Col. Jennifer Reeves, USAF (Ret.)
In the race to out-innovate adversaries, the U.S. Space Force has one key advantage over its international rivals: a robust, dynamic commercial space industry. America’s booming private space industry provides launch, sensing, communications and other space-based capabilities to commercial customers—as well as the government—and many of those capabilities could have valuable military applications.
But as good as these commercial offerings are, they were not designed or intended to answer military requirements. Many military space functions are inherently governmental in nature. Missile warning, missile tracking, and missile defense, for example, as well as targeting targets on the ground, at sea, in the air or in space, are jobs we wouldn’t want to contract out. We want our government to provide for our collective defense, not hired hands.
To ensure American space superiority—that is, the ability to achieve desired effects in space when and where required, even in the face of adversaries’ countermeasures—the United States cannot expect to rely solely on commercial systems. The nation must pursue a balanced, hybrid approach that integrates commercial capabilities into a bespoke military space architecture.
Space Systems Command adopted this strategy a few years ago when Gen. Michael Guetlein, now the director of President Trump’s Golden Dome initiative, coined the motto “exploit what we have, buy what we can, and build only what we must.” As the U.S. builds its future national security space architecture, leaders must assess when commercial solutions are sufficient and when assured government capabilities are necessary. Many motivations drive this approach—the need for assured government control.
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