Department of Defense Budget Must Realign to Space-Based Threats

The United States Space Force requested $29.4 billion for Fiscal Year 2025, a two percent drop from the previous year. The final budget, however, has yet to be passed as the federal government operates under a continuing resolution. The Space Force was founded in response to the actions of near-peer competitors in space that threaten the United States’ national and economic security. But now, any decline in funding, compounded by the inherent restrictions that come with continuing resolutions and even the Department of Defense's (DOD) traditional approach to building its budget, are compromising the very purpose for which the Space Force was founded.

In this episode of, “The Elara Edge: Expert Insights on Space Security,” Gen (Ret) John Hyten, former Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and Senior Principal Advisor at Elara Nova: The Space Consultancy, and Lt Gen (Ret) Nina Armagno, the first Director of Staff at the United States Space Force and Executive Director of International Partnerships at Elara Nova, discuss the challenges and solutions to effectively resourcing the Space Force through the DOD budget. 

This episode follows an Opinion Editorial, co-written by Gen Hyten and Gen Armagno and recently published by SpaceNews, in which they argue the time is now for reallocating resources away from outdated legacy programs and toward the space-based threat. 

"The Elara Edge" is hosted by Scott King and produced by Regia Multimedia Services. The full story can be found on Elara Nova's Insights page here. Music was produced by Patrick Watkins of PW Audio.

Transcript

Host: Scott King

SME: Gen (Ret) John E. Hyten, Senior Principal Advisor at Elara Nova: The Space Consultancy (JH)

Lt Gen (Ret) Nina Armagno, Executive Director of International Partnerships at Elara Nova: The Space Consultancy (NA)

00:02 - 01:43

The United States Space Force requested $29.4 billion for Fiscal Year 2025, a two percent drop from the previous year. The final budget, however, has yet to be passed as the federal government is currently operating under what’s known as a “Continuing Resolution.” 

This is a reality the Space Force has become familiar with. For half of its existence - or about thirty of the past sixty months since the Space Force was founded - the military’s newest service has been operating under a Continuing Resolution.

The Space Force was founded in response to the threatening actions of near-peer competitors in space. But without the appropriate funding to build and maintain a strong and capable Space Force, the national and economic security of the United States remains at risk.

However, even the traditional Department of Defense approach to building and resourcing its force structure, which begins with the budget, leaves the Space Force with only a marginal amount of the funding it needs. 

Welcome to the Elara Edge: Expert Insights on Space Security,” I’m your host Scott King. I’m joined today by retired General John Hyten, former Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and Senior Principal Advisor at Elara Nova: The Space Consulantcy, as well as retired Lieutenant General Nina Armagno, the first director of staff with the United States Space Force and executive director of international partnerships at Elara Nova.

Together, they co-wrote a recent opinion editorial, published by SpaceNews, stating that it’s time to re-focus the DOD budget away from legacy programs to resource against the modern, space-based threat.

General Hyten, Sir, welcome to the show!

01:44 - 01:46

JH: It's great to be here.

It's great to be with General Armagno, always.

01:47 - 01:49

And General Armagno, thank you for taking the time to be here today.

01:50 - 01:51

NA: Thank you. Scott.

01:52 - 02:14

As of our recording today, Congress and the DOD are operating under what’s known as a “Continuing Resolution.” This is in lieu of a passed budget for Fiscal Year 2025. 

Now, many in our audience are likely familiar with Continuing Resolutions, but for those who aren’t, let’s set the table here:

What is a Continuing Resolution? And how does it affect the Space Force's overall budgeting and planning process?

02:15 - 03:12

JH: So a Continuing Resolution real simply is the fact that we don't have a budget for this fiscal year. Therefore, the Continuing Resolution said we will comply with last year's budget limits and budget programs, which means no new starts can happen.

Which means any changes in budget can't be done because we have to operate at last year's budget level. That means any relatively new program that started the last couple of years probably has a required budget increase that is needed in order to deliver the capability. That budget increase can't be executed because it hasn't been passed by Congress.

Therefore, all of these programs are delayed. The inefficiencies waste of billions of dollars of taxpayers’ money, and most importantly, from our perspective, you can't deliver the required capability that we need for the nation because we can't fund the programs and so many space programs in today's day and age, are in that - that category of we need additional funding in order to execute and we can't execute them.

03:13 - 03:52

NA: And if you look at the Space Force budget in particular, you're probably looking at about a $4 billion deficit, but that doesn't tell the full story. The full story is the impact on the new starts as General Hyten just mentioned. And for a new service trying to consolidate capabilities from across the other services - that's one thing.

