UPDATED: HASC StratForces Moves To “Protect” Space Control; Designates Space An MFP

WASHINGTON:  When the United States government writ large — the military and the Intelligence Community — thinks something is important enough to spend $5 billion in new money from existing sources that’s a strategic commitment and is worth paying very close attention to.

The government scraped that money together and will spend it on space control over the next five years as a result of a “broad reaching review” done last summer.

That’s what the IC and the Defense Department plan over the next five years, Lt. Gen. Ellen Pawlikowski, outgoing military deputy for Air Force acquisition, said this morning.

UPDATE BEGINS: The House Armed Services Committee is watching this issue very closely and has already moved to support the Pentagon’s actions on space control. The draft National Defense Authorization Act headed for a full mark-up next week would make national security space programs the Pentagon’s 12th Major Force Program. The Defense Department only has 11 of these spending categories in existence, ranging from Strategic Forces (i.e. nukes) to Special Operations. Making space its own Major Force Program would be an arcane but important addition to the budget process. “OSD In the space hearing had mentioned an additional $5 billion dollars across the FYDP,” a committee staffer told reporters this afternoon. “This would make sure we’re protecting that funding as best we can.”

For those who aren’t familiar with MFPs they are designed to pull together a range of programs and allow senior Pentagon officials to see what their budget state is at a glance. By aggregating the data in one place, the capabilities are more closely tracked because senior congressional and Pentagon leaders just don’t have much time. Space has been treated as a “virtual” MFP for some time but it is virtual. Congressional designation matters.

Senior Pentagon leaders have been telling Congress and the press in recent weeks that they will spend $5 billion over the next five years to protect American satellites and other space capabilities. But it sounded as if that was just like one of the dishonest claims during a famine or other natural disaster overseas that the United States is spending XXX dollars to help the people of YYY country. What that usually means is that America decided it had to do something so policymakers pick an amount, declare it and we might actually spend it — eventually, maybe.

This $5 billion came out of people’s hides. What amounts to a government-wide strategic initiative — it involves both DoD and the intelligence agencies — was cobbled together during the Strategic Posture Review (pronounced “spear) last summer,  Pawlikowski said at a Mitchell Institute breakfast this morning

“This was money that was added either by taking dollars from other space things or by taking dollars from elsewhere in the Department of Defense,” she said when I asked her about the money after her speech this morning. “It’s new to space protection… Most of that money I can’t talk about.”

Reporters have noted a marked shift in the tone and language used by senior Air Force officials over the last few months, but figuring out if a policy shift had occurred or other actions taken was extremely difficult as almost all our queries were met either with a smile, the classic “I can’t go into that” or similar.

Then last week came what one industry source described as “a clarion call” to industry about the imperative to protect American and allied satellites. The source was talking about Deputy Defense Secretary Bob Work’s speech last Wednesday in a classified session at the Space Symposium. I spoke with the source at the end of the Space Symposium last Friday.

Breaking D readers know about Work’s comments on space control because we got the exclusive, But, as more than one space warfare expert noted, Work’s language didn’t seem to mark a policy shift, but rather served as a high-level signal clearly aimed at Russia and China. Military and intelligence officials rarely discuss space control or active defense or mission assurance or whatever term we’re using now in the open. But last week we saw a barrage of such language — both publicly and sotto voce — from senior Air Force officers. They were joined by an assistant secretary of State for arms control, verification and complication, Frank Rose, in making clear that China’s anti satellite test in July last year was a major factor behind this shift in tone.

Pawlikowski, former deputy director of the NRO (our spy satellite builder and operator) and head of the Space and Missile Systems Center, offered her own version: “We can no longer assume that we won’t be engaged in protecting our capabiliteis in space against attempts to deny us those capabilities.”

A senior government official made clear to me that Russia’s actions in Ukraine and in specific space-related areas have also become much more bellicose in the last year, adding to the urgency.

Language is important, but now we know that the senior reaches of the US government really care about this because they have taken the most important strategic action one can — they are spending money on it.

The next step? As Gen. Pawlikowski noted this morning as she chatted with reporters, we all need to decide what term we’re going to use that clearly defines the actions being funded. Is it space control (a very loaded term that tends to set off arms control advocates and evoke images of satellites colliding with another or being dazzled by lasers)? Is it space protection, which is a bit anodyne and lacks specificity? Is it mission assurance, which covers such a wide range of topics that it becomes almost meaningless? My vote would go to space defense, which intuitively evokes both active and passive measures, and boasts the benefits of being more neutral while still having some heft.

Sydney contributed to this piece from the HASC markup.