Innovating for Effect— MAINTAINING OUR TECHNICAL ADVANTAGE IN THE SPACE DOMAIN by GEN. B. CHANCE SALTZMAN, USSF
S pace is unforgiving. It is hard on the human body. It is hard on equipment. With space now a warfighting domain, that puts tremendous pressure on the defense acquisition process to supply and sustain credible military space capabilities. If the United States intends to remain the world’s preeminent space power, we must fundamentally change the way we conceive, develop, and deploy novel technology for a rapidly evolving environment. “New truths begin as heresies…” —Art Kleiner
tomatic Maxim machine guns. Again, defense rose to prominence. Across the centuries, offense and defense alternate in their dominance, and any given status quo holds only for as long as it takes for a new idea to subsume existing ones. In the newest warfighting do- main—outer space—the current para- digm is offense-dominated. Protect- ing satellites from the range of threats arrayed against them is incredibly difficult, so we employ a proliferated architecture to mitigate the risk. We
build defense in depth and prioritize resiliency, and we align investments accordingly to achieve military objec- tives within the status quo. This is a precarious position, though, because we are building space forces that may be wholly inadequate for the future operating environment. Yes, present circumstances will continue until such time as someone innovates a new paradigm, but it is far more beneficial to be the innovator driving that shift than an observer forced to react to it.
Once upon a time, castle walls were the final word in strategic advantage, and defense was pre- eminent. Then came siege engines, which overcame stone defenses to strike at the vulnerable targets they protected. Suddenly, offense became the new orthodoxy. In World War I, armies that clung to cavalry charges and infantry marching abreast proved obsolete in the face of emplaced au-
14 | DEFENSE ACQUISITION | March-April 2025
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