Air University

CURTIS E. LEMAY CENTER FOR DOCTRINE

DEVELOPMENT AND EDUCATION

Expansion or Marginalization

How Effects-Based Organization 

Could Determine the Future 

of Air Force Space Command

Edward B. “Mel” Tomme, DPhil

Lieutenant Colonel, USAF, Retired

Research Paper 2008-1

Air Force Research Institute

Maxwell Air Force Base, Alabama 36112-6026

July 2008
ii

Disclaimer

Opinions, conclusions, and recommendations expressed or implied within are solely those of the 

author and do not necessarily represent the views of the Curtis E. LeMay Center for Doctrine 

Development and Education, Air University, the United States Air Force, the Department of 

Defense, or any other US Government agency. Cleared for public release: distribution unlimited.

Air Force Research Institute (AFRI) papers and Air University Monographs are occasional studies written by Air 

Force researchers at large and military defense analysts 

assigned to the Curtis E. LeMay Center for Doctrine 

Development and Education at Air University and beyond. 

The purpose of this series is to provide useful ideas and 

independent analysis of issues of current or potential 

importance to Air Force commanders and their staffs. 

This monograph and others in the series are also available electronically and at the Air University Research Web 

site (https://research.maxwell.af.mil/) and the Air and 

Space Power Journal (http://www.airpower.au.af.mil). 
iii

Contents

Page

DISCLAIMER . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ii

FOREWORD . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . v

ABOUT THE AUTHOR . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . vii

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ix

SUMMARY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xi

EXPANSION OR MARGINALIZATION: HOW 

EFFECTS-BASED ORGANIZATION 

COULD DETERMINE THE FUTURE OF 

AIR FORCE SPACE COMMAND . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

Domain versus Effect . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

Kepler Only . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

Filling the Effects-Based Void . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13

Further Consolidation for Better Effectiveness . . . 20

Combat Support Is the Mission . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23

Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31

NOTES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34

LIST OF ACRONYMS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41

v

Foreword

The importance of combat effects in warfare has no second. However, most combat effects would never be delivered without crucial 

information delivered from combat support forces. In this time of 

turbulent recapitalization and reorganization within the Air Force, 

the critical nature of combat and combat support effects must remain foremost in our decisions as we create new commands, place 

people and resources where needed, and forecast budgets.

Air Force Space Command has always been a force multiplier, 

and, in more recent history, it has provided its own combat effects. 

As demonstrated by the Chinese last year, kinetic attack is now in 

the arsenal of space operators, both foreign and domestic. However, providing nonkinetic combat effects and combat support effects is the primary military role of Air Force Space Command units 

and their people. As the Air Force considers new major organizations, like Air Force Cyber Command and the Air Force Intelligence, 

Surveillance and Reconnaissance Agency, we would do well to note 

the synergistic nature of combat and combat support effects within 

new and existing organizations and the budgetary burden associated with creating new Air Force commands.

Toward that end, Dr. Tomme provides a critical examination of 

Air Force Space Command, and by analogy, Air Force Cyber Command, in a discussion of the roles of combat and combat support 

organizations. His critical thoughts and enlightening points serve 

as a basis for further discussion and examination of how the 

world’s premier air force—arguably the greatest air force in the 

history of mankind—could move forward in a high-technology age 

of both kinetic and nonkinetic combat effects in air, space, cyber, 

and intelligence operations. I encourage the reader to study the 

salient points of Dr. Tomme’s paper for further thought, discussion, and debate. How we organize ourselves today will frame the 

structure of our service throughout this new century.

LANCE W. LORD

General, USAF, retired

Monument, Colorado

vii

About the Author

At the time of his retirement, Lt Col Ed “Mel” Tomme, USAF, 

retired, was the only combat pilot in the Air Force with a doctorate in physics. A distinguished graduate of the United States 

Air Force Academy (USAFA) in 1985, he attended pilot training 

at Reese AFB, remaining there for his first operational tour instructing in the T-37 Tweet. He was then selected to fly the 

F-4G Wild Weasel at George AFB; Spangdahlem Air Base, Germany; and King Abdul Azziz Air Base, Saudi Arabia.

He holds a master’s degree in physics (quantum optics) from 

the University of Texas at Austin and a doctorate of philosophy 

in plasma physics from the University of Oxford in England. 

Colonel Tomme taught physics at USAFA for several years while 

also instructing in the T-3 Firefly and TG-7 Motorglider. He is 

the only officer at USAFA to ever have been recognized as both 

the outstanding academy educator by the dean and the outstanding associate air officer commanding by the commandant.