But what the Space Force is really working on are new capabilities, using new technologies for new missions and the impact to delaying those programs is significant, not just for the Space Force, but the entire joint force and our nation.

03:53 - 04:23

JH: It's kind of a little bit of a Catch-22.

We actually build our budgets assuming that Congress passes a budget on time. So that come the 1st of October, with the new budget, the new program is executed on the 1st of October. Here it is, the middle of February, soon to be March, and there's no budget. That means the last six months we've been wasting time and money because of the law that says there will be a budget on the 1st of October, we build our budgets assuming that there will be there on the 1st of October. So it's a little bit of a Catch-22 because they're never there.

04:24 - 05:02

NA: And so guess what the entire Pentagon has been working on assuming the new budget's going to be passed? They're already working on 2026. I mean, that whole thing's probably being blown up by new presidential priorities, of course. But traditionally the approach is it's typically carved out to be a third, a third, a third. A third goes to the Army, a third goes to the Department of the Navy, which includes the Navy and the Marine Corps. A third goes to the Department of the Air Force, which is Air Force and Space Force, roughly. But the newest service in town only garners about three percent of the overall DOD budget and has been flat over the last year. This is harmful.

05:03 - 06:06

JH: And the other piece of that puzzle that really hurts the Department of the Air Force is that the Air Force in their budget, is the only service that has a pass-through element of the budget.

That pass-through element I think in the 25 budget was roughly $45 billion. That goes straight to the intelligence community. That doesn't come to the Air Force. It was put in the Air Force a long time ago when that budget was hidden from the world. Nobody knew that budget exists. Everybody knows that budget exists right now. In fact, we can pull out the Air Force budget, and look at it.

So when you go one third, one third, one third, the Air Force one third includes $45 billion for somebody else. So we actually don’t have, we the Department of the Air Force, don't have one third. We have about one fifth and when you actually are trying to build an Air Force, that's why we have ancient airplanes. I mean, the newest B-52 is like 63 years old.

We can't build our new space capabilities because they're paying other people's bills, and it's almost untenable. But you basically can't have an Air Force and you can't have a Space Force unless you change that fundamental structure.

06:07 - 06:29

Funding for the Space Force has increased year-over-year since its inception. The outlier, however, is the latest budget request for Fiscal Year 2025, which came in at about $600 million less than the previous year. 

If passed that way, this budget request would still put funding for the Space Force at around $29 billion. But even so, is that enough?

06:30 - 07:33

NA: No, it's not enough. What is the actual number? Well, I don't have it. But I'm sure it's not enough. This is a service that's barely five years old. Every indication is that it needs to grow. 

I hear today there's a ceiling on the Space Force budget. We are flat-lined and I know decisions are very difficult within the Space Force and within the Department of the Air Force.

But I don't believe that flat-lining the Space Force should have been one of those decisions. I know Secretary Kendall has said right before he left that the Space Force budget should probably double, but perhaps he had an opportunity to, at the very least, put some more funds into 2025. There are nuances. I know there's a story behind the story, I get it.

But the service hasn't been around long enough to have those deep relationships with staffers on the Hill, or within the Pentagon. And I think some of that lack of experience contributed to this flat budget.

07:34 - 08:51

JH: To me, the defense budget should be all about ‘How do we respond to the threats of the world? Right now, the most significant pacing threat that we have is China. China is basically building air and space capabilities and strategic capabilities to challenge the United States in the Pacific.

The second one is Russia. Probably even more concerning in the near term. They're building the same thing. Why have they been building those things? They've been building those things because they realized the American way of war depends on air and space capabilities, period.

Therefore, seems to me like the threat demands an increase in air and space capabilities, an increase in naval air and deployment capabilities. And the third priority would be the United States Army. If you look at the numbers, it's actually the reverse, which means, and don't get me wrong, the Army is critical in the Middle East, will be critical in anything to do with Russia. 

But if we're going to deal with the threats we have to do, you shouldn't see a declining budget. You should see an increasing budget. 

And so it bothers me when the threat does not drive our requirements. When it's all about the threat. I would expect to see a robust capability to defend the capabilities we have on-orbit and deny adversaries the use of capabilities against our forces on the ground, at sea, and in the air and I don't see that.

08:52 - 09:04

And with respect to the role of space-based capabilities in joint military operations, how might an under-resourced or under-funded Space Force adversely affect its ability to support the other services like the Army and the Navy?

09:05 - 09:53

NA: Space is used in every operational mission. Certainly every joint operational mission. Every single day, the other services use capabilities from space. Just think of satellite communications, GPS, weather, missile warning. These are fundamental capabilities that all of our operations, our plans. We rely on the fact that they're going to be there. With a flat budget and other priorities coming down, especially now from a new administration.

