A new Aerospace Industries Association study underlines international interdependence amidst today’s trade wars.

“Right now space is a supporting element to a geographic [component command] … but that paradigm is going to flip over time, where the supported command — the primacy, where the actions will happen first — is going to be space,” says Lt. Gen. Joseph Guastella, head of Air Force Central Command.

DoD goes back to the drawing board to replace its missile interceptors. Can they make it work this time?

A new AFSPC study posits a possible future — named after ancient Chinese warlord Zhang He — where China dominates space even as human presence vastly expands to the Moon and beyond.

NATIONAL HARBOUR: A key capability the Defense Department has relied on since the late Andy Marshall invented it — Net Assessment — is coming to the Intelligence Community. But wait, you say. Doesn’t the National Intelligence Council do long range strategic analysis? Well, not nearly as far out as Net Assessment does, which is 20… Keep reading →

Air Force Space Command deputy Maj. Gen. John Shaw says the US probably won’t be using piloted Tie Fighters in future space wars. But…

“We’ve been kicking around this idea that there needs to be a milestone past D; a milestone E where the program is proving elderly and we’re having to do Herculean tasks to keep airplanes flying that should have been retired long ago,” says Air Force acquisition czar Will Roper.

In conflicts of the future the Pentagon will need some radically new thinking.

Enabling multi-domain command and control (MDC2) is “how the Air Force becomes the quarterback, the play-caller of the joint warfighting force,” says Acting Air Force Secretary Matt Donovan.

When new entities fail, it’s most often due to the fact they don’t do what they do better than their competition (differentiated value proposition is the business term) and they lack investment in talent and technology. But there are other challenges.