Colonel Tomme’s final assignment in the Air Force was working in Air Force Space Command’s Space Warfare Center at 

Schriever AFB, CO, serving first as Concept Development Branch 

chief for the Air Force Space Battlelab and later as the deputy 

director of Air Force Tactical Exploitation of National Capabilities (TENCAP). Championed by the commander, Air Force Space 

Command, he personally briefed his concept for utilizing the 

near-space regime for military purposes in the White House, to 

Congress, and to almost 200 stars and civilian leaders between 

April and November 2004, including the secretary of the Air 

Force and chief of staff of the Air Force. His work on near-space 

and on so-called tactical satellites generated two separate Air 

Force Scientific Advisory Board studies, both of which validated 

his controversial conclusions.

Colonel Tomme is currently a defense industry consultant.

ix

Acknowledgments

My most sincere thanks go to two good friends and colleagues: Col Ed “Bull” Rios, USAF, retired, president, CyberSpace Operations Consulting and former commander, Headquarters AFSPC Space Operations Squadron; and Col Sigfred 

“Ziggy” Dahl, Directorate of Requirements, Air Combat Command and former director, Air Force TENCAP. Bull read and 

corrected numerous drafts of this article and steered me to 

many extremely valuable references and connections. Ziggy’s 

constant chiding kept me focused on the facts. His sound advice to follow the path of Sun Tzu’s ch’i instead of pursuing the 

cheng that is my natural tendency substantially (and appropriately) softened the tone of my arguments, making this paper 

much less confrontational and more palatable to my target audience. This paper would have been much less effective were it 

not for their greatly valued assistance.

I also owe a sincere debt of gratitude to the following individuals who spent many long hours with me, sharing their insights on intelligence collection and dissemination, space, information operations, political realities, doctrine, and organizational 

change: The Honorable Peter Teets, former undersecretary of 

the Air Force, former director, National Reconnaissance Office, 

and former president and chief operating officer, Lockheed 

Martin Corporation; Lt Gen Dave Deptula, deputy chief of staff 

for intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance, Headquarters USAF; RADM Tom Betterton, USN, retired, former director, 

Program C, National Reconnaissance Office; Brig Gen Jim Head, 

PhD, USAF, retired, former head, Department of Physics, United 

States Air Force Academy; Col Vickie “Wizard” Michaels, USAF, 

retired, Technical Services Business Development, Northrop 

Grumman and former chief, Space and Advanced Programs, 

Air Intelligence Agency; CAPT Scott Witt, USN, retired, former 

chief, Office of Weapons and Space, National Security Agency; 

and Lt Col Steve Carr, PhD, USAF, retired, supervisor of the 

Command and Control Group, The Johns Hopkins University 

Applied Physics Laboratory. Their valuable and considered input significantly increased the strength of the arguments in 

this paper.

xi

Summary

Air Force Space Command is currently organized around a 

domain: it does things in and through space. Such an organization is not optimal, as it ignores synergies gained from effectsbased organization, the grouping of missions according to similar 

effects instead of platforms and platform locations. Events already in motion appear poised to push Space Command to the 

sidelines unless it proactively embraces missions in other domains that produce effects similar to what it currently does 

exclusively from space. The newly announced Air Force Cyberspace Command could suffer from similar problems since it is 

similarly organized around a domain instead of effects.

This paper proposes a new split in the Air Force organizational structure deemphasizing the domain and stressing effects; combat effects are separated from combat support effects 

so that these effects-based synergies can best be exploited. An 

Air Force Space Command combined with the new Air Force 

Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance Agency would 

become the cornerstone of a new combat support command 

that would enable a single commander to support joint Department of Defense operations and the intelligence community more 

effectively than is possible under the current structure. Such a 

new command could quickly become the nation’s preeminent 

provider of high-ground command, control, communications, 

computers, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance 

(C4ISR) effects.



Expansion or Marginalization

How Effects-Based Organization 

Could Determine the Future of 

Air Force Space Command

No modern war has been won without air superiority. 

No future war will be won without air, space and cyberspace superiority. Accordingly, the Air Force must be 

better postured to contend with both today’s and tomorrow’s challenges. To promote and defend America’s 

interests through Global Vigilance, Global Reach and 

Global Power, the Air Force must attain cross-domain 

dominance. Cross-domain dominance is the freedom 

to attack and the freedom from attack in and through 

the atmosphere, space and the electromagnetic spectrum. It permits rapid and simultaneous, lethal and 

non-lethal effects in these three domains to attain 

strategic, operational and tactical objectives in all 

warfighting domains: land, sea, air, space, and cyberspace. Cross-domain dominance integrates systems, 

capabilities, operations, and effects in air, space and 

cyberspace to gain competitive advantage in any and 

all domains. It transforms our operational concepts to 

maximize synergy among air, space and cyberspace, 

thus generating a new array of simultaneous, synchronized effects.