And I've seen those hard choices. I've seen the Space Force and the Air Force have to make very hard choices about those capabilities. You know, what gets funded? So you certainly can't make everybody happy. But it's even worse when you're not even starting on a level playing field.

09:54 - 10:49

JH: So you kind of put two and two together and you see it as up to three.

And the reason is because the bills that General Armagno just described for PNT, comm, missile warning, all of those bills have to be paid and they have to be paid upfront because every military service requires them. Now we've moved into a contested world in space where we have to worry about somebody threatening us in space, threatening those capabilities that I just described that are the must-pay bills. 

And so the Space Force lays in the capabilities that are needed to go do that offense, defense, fires however you want to describe it. They lay in those capabilities. And then we can't get a budget, because Congress won't pass a budget and so all of that money that is programmed can't be used.

And then the waste in the Space Force budget is astronomical, no pun intended, because of that same issue. That's why when you add two and two, you get three because you have the must-pay bill and then you have the inefficiencies put in, because we don't have a budget.

10:50 - 11:04

And, Sir, you mentioned the need for the DOD to pay their bills upfront - which leads into my next question.

Can each of you elaborate on the role that Congress plays in this process, and how can the DOD work with Congress to streamline these efforts to receive the funding that it needs?

11:05 - 12:54

NA: The budget gets sent over to Congress. But then what Congress says, and I think to this day, though, they will tell you - they get the president's budget and they throw it in the trash and they start over with their own priorities. The president's budget is not literally in the trash. I mean, it is the foundation of what the executive is posturing for and supporting and trying to get Congress to align.

Then come posture hearings where the Department of Defense and all the other, most senior leaders of our government, come to the Hill and it's a parade of briefings. 

Following that is lots of engagement and what I found in trying to fight for programs and advocate for budget, for the space programs in the Air Force when I was part of AQS. General Hyten and also led AQS earlier in his career, the acquisition for space, essentially in the Department of the Air Force. I found that bringing them in early, bringing the staffers into program briefings, your acquisition strategies and plans to help them understand what you're going after.

I found that to be very helpful. We did it very deliberately with a program called “Silent Barker,” which is space-based space situational awareness. So satellites in-orbit that can also monitor that very domain and I found that this was a program that the Air Force and the National Reconnaissance Office were working together at the direction of Congress.

The best thing we did, was we went to the Hill, talked to staffers before the program was even announced, or certainly approved, and they certainly felt like - and they were - part of the program from day one and part of the decision-making.

12:55 - 14:51

JH: So Congress's number one job is the power of the purse to pass a budget. That's their job, not the president's job, not the Supreme Court, the Congress of the United States, the Senate and House of Representatives together have to come up with a budget.

Now, they're supposed to come up with a budget by 1 October. So they lay in a series of briefings. General Armagno called them “posture hearings.” They lay those posture hearings, usually for a Combatant Command like STRATCOM or Space Command or Central Command or Indo-Pacific Command. They lay those posture hearings in usually early March. You have the Secretary of Defense usually comes in the posture hearings in late February or early March kind of leading the way.

Then you have the Combatant Commanders after that, then you have the services come in. And the job of all those people, the SECDEF, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, the Deputy Secretary, the Vice Chairman, all the Combatant Commanders, and then the services is to defend the president's budget to Congress. The schedule is the schedule. You're going to go ahead and schedule those things.

I can't tell you how difficult it is as both a major command commander, then a Combatant Commander, and then the Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs to have to go testify to Congress on the president's budget when no president's budget was submitted to Congress, because the schedule is going to be the schedule, and everybody thinks the budget's going to be there other then it's not, then you have to stand and answer all their questions on these future programs when you have no budget. So when the budget does come over, then you basically have to do it all again.

What General Armagno described is a great way to do it. You bring the staffers over, you educate them as fast as you can, but you're behind the game trying to get to October 1st, and then you do this every year.

So the waste that goes to the taxpayers is horrible. But the education of the Congress, which is the job of the Department, I mean, we don't lobby, but we have to educate Congress on what we need - that is damaged tremendously when the leadership of the Department can't talk about their priorities to Congress because they don't know what they are yet, because the president hasn’t decided. So it's, it's just a raw mess.

14:52 - 15:07

Here I’d like to lean into each of your respective careers and experiences working with the budgeting process.

Starting with General Hyten, Sir, can you share some insights from your experience as the former Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff?

How can we overcome some of these budget challenges?

