Future Force Design for Counterspace Campaigning
This transcript is made possible through the sponsorship of Schneider Electric
Gen. Kevin P. Chilton, USAF (Ret.):
Thank you. Thank you everybody. Well, we're going to move on and build on the morning panel on
Space Order of Battle this afternoon for our first panel. And we're going to talk about how the United
States can deter adversary aggression and if need be deny our adversaries the use of the space domain.
In my view, at least I haven't found a time in history where an adversary has been fully deterred by a
purely defensive posture. There's never been a castle with high enough walls or thick enough walls that
someone didn't figure out a way to attack it and remained undeterred in their objective to destroy the
adversary. And in the same sense, a military needs to have the ability to hit back and hold an adversary's
interests and capabilities at risk. I believe space is no different, and that's why I'm so pleased to feature
such a great panel this afternoon to explore this topic today and I'll begin by introducing the panel.
So sitting next to me is our war fighter that's working for U.S. Space Command, Brigadier General Devin
Pepper, the Deputy Commanding General for Operations and Vice Commander at Space Operations
Command. And next I'm very pleased to welcome to the stage, Mr. Scott Forney, President of General
Atomic Electromagnetic Systems. There's a great team in San Diego that does tremendous work
supporting our Space Force with great capabilities, as well as our Air Force. So Scott welcome to the
stage good to have you here. Next I'd like to introduce Lieutenant General, Shawn Bratton. General
Bratton is the Deputy Chief of Space Operations, Strategy, Plans, Programs, and Requirements. Is there
anything you don't do? That's quite a line up there General Bratton. Welcome, it's good to see you
again. And certainly last but not least, I'd like to welcome our Mitchell Institute's Space Center of
Excellence very own senior resident fellow, Mr. Charles Galbreath. Retired Colonel, Galbreath. Prior to
joining Mitchell, Charles served as the Deputy Chief of Technology and Innovation for our Space Force.
Charles, good to have you on stage. General Bratton and General Pepper and Charles, I guess I want to
direct this first question to you. Our adversaries' militaries rely more and more heavily on space. Back
when I was on active duty we relied on space and our adversaries didn't. We still do and suddenly it
would appear they rely as much as we do to conduct their terrestrial operations. Do you see
counterspace campaigning serving to eliminate or at least severely degrade our adversaries' abilities to
use space to enhance their terrestrial war fighting capabilities? General Bratton?
Lt. Gen. Shawn N. Bratton:
Thanks Devin, I'll go. Hey first off, thanks everybody for being here. The after lunch crowd, if you're
sleepy we'll be sure and wake you up and thanks to AFA for holding the conference and bringing us all
together. General Saltzman talks about competitive endurance, and counter space campaigning is one
of the tenets of that. I think that involves a lot of activity that comes before conflict, right? So we talk
about deterrence, we talk about competition and how does campaigning our investments and our
activities contribute in those spaces. But certainly when you transition to conflict I think there is a
responsibility to protect and defend, to have offensive capabilities and the Space Force is certainly
interested in being able to protect what we have on orbit so we can provide the joint force what they
need to compete and win in conflict. I think we talk about things like the objective force and the
capabilities we need, that certainly involves the full range of kind of response options that we owe the
joint commander as they think about that.
We have to deny the adversary the space advantage while we maintain advantage for ourselves. And so
in the lane I'm in and where we work to do that requires budgets and so certainly things like continuing