—Gen T. Michael Moseley

Former Chief of Staff, USAF

The Nation’s Guardians: 

America’s 21st Century Air Force

Effects are the foundation upon which our modern military 

is based. Effects-based operations has been a common buzzword for almost two decades now. While the emerging concept 

had possibly been bounced around as early as the 1960s,1 it 

quickly gained prominence within scholarly and military circles 

with the publication of a seminal article by then Col David 


Deptula,* which laid out in an academic forum many of the 

ideas he had developed and championed during the first Persian Gulf War.2 His ideas were further refined by the Joint 

Forces Command3 and others to the point that most subsequent works agreed on the basic tenets: effectively and efficiently producing desired results where the focus is on the ends 

and not the means, with emphasis on the outcome and not 

necessarily raw, destructive military power.4

The logical grouping of effects producers is a key to successful military operations. The purpose of this paper is to examine 

the current organizational focus of Air Force Space Command 

(AFSPC) as viewed through an effects-based lens and to explain 

why that focus could be shifted to better serve our nation’s defense. It will also investigate large organizational changes already at work within the Air Force that appear to be a reaction 

to the less-than-optimal organization of the full range of the 

service’s intelligence-gathering and dissemination assets, both 

traditional and cyberspace.

The crux of the paper will be to suggest a path for organizationally separating combat effects producers from those units 

who produce support effects, taking advantage of synergies 

gained from organizing and training like units together to form 

a more potent fighting force. The spotlight will initially fall upon 

AFSPC, as that organization more than any other major unit in 

the Air Force epitomizes a haphazard juxtaposition of combat 

and support effects producers thrown together for no other apparent reason than sharing a common operating domain—

space—for at least part of their mission. However, the focus will 

broaden to include the recently announced Air Force Cyberspace Command, as its organization seems to be a similarly 

eclectic collection of combatants and supporters. Examining 

the less-than-optimal organization of AFSPC could provide a 

wealth of lessons to be learned when designing the new cyberspace command. Organizing along lines of common effects in-

*General Deptula was the principle air-campaign attack planner for Gens Buster 

Glosson and Chuck Horner during Operation Desert Storm (1991) and worked for Col 

John Warden in the renowned AF Checkmate cell. During that period he and Colonel 

Warden began discussing the “effects-based” approach to warfare and used it to meter 

the actual attack flow used during the war.
stead of domain aligns perfectly with General Moseley’s theme 

of maximizing cross-domain dominance to provide the absolutely best defense capabilities for our nation, filling critical 

seams that exist with the current structure.

To support this argument, we shall begin by explaining why 

it is effects that matter, not the location or the platform from 

which those effects are produced. We shall discuss how AFSPC’s 

focus is only peripherally on coordinated effects production 

and provide a telling example in which the command intentionally discarded a mission set that complemented and significantly expanded its capability to produce effects because the 

mission set did not fit cleanly into the command’s domainbased mind-set. We shall then foreshadow the possible absorption of the command into new, ascendant commands that do 

emphasize the primacy of effects. We shall suggest how a consolidation of all similar command, control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (C4ISR) 

effects producers—regardless of the domain in which they operate—would allow for much more efficient management and 

delivery of those effects. Using an analogy with the US Army 

practice of dividing its forces into warrior and support branches, 

we shall then show how the effects produced by some units 

currently under the direction of AFSPC are better suited within 

other organizations. Finally, we shall discuss why proper identification of support and warrior forces is necessary to hone the 

proper focus of each type of unit, with the goal of producing the 

most valuable combat effects for our nation. The end result of 

this discussion will be a recommendation for a complete revamping of the way that AFSPC does business, transforming 

the command into one that is not only the world’s premier operator of space-based assets but also has assumed a much 

more crucial role as the linchpin of all C4ISR-related effects 

delivery for the nation.

In a paper where the term effects is so germane to the discussion, it is paramount to define up front what is meant by 

combat effects and combat support effects. Some have suggested that effects should be split on kinetic/nonkinetic lines.5

Such a division appears to be artificial—a red herring. Whether 

the enemy is destroyed with bombs, light, or binary code, the 

effect is the same: he is dead. A more natural and organization-
ally useful split occurs between combat and combat support 

effects. Combat effects are the results of direct actions taken to 

deny the enemy the use of an asset or to defend a friendly asset. 