15:08 - 16:15

JH: The first thing I'll say is that as a whole, Congress has become dysfunctional the last ten years. But the amazing thing to me that surprised me in all my three four-star jobs, Space Command, Strategic Command, and Vice Chairman was how much each member of Congress, Senate and House of Representatives were interested in educating themselves and trying to do the right thing to build the budget that they have to do.

And when you take the time to go talk to the members and talk to their staffs on a frequent basis, they will work hard to do the right thing for the country, and things will end up in the bills that you think are impossible, because they really it's just this tight margin between the Republicans and Democrats in Congress.

It makes moving things as a whole very difficult. But if you take the time to actually go across the river and explain to Congress what you're trying to do, they will do their absolute upmost best to include those things in the budget, and you can move these things forward. We could actually move fairly quickly, if we could solve this overall problem of passing the budget on time.

16:16 - 16:22

Thank you, Sir. And to take it one step further - is there a particular program or specific experience that really encapsulates this effort?

16:23 - 17:34

JH: An initiative that we had when General Ellen Pawlikowski was Commander of Space and Missile System Center. I was AQS, head of acquisition of the Pentagon. Our desire was to buy more than one satellite at a time in production and that was against the law. The law said, if you go to production, you have to fully fund that program.

Well, fully funding a satellite program back then, it was a multi-billion dollar satellite. And I'll just make up numbers. And it was for the Space-Based Infrared System, the Advanced EHF system. If we paid for one, it would cost roughly $2 billion. If we paid for two, it cost us $3 billion.

In other words, a billion and a half dollars a satellite. So we could save the taxpayer $1 billion each on both of those programs. So we could save the taxpayer $2 billion if we could just spread the funding out to buy two. But that would cause a change in the law. But General Pawlikowski and I, we spent tons of time on the Hill educating both the staff and the members of Congress.

What would happen if we did that? And son of a gun. When the law came out, they changed the law to allow us to do that for those programs. That was remarkable.

17:35 - 18:05

NA: Another example, last Secretary of the Air Force, Secretary Kendall, worked with Congress on the law that says there should be no new starts under a Continuing Resolution and he was able to get an exception.

There was a new program the Space Force wanted to start. I think it was a Replacement GPS or some smaller program, and that was being used to kind of test out the new exception to the law and more of that kind of work needs to happen, because laws can be changed.

18:06 - 18:47

JH: That's the thing to remember, because the Congress writes the law, the president signs them into action. Any law can be changed. People think the acquisition program is inflexible, that there's only one way through the process. This is the way it's going to be.

If you actually read the Federal Acquisition Regulations, which are basically the compilation of all the laws that have passed over the last number of decades, on how you buy things, pretty much every way you want to buy something is included in the law. 

And oh, by the way, if it's not, all you have to do is get Congress to change it, which means the right person, or the right military leader has to go over and explain. And then Congress can and does on many occasions change the law for the benefit of the country.

18:48 - 19:01

Now, General Armagno, you served as the first director of staff at the United States Space Force, where you had a hand in crafting the very first Space Force budget. 

So, Ma’am, what perspectives can you share from this first-hand experience?

19:02 - 21:06

NA: Well, it was really difficult to build the first Space Force budget because there was really nobody in the Pentagon yet. General Thompson was leading a team of maybe 30 of us.

I was asked to come over as a two-star to help him and everyone else, all of our expertise, all of our ‘budgeteers,’ if you will. Was back at Air Force Space Command in Colorado Springs. So we really had to communicate well. It starts with a strategy. You start with trying to fulfill your overarching strategy and goals for the service.

Brand-new service. A lot of that wasn't yet defined. As a service, you start with budget guidance. Now, we did get that guidance from General Raymond. You take the guidance and then you realize when you're done with this process, there's way more that you want to pay for that you want to do than you could ever possibly finance it.

So there's a lot of competing requirements coming from other services. Congress as well, has their favorite programs and projects. 

And so one example of how hard it is to pivot your budget. There was a recognition, especially during that time, that space domain awareness was so crucial and important for our new Command, U.S. Space Command.

It was important to their planning, to their missions. And the Space Force coined a term ‘Pivot to SDA.’ But I saw, especially in those budget deliberations, I saw that SDA, especially the ground-based radars and optical telescopes, were talking about space-based systems as I just mentioned, Silent Barker. I saw those budgets get cut. I mean, they just couldn't stand up to the pressure of the other things that the Space Force was trying to do so early on snd so even if your strategy and the guidance is written as ‘Pivot to SDA,’ if there's no money behind that, there's not much of a pivot.

