness issue that present the public is a good way that is a terrific job,

the public has focused on the intelligence community has taken together. >> the president said he went forward and laid out their plans. we will see if for starting with a unified command to have a clear understanding of the mission what are the what will they undertake then you get the organizational you will

have unified command. the way that organizes command. the director of intelligence. will they be able to function at the operation mission and indicators status or space situational awareness? as well as rapid patient to protect and offend were fighting mission with that attribution operational support also security

cooperation and joint war fighting planning and training and exercise. intelligence analysis that one would assume that the main thing you want to buy.

though there were walking very. though there were walking very

have to grow them don't have sufficient foundational intelligence or so to talk about the relationship that has been formed with the national reconnaissance office. it is a stone -- strong relationship and we have to build upon that with those procedures put in place to be

thinking about that as a new organization is set up. so with those title 50 equities to be taken into account moving forward. i do believe a unified command is a good thing. very direct signal to respond to. i am with bob and missouri. show me. so those that are developing those capabilities to streamline the acquisition that is something we have been talking about for years

focusing on taking out sense that could be focused on more. otherwise it remains to be seen. with intelligent personnel there was only about 18000 those that were just on faith and i'm not sure that is enough. we will as foreword. >> thank you. >> wonderful opening remarks with that noble interpretation.

my concern when you something new and big about their stature and status and pecking order in society over 30 or 40 years? god knows there has been an enormous amount but the opponents are making great strides with reliable access to space. you each have different perspectives. you arbitrate as deputy secretary but what does this

mean for the competition turf? this is happened that the department would try to count up the resource to those capabilities and accurate ethics for the be the initial budget share of the apartment. that right edges share to be that? between department is very difficult the reaction.

many congressional proponents. a very vibrant shipbuilding things we should spend more money on ships. so you with the intramural firefight with how many resources would be devoted to the service with title x authority generally there are four things that cause problems. electronic warfare, cyberforces and space force the reason why they come across all of the department. intermixed it is to risk

terminal. who is responsible for those in services. it tries to route the best way to adjudicate cyberelectronic warfare will and continues to that's why you have to be careful with the separate title x will the issue or we will create other problems.

+ how would you see something like that, bob? word thatruck by two were used by the vice-chairman recently, one was complexity in the other was cost. i'm really concerned when people say we are just going to take everybody associated with space

today, put a new patch on their end that will do it. i worry that if we are to do a separate military department, it best setup for success. the worry about who goes and what are the is always a factor. when human beings were involved, those are the complexities we have to address. in my way of thinking, anyway, i have that as an issue. this sort of minimalist approach that i think would ignore the necessary overhead must come with this that doesn't exist with a patch change today. where will the service academy the, example?

where do you get all the personnel support? remember, service staff at the pentagon does two very important things. one thing that they do is the classic organized training policy kind of thing and the other thing that they do is prepare the service chief to be a functional member of the joint chiefs of staff. who will do that? somewhere along the way here, there needs to be a clear right assessment of the resources it will take to set up what is a service without much mass, another concern that i have we are'm concerned that not casting a broad enough net sit here today. i'm very concerned, from the suit -- snippets i see in public that we are, various factions are trying to ground rule

themselves out of the discussion. we have to cast a very broad net . one of the issues that has come up over the many years we have debated these issues, is the scene question. there's a seems between title x and title space activities. how do we treat that? by saying that we will not look at one , i thinkthe other side it's taking a minimalist approach that may not be the most successful way to proceed. >> i want to just share a personal experience and ask reflection on it. i was out in california, in the san francisco area, down through sunnyvale, seen the great big remarkable facilities that we have. we built a somewhat extraordinary platform, you know, historically, and they

have had price tags to match the grandeur of the asset. we need to start pricing dod satellites with scientific notation, i think. at the same time i went into sanford cisco to one of these little start up manufacturing satellite operators. i went to to the clean room. they had the plastic that you have in the back of factories to keep the flies out. that's what separated the clean room. they were making a satellite or day in their. the guys were smoking cigarettes, jazzy music, they were banging out a satellite per day. i mention this to say that have two remarkably different phenomenon. the government space acquisition culture is high fidelity, very high cost. there's a new emerging

commercial space environment that is acceptable fidelity and very low cost. two very different phenomena. self-interest on the part of dod to move the ship of state over to low-cost. defineknow that when you something new, bureaucratic, you tend to want to do it with your credit resources. how do you see this trend where the private sector is moving into space very dynamically, but in an entirely different cost environment compared to the government sector? it is it possible to reconcile this? or are we just going to go like this? >> you can watch the rest of this online at c-span.org and we will have live