Many people associate combat effects with actions like dropping bombs. There the combat effect is, for example, destruction of an enemy tank. However, combat effects do not necessarily have to be kinetic. Maneuvering a small spacecraft near 

an enemy imaging satellite and deploying a large black plastic 

sheet in front of its cameras would be an example of a nonkinetic 

action that produces the combat effect of negating the usefulness of the enemy’s space asset. Using the Internet to take 

down systems necessary to the operation of an enemy nation’s 

financial system would be a cyber-based nonkinetic action that 

results in a combat effect. Conversely, support effects are the 

results of actions that enable combat effects to occur, but do 

not actually take the action associated with combat effects.

A good doctrinal example of the difference between combat 

effects and combat support effects may be found in the dynamic targeting kill-chain of find, fix, track, target, engage, and 

assess (F2T2EA). Joint doctrine states, “The find, fix, and track 

steps tend to be ISR-intensive, while the target and engage 

steps are typically labor-, force-, and decision-making intensive.”6 If it is not the role of an organization to carry out the 

actual targeting and killing of the enemy asset in the F2T2EA 

kill-chain,* the unit is performing a combat support function. 

Many combat effects providers can independently perform all 

steps in the kill-chain, but they are most often assisted by 

combat-support effects providers; combat-support effects providers do not target or engage.

In the small-spacecraft example above, combat support organizations likely found, fixed, and tracked the target, providing the information on the orbital parameters for the target 

satellite and determining that it was an imaging satellite. The 

combat organization then continued the track while targeting 

and executing by actually maneuvering the screening satellite 

in place to negate the asset through disruption of its mission. 

*Here, kill may be interpreted to mean any method along the spectrum of negation—

the ability to deny, disrupt, deceive, degrade, or destroy an enemy asset.
Combat support functions likely monitored the entire encounter to assess its effectiveness. Likewise, the process of finding 

the appropriate port in the appropriate computer into which to 

insert the command to disrupt the enemy’s financial system is 

a form of cyber intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance 

(ISR), a combat support function. Transmitting the actual command to execute the action results in a combat effect, an effect 

that must be coordinated with all other ongoing and planned 

combat effects.

The term combat support is not intended to denigrate those 

missions or imply that they are only secondary considerations. 

On the contrary, combat support effects within the kill-chain 

are becoming ever more important. In a recent article, General 

Deptula noted, “Finding the enemy has become a great challenge. . . . Knowledge—having always been key—is assuming 

precedence over kinetics as the prerequisite ‘weapon’ of war. . . . 

We are in an era when we can already kill practically any target we can find. Our chief challenge is to find-fix-track lowsignature targets, however fleeting and unique they may be. 

Without this capability, precise shooters are of little use.”7 The 

appropriate method of organizing our forces so that these combat and combat support functions operate as effectively as possible to ensure the shooter has the best information possible is 

the main concern of this paper.

Having explained this paper’s purpose and defined key terms, 

we will now examine AFSPC’s organization in detail and discuss 

why it is so fundamentally different from the rest of the Air 

Force. Though AFSPC is the specific focus of this paper, it would 

be worthwhile to keep potential Air Force (AF) Cyberspace Command organizational structures in mind to see where the similarities may lie. It is important to remember throughout that 

both cyberspace and space are domain concepts, not effects.

Domain versus Effect

In the early 1990s, the Air Force reorganized many of its major commands (MAJCOM) to better harness the synergies that 

come from grouping assets that deliver similar effects to the 

war fighter.8 For example, Air Combat Command (ACC) became 

the center of almost all things related to the effect of putting 
weapons on target, including, for the command’s first year of 

existence, the nation’s nuclear missile forces.9 Air Mobility 

Command’s core competency was delivering the effect of rapid, 

responsive logistics. Air Education and Training Command’s 

core effect was to support all other commands by providing 

them with well-trained and highly-educated personnel. All but 

three of the service’s nine commands are now organized along 

functional levels, and two of the remainder, United States Air 

Forces in Europe (USAFE) and Pacific Air Forces (PACAF), are 

aligned for geopolitical reasons.* There remains only one real 

holdout on the service’s push toward universal effects-based 

organization—one command that steadfastly clings to a domainbased structure, a raison d’être that is based on being in a 

particular place instead of delivering a unique effect.† That 

command is Air Force Space Command, the organization that 

prides itself on delivering “space effects.”

In testimony to the House Armed Services Committee and in 

a recent public speech at a major space conference, Gen Kevin 

Chilton, then the AFSPC commander, stated that the first of his 

four main priorities for the command was to “preserve and expand our ability to deliver space effects to the joint fight” (emphasis added).10 There are two problems with this worthy goal. 