21:07 - 21:47

Thank you, Ma’am. Now this declining budget request is also indicative of a broader trend that we've been witnessing in defense spending over the years.

In 2022, U.S. defense spending came in at just over 3.4 percent of our GDP, or Gross Domestic Product. The Congressional Budget Office forecast that this spending will continue to decrease by another percentage point by 2034. 

That would put our defense spending at nearly half of the running average of 4.2 percent of GDP Congress has traditionally allocated for defense spending over the last half century. 

From your perspectives, what has triggered these broader declines in defense spending from Congress?

21:48 - 22:51

NA: The national debt is a problem. We also see rising non-discretionary fund needs. We see an aging population that needs to be cared for. And when you see how large the defense budget is, there have been efforts along the way to decrease the DOD budget. I remember something called “Sequestration,” back in 2012, 2013, 2014 time rame, which was a ten percent budget cut for ten years that the Congress passed into law.

Yeah, I know the DOD has a big budget, but I can tell you from somebody, a commander on the ground, it was really difficult basically cutting programs that were non-mission, but they were the the essence of what made a base, a community, for example, or the Air Force feel like they were part of a community.

And I think today you see just different changing congressional priorities and you see a focus on the perceived and probably real bloat across our entire government budget. That's what I see.

22:52 - 24:30

JH: I see it that way, plus a little different. I agree with everything that General Armagno said. But the little different comes from, well, two things. And these are things that former bosses taught me.

And since I’m going to quote them, I'll tell you they were. General Mattis once said, “America's the richest country in the world. We should be able to afford survival. We should pay the bills that we have to pay in order to do that.” 

But then it was General Bob Koehler when I think he was at STRATCOM, when he said that because the budget at the time was $700 billion, he said, you know, if you talk to the average guy in the street and and say, you know, the defense budget is $700 billion, 700 billion with a ‘B,’ they would assume that we have a pretty darn awesome defense for the $700 billion.

We're approaching a trillion now and right now, we are the least efficient acquisition bureaucracy that I've ever experienced. We pay sometimes ten times more than we need to for something. We keep things around much longer than we need them. We waste enormous amounts of money through Continuing Resolutions, and if we actually spent our money correctly, that amount would be plenty to build a defense.

But there's so much waste and you started this discussion with the Continuing Resolution. That's money you never get back. That's just gone. So we got to stop wasting money. We got to get rid of bloated bureaucracies. We have to delegate decisions down to lower levels so people can make decisions and move quickly and effectively energize our budget. 

So number one, we should pay the money we need to pay for survival. And number two, when we see waste, we should kill it.

24:31 - 24:40

So where do we go from here? What needs to happen not only with regard to the budget for FY25? But for the defense budget process as a whole moving forward?

24:41 - 25:22

JH: You know, everybody thinks that the president's budget is the budget. It's not, it's just the start of the discussion. So the actual budget, what goes to space in FY25 will be decided by the Congress. I know that the current administration is going through a quick re-look at the 25 budget to come up with what I would hope they make some different recommendations that were in the previous version.

And then Congress has the opportunity to change things, and I would hope they would do it strategically with regard to the threat. And if they do that, the budget will align where it needs to be. But there's a lot of political pressures from local communities all the way up to the companies that actually have the work, that will put huge pressure on it.

But if I had one thing to say, it would just be focus on the threat. If it doesn't respond to the threat we shouldn't be doing.

25:23 - 25:57

NA: I totally agree with that. And I just wanted to highlight that Representative Bacon, who as a Congressman in Nebraska, he wrote an opinion recently where he says enough about talking about innovation and working on new technology.

And I think it kind of goes along with what General Hyten and saying he wants tough choices to be made based on priorities. Those priorities should be based on the threat. But he says it's time to actually set priorities. Congress fund those priorities and move out quickly on producing systems.

25:58 - 26:32

JH: If I was Secretary of Defense, and thank goodness I'm not, but if I were Secretary of defense and I went to my posture hearing before a budget was even submitted, perhaps I would do nothing but talk about the threats and the capabilities that are required to deal with the threats.

Somehow we forget that that's what we're all about. Our job is to defend the nation against all threats. Everybody that wears the uniform, everybody that serves in government, swears an oath to the Constitution and embedded in that is the ability to defend the United States.

And if we're doing things that don't. I would say stop that and reprioritize against the threat that should inform Congress where the budget has to go.

26:33 - 27:02

NA: And as the threat changes, which we've seen it change over the last ten years to the point where there's a theory that the next war will begin in space, the next war will begin in cyber. It'll be unseen. It won't be somebody crossing a border. It won't be a build up along a border.

