Combat Credibility in Air and Space
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Col. Mark Gunzinger, USAF (Ret.):
So good afternoon ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the last panel of the day on enhancing
combat credibility in air and space. So I'm Mark Gunzinger. You just saw my picture. It's a horrible
picture. I'm Mitchell Institute's director for future concepts and capability assessments and I'm very glad
that you had joined us today and to those who are watching online, thank you as well. So China and
Russia's development and proliferation of advanced air missile defenses, analyze satellite weapons and
other counter intervention capabilities will make joint force operations in the air and space domains
more challenging than ever before. I don't need to tell you that, you know that. Our military must be
prepared to counter those threats, encounter aggression from great powers as well as regional bad
actors and threats from terrorist groups, many who've obtained those kinds of capabilities.
So enhancing the US combat credibility is a big job. Fielding a combat credible force has been
questioned by many frankly. They said our combat credibility is eroding and this fine group of panelists,
thank you so much for joining us today is going to tell you why that is simply not true. The Air Force and
the Space Force are continuously modernizing and building the capabilities and capacity needed to
prevail against this unprecedented array of threats that we know so well. Maintaining our nation's
freedom of action in the air, space and cyber domains also going to require new operating concepts,
realistic training and asymmetric capabilities to ensure our Airmen and Guardians are prepared to take
on any fight, anywhere on the face of the earth and in space. So we're very privileged to have this fine
group today. I'm going to introduce first, thank you for coming, Brigadier General Todd Moore who
serves as the deputy commander of the Space Training and Readiness Command, STARCOM. It's good to
have friends.
So for those of you who do not know, STARCOM is responsible for ensuring America's Guardians are
trained and ready to win in a contested space environment as we heard yesterday. And that mission is
critical to our nation's ability to compete and prevail over the pacing threat. Next we welcome Dr. Kelly
Hammett to the stage. And Dr. Hammett is the director and program executive officer of the Space
Rapid Capabilities Office, which is responsible for rapidly delivering first year kind operational space
capabilities that are going to protect our space assets, and defend our joint forces from space enabled
attacks. Third, we have Brigadier General Jason Bartolomei, the Air Force... So far you're in the lead.
Brig. Gen. Jason E. Bartolomei:
Eat your heart out, Space Force.
Col. Mark Gunzinger, USAF (Ret.):
This is great. The PEO for Weapons and Director of the Armament Directorate at the Air Force Life Cycle
Management Center. And Jason is responsible for the planning and execution of all lifecycle activities for
air delivered munitions. And finally, we're very fortunate to have Colonel Daniel Lehoski join us and you
Lager, call sign is Commander. Well that's a split decision now. And your unit is the focal point for testing
new operational capabilities and evaluating field lead capabilities for the Air Force is combat Air Force.
So Colonel Lehoski was previously the commandant of the Air Force Weapons School at Nellis. So I like
to jump right into questions for our distinguished panelists. Just to start off, it would be great if you
would each very briefly give us your perspective on what constitutes the baseline elements of a credible
