During the early years of the Space Command, the Regan Administration, the Command was preparing to fight in a nuclear exchange with a near-peer nation. Then the technological boom of the 90's put in motion a posture putting AFSPC in a more supporting role to the combat Air Forces. Then 9/11 changed everything for the entire military, AFPSC could no longer could take the back seat. We started to deploy sometimes without guidance and strategy. I deployed several times during these years, without a strategy without training. Modern warfare was complex and without strategy it was complicated.
AFSPC needed to transform rapidly, without an accurate and measurable strategy for many years to keep up with the demand. AFSPC got caught in bureaucratic processes and became stale (Stumborg, 2006). It needed to transform into something else, something more streamlined, something with a vision statement that compliments the modern complexities. Recently, the former commander of AFPSC now the Commander Strategic Command, wrote in 2016 that AFSPC needed to re-posture and re-orgnaize in a war fighting mentality, changing its culture (Johnson-Freese, 2016). When I participated in the writing of the construct we received direct feedback from Combatant Commands, wing commanders, squadron commanders and senior enlisted advisors that we were behind, we needed to evolve. Feedback from commander revolved that AFSPC had become stagnant and stuck in its own process
This feedback was felt from the White House to a tactical commander. This new construct drives the culture, set the pace, and establishes new acquisition strategies to match. AFSPC could no longer depend on process to catch up. We developed systems faster than ever. The space operations crews transformed with this pace, we trained differently, we engaged differently, we deliberately developed. General Hyten published a new vision developed from feedback, called the Space Enterprise Vision (Space, 2016) . This developed the origins that we needed, created a principle direction and fundamental plane. Now AFSPC had a coordinate system to build a new architecture.
Since then, we have moved an pace I have never witnessed. We developed our own Joint Force Space Component, we developed our own center for defense, we have streamlined the acquisition framework. While slow to build up steam, the enterprise is slowly starting to move. I think in the next ten years, we will have a solid space defense plan, we will have trained personnel to engage in "in-blind" wars, we will see space as a dominate domain Space warfare is coming and we will be prepared, through solid strategies and constructs to hang our new framework on. I am training young troops now that will be in command in ten years, to make crucial timely decisions and deliberately plan for the worst contingencies.
References
- Johnson-Freese, J. (2016). A space mission force for the global commons of space. The SAIS Review of International Affairs, 36(2), 5.
- Space Command Public Affairs. (2016). Hyten announces space enterprise vision. (). Washington: Federal Information & News Dispatch, Inc.
No comments:
Post a Comment