It won't be a bullet fired. It will be in the space domain and therefore a restructuring of our national defense is probably in order here.

27:03 - 28:25

JH: If I was an adversary like China or Russia, looking at the United States, you don't have to be a military scholar or a historian to say, if I was going to start a conflict with the United States, what's the first thing I have to do?

It's not actually attack the United States. The first thing I have to do is I have to insert doubt into the American population about our ability to achieve our objectives. I don't do that with a military confrontation because the American people - rightly - believe and trust the United States military will dominate anybody on a battlefield. And oh, by the way, we will.

That's not the way you start. First you take our eyes, ears, that’s space. Then you influence cyber to incur doubt. Then you attack the United States through chemical and biological warfare that nobody can see. Nobody can figure out where they're coming from. And if you look at the way we responded to COVID in the not very coordinated activity we had responding to a COVID virus, all you have to do is insert that doubt, and then you challenge the United States with military force because now the doubt is across the American people.

So it's not through the Army or the Navy or even through the Air Force originally. It's through space, cyber, chemical and biological warfare that's unattributable and those things we actually don't do very well defending ourselves right now and that should be one of the highest priorities we have, because that's how conflict would start.

28:26 - 28:41

Thank you, Sir, and in response to how the nature of warfare is changing. 

What are some of the technologies, capabilities, and mission areas that the Space Force needs to prioritize in communicating with Congress so their funding efforts can be resourced appropriately?

28:42 - 29:33

NA: Well, you can look at it in basically two buckets. One bucket, what is needed to fight tonight in space, but in support of every other domain. That would be capabilities like anti-jam communications, protected PNT - position, navigation and timing.

And then there's another bucket. What about a war that extends to space? What about a war in space? Those technologies definitely are being discussed at classified levels, but we can talk about the vulnerabilities of satellites and vulnerabilities in the space domain. 

Satellites have no defenses. Zero. None. Well, one technology would be on-board sensing - an on-board sensor that could simply provide a satellite its own warning or its own sensing of something nearby or an approaching threat.

29:34 - 30:51

JH: So I was lucky enough to serve at the four-star level for a long time, through three different administrations. And without going into detail, which would be inappropriate for so many reasons, classification as well as discussion with presidents, I'll say with the three presidents I worked for directly: President Obama, President Trump and President Biden.

At some point during that time, I had a discussion with them about offense and defense. At some point in the discussion, they would look at me and say, all three of them, right? Now think, President Obama, President Trump, President Biden, three different people as you can imagine, but they would look at me and hold me accountable, rightly so in saying, ‘Didn't you tell me years ago that we needed to build a more resilient space architecture because we don't have the ability to defend ourselves? And then that would change the whole discussion about offense and defense, if we had a resilient space architecture. How come you haven't built a resilient space architecture?’ 

And by the time I got to President Biden, that had been going on for like ten years. But it was the same question from three different presidents, three different things.

You said multiple times, we need a resilient architecture, and then you don't build it. Now we're building it, slowly because the status quo still wins in the discussions. But, again, it’s all about the threat.

30:52 - 31:27 

NA: And looking at the threat, it's also very difficult to defend 1 v 1. So Russia, China proliferating on the ground, for example, anti-satellite capabilities, jamming capabilities, to counter 1 v 1 would be a fool's errand. It would be very expensive.

And so it's out-thinking your adversary out-maneuvering your adversary and putting capabilities in motion and funding them, most importantly to counter. But it can't be platform centric. It has to be mission-area centric.

31:28 - 32:59

JH: So I'm looking at some of the things are adversaries do and learning from that is important.

A couple years ago, in the early phases of the Ukraine crisis, Vladimir Putin threatened to deploy and perhaps employ a nuclear weapon in low-Earth orbit. Everybody says that's nuts. Why would he do that? Well, let's think about what they've been trying to do in counter space. They spent an enormous amount of Russian treasure and time building a direct ascent anti-satellite capability that would take out one satellite.

And then they deployed that basically to threaten us. And then in the early stages of the Ukrainian conflict, a commercial company proliferated across the heavens, is being used against them. And that direct ascent ASAT they spent enormous treasure to build - tens or hundreds of millions of dollars to take out a ten or $100,000 satellite that doesn't do anything to damage it.

So what's the only option he has to actually threaten that capability? A nuclear weapon in low-Earth orbit, which is the dumbest thing in the world to do. It impacts them. It impacts us, impacts the world - it’s horrible. He's got no way else to threaten us. 