First, warriors do not care where their effects come from. The 

space modifier in front of effects is completely irrelevant to 

warriors. As eloquently stated by one current Marine space officer, “No one in the field has ever sent out an urgent call for 

more space. It’s the effects they want.”11

*The major commands within the USAF are Air Combat Command, Air Education 

and Training Command, AF Materiel Command, AF Reserve Command, AF Space 

Command, AF Special Operations Command, Air Mobility Command, Pacific Air Forces, 

and United States Air Forces in Europe. The AF has announced plans to stand up a 

10th major command in 2008, AF Cyberspace Command.

†It is difficult to classify PACAF and USAFE as effects-based commands. Instead 

they are much more correctly classified as domain-based commands; the “domains” in 

their cases are specific geographic locations. The argument can be made that a similar 

rationale exists for AFSPC. However, the existence of PACAF and USAFE is predicated 

on the garrison nature of the military established during the Cold War and the requirement to support thousands of Airmen and their equipment in forward operating locations. There is no similar forward basing requirement levied upon AFSPC. Additionally, 

as our military becomes more expeditionary in nature, the relative size and influence 

of PACAF and USAFE are on the wane as their assets are being transferred back to the 

stateside major commands based around delivery of specific effects.
A quote currently in vogue among senior space officers cites 

a young soldier who, when asked if he needed space to fight in 

today’s wars, said, “No, all I need is my rifle, my box of ammunition and that little black box over there that tells me where I 

am.”12 Space officers proudly cite this soldier to show that 

space has become so pervasive that people don’t even know 

they’re using it; they appear to have missed the irony that the 

quote actually highlights the fact that warriors not only don’t 

need to know but shouldn’t have to know they’re using space. 

Were the navigation information the soldier found so important 

delivered from some other source, it would be just as valuable 

to him. As long as warriors get the information about the enemy 

and their comrades needed to prosecute the battle and as long 

as they can effectively communicate and give and receive orders at will, they are happy and effective. The systems that 

actually deliver the C4ISR effects the warriors rely on could 

just as well be in the center of the earth or on a completely different planet for all they care. Just as people don’t need to 

know the technical specifications behind how the signal gets to 

their house when they just want to watch their programs, warriors just want the effect; details of the delivery mechanism 

should be invisible to them.

The second problem with the phrase “space effects” is that 

many of the effects delivered by space assets aren’t unique and 

warriors could actually benefit from the synergies of grouping 

them with other deliverers of similar effects. By combining the 

strengths of all overhead and airborne C4ISR assets under one 

commander and by leveraging the global overflight and deeplook capabilities of orbital platforms together with the tactically 

tailorable timing and localization available from airborne and 

high-altitude/near-space systems, the effects delivered by the 

command could become even more formidable and more useful 

both to commanders in the field and to the national intelligence 

community (IC) as a whole. The task of integrating IC and Department of Defense (DOD) assets to achieve this goal of optimal effectiveness is not trivial. One senior officer writing about 

interservice rivalries said, “When a single service attempts to 

achieve war-fighting independence instead of embracing interdependence, jointness unravels; war-fighting effectiveness is 

reduced; and costly redundancies, gaps, and conflicts likely 
abound. . . . The services’ inherent responsibility to the American taxpayer to operate effectively and efficiently is even more 

critical in light of increasing resource constraints.”13 The difficulties associated with rivalries between executive branch departments are even more intense, the players even more intransigent, and the costs to our national defense of failing to 

act substantially higher. This topic will be addressed later in 

this paper.

AFSPC is currently a domain-based command. It sees itself 

as the command that does things in and through the domain of 

space. This self-view is not a new one. As early as the mid-

1980s, internal AF documents noted the problem that “space 

continues to be a place, not a mission for the United States Air 

Force.”14 Even the much more recent Space Commission report 

continued to promulgate that nonproductive notion when it 

said, “Space is not simply a place from which information is 

acquired and transmitted or through which objects pass. It is a 

medium much the same as air, land or sea.”15 

AFSPC operates satellites that provide much of the nation’s 

strategic overhead C4ISR.* What if the command were to

• change its focus from the domain to the effect?

• decide that where it operates matters less than what it 

delivers?

• become an effects-based command?

Could it see its mission areas expand rather than contract? 

Could it, in the words of Maj Gen Craig Koziol, commander of 

the AF ISR Agency, develop “a capability-based vice programbased culture”?16 Could it become an even more effective enabling linchpin in our nation’s defense organization?

Military organizational structure needs to be derived from 

the large-scale goal of being able to deliver the most effective 

defense for the nation as a whole. It is evident to anyone who 

has spoken with them that the warriors at the pointy end of the 

spear who personally deliver an effective national defense are 

effects driven. It appears axiomatic that organization by do-