We need to pay attention to what they're doing, what works and what doesn't work, and fill the void in the criteria so we never are in the point where we would ever consider what we did in the 1960s, which was build a nuclear-tipped ASAT capability. We did that in the 60s. That's horrible. But we need to be smart about what we do and learn from our adversaries.

33:00 - 33:21

NA: And, you know, it's not 1 v 1. It's not space versus space. We can counter our adversaries from other domains.

We can counter our adversaries by using the levers of national power, like diplomacy, information - yes - military might, but also economic power. So there are many, many ways to get after this problem.

33:22 - 33:42

JH: There's no such thing as war on space. There's only war and all tools of the government, so if somebody attacked us in space, I want the adversary to know we may not come back in like we come back in a different way that will be more damaging to you than what you just created to us, because the goal is to win the conflict. The goal is not to win the battle.

33:43 - 34:11

Thank you. 

Now, I want to leave time for another major recent development that will have significant budget implications. And that is the Trump administration's executive order, titled “The Iron Dome for America.” 

This order directs an assessment for a missile defense system for the United States homeland, while also signalling that space will play a big role in this initiative.

So can each of you elaborate on the role of space and what Space Force programs might be involved in this Iron Dome?

34:12 - 36:27

JH: So the first thing to say is that I would recommend that anybody listening to this go back and look at the Strategic Posture Commission Report of 12 bipartisan people that met a couple of years ago and came up with recommendations for missile defense that even talked about coercive threats against Russia and China, that we needed to have a defensive capability for that.

And a lot of that has turned into what President Trump is calling an Iron Dome for America and I think that's good. But the first thing you have to realize that if you're going to have any kind of missile defense capability, you can't shoot anything you can't see.

So the first thing you have to do is be able to see the threat and characterize it. Right now, the threat is moving from just a ballistic threat that we can see pretty well to cruise missile and hypersonic threats that we can't see very well. So the first priority to deal with those threats will have to be to build surveillance systems to deal with that.

Now some of those surveillance systems will be terrestrial, but most of those will be space-based, and they'll have to be changed. And some of those, by their very nature, will have to be low to see the dim targets that are going to be cruise missiles and hypersonics. So coming up with an integrated architecture of ground and space to be able to see and characterize all the missile threats that threaten America is the first step to an Iron Dome.

The second piece is that we have to go after the rogue states, the North Koreas and Iran and make sure we can defend ourselves against that. And then the coercive threat from Russia and China, which is a low number of low-yield weapons, threatened to be used like in Ukraine to change the equation because we don't have a like capability to respond to that.

Wouldn't it be great if we had a small number of defense capabilities in order to take out those capabilities, so we didn't have to respond in kind with a nuclear weapon? 

Now, those capabilities can be broadly built, using ground -based, air-based, naval-based systems in order to deal with those kind of threats, but ultimately to get to an Iron Dome for America, you have to get to a capability that can attack many targets with one capability, because otherwise you get to the problem we were talking about earlier with the ASAT capability.

You'll never be able to build enough interceptors, so ultimately, on the weapons side, to achieve the vision that President Trump has defined, you're going to have to move into space.

36:28 - 37:12

NA: From what I've read, the Defense Department is taking this in phases. They know they can't build the whole thing today with today's technologies and today's budget.

So we know that current systems will certainly participate in the Iron Dome. Our current missile warning systems, even though they can't see all threats. Those will be part of this architecture. Our strategic communications systems in space will be part of this architecture. The Proliferated Warfighter Space Architecture that the Space Development Agency is building will be enhanced and part of this architecture as well.

So it remains to be seen exactly how it all will fit together in the end. But they do realize that they're going to use what we have and build upon it.

37:13 - 37:37

JH: That's why I recommend the Strategic Posture Commission and I have to admit, I was one of the authors.

So, you know, it's somewhat self-serving. But what we laid out was the phased approach. What you do near-term, what you do in the mid-term, and then what you do in the far-term in terms of technologies to change the game and everybody on the commission agreed with those recommendations, which tells me that's a pretty good starting point.

37:38 - 37:58 

Now, the executive order also states that funding for this Iron Dome for America should be included in the Fiscal 26 budget request. As we mentioned before, we currently don't even have a budget for 2025. 

So what needs to happen to make this a reality to incorporate such a monumental effort such as this Iron Dome, into the Fiscal 26 budget?

37:59 - 38:42

JH: So the first thing that has to happen is the Missile Defense Agency needs to divest itself of all production and sustainment programs, period. Which means they don't do any production sustainment, all they do is research and development. Then the services responsible for producing, sustaining THADD, Patriot, ground-based interceptors. All those capabilities that are out there and the Missile Defense Agency can just focus on: ‘What do we need in order to get to the long term future?’

And you lay in the capabilities of applied research and technology, basic research and technology all the way through in order to build that, you can actually do it in the 26 budget pretty easily, but not if 80 percent of your people are doing production sustainment, because if that's your organization, your culture is production and sustainment, not innovative moves to the future.

38:43 - 39:20

NA: And to be sure, this will be very disruptive for the status quo that the Pentagon is used to and to some extent, the other services.

And if you bring it back to the role of Congress that we talked about as well. I read that Senate Republicans are proposing a $150 billion more for the defense budget for 26. 

Will that all go to the Iron Dome? Doubtful. And even if it did, there will still have to be tough choices and programs and projects that are killed among all services to afford to do what this very ambitious project is asking us to do.

39:21 - 40:11

JH: I assume it's going to be the Missile Defense Agency. But however this team is formed, the Space Force needs to have active members on the team.

If you look at the UCP that's out there right now, this integrated global surveillance mission is a Space Command mission, and therefore the Space Force is the primary service provider for that capability. So the Space Force needs to be heavily involved in that. 

And then as the threat gets played out in this group, the smart people in the Space Force should look at and say, you know, I'll look at directed energy, I'll look at kinetic energy, and I'll look at all those things and they can do trades pretty quick because they have the capability to do that and say, this is what space could provide in those areas.

And then you could say, what is the technology readiness of it? So what would it take in order to improve technology readiness levels of those capabilities and lay those programs in to do that? If you have the right people in the room from the Space Force, they can lay all those pieces out and you can have an integrated approach.

40:12 - 40:20

Together, you also wrote an OpEd that was published recently by SpaceNews. What was the motivation behind writing that OpEd and why release it now?

40:21 - 41:20

JH: So, Scott, you can probably get my answer. It's all about the threat. And we're not responding to the threat, and the budget doesn't reflect the threat that's out there today. And we're not making the right decisions as a nation for how are we going to deal with that threat? And because we're not making the right decisions, we're lagging in the capabilities as we need to deter this kind of threat. 

The last thing anybody in this country should want or anybody in this world should want, would be a war between the United States and China, or a war between the United States and Russia. 

Nothing good can come from that. But in order to deter you actually have to have real capabilities, and those capabilities have to be seen by the adversary, and they have to strike fear into the adversary, so they decide when it's an opportunity to act or not. They make the decision, “Not today.” And that's got to be every day going on to the future. 

And so the reason we we wrote the OpEd was to emphasize the point that resources are not being put in the right place, and we need to adjust where we're putting the resources.

41:21 - 42:10

NA: They're not. And actually, you know, failure to act is not an option. 

What China is doing in space: intercepting our satellites. That is a maneuver that brings us one satellite closer to another. It's not stopping a mission or intercepting and turning something around like you would think in the air domain. An intercept is a very close pass. They're doing this all the time to our satellites. They are practicing tactics and techniques.

They're getting ready to do this to the United States. We can see not only their build up, we can see them practicing their TTPs. The threat is so very real and can be seen. Now the budget needs to be re-prioritized and re-worked to meet this reality.

42:11 - 42:28

Now, each of you represent Elara Nova: The Space Consultancy in various capacities. So how is Elara Nova and its team of partners and consultants, prepared to provide the experience and expertise necessary to build and maintain a strong and capable Space Force - a process that begins with the fiscal budget?

42:29 - 43:13

JH: I tell you what, we have some pretty spectacular Guardians right now that understand the pieces of the space capability.

But what we don't have in large numbers are Guardians that understand the entire enterprise. What Elara Nova understands through the leadership and the folks that we've hired, is we understand the entire enterprise and how to bring enterprise capabilities together and integrate the “eaches” to build something that is much broader. We have consultants that do that. We have advisors that do that.

When you use Elara Nova, you get all of that capability. Right now, I believe, and I wouldn't be involved with Elara Nova if I didn't believe this, that we fill a critical void and the capability by providing that enterprise approach. I think that's the unique thing that Elara Nova provides.

43:14 - 43:50

This has been an episode of The Elara Edge: Expert Insights on Space Security. As a global consultancy and professional services firm focused on helping businesses and government agencies maximize the strategic advantages of the space domain, Elara Nova is your source for expertise and guidance in space security.

If you liked what you heard today, please subscribe to our channel and leave us a rating. Music for this podcast was created by Patrick Watkins of PW Audio. This episode was edited and produced by Regia Multimedia Services. I’m your host, Scott King, and join us next time at the Elara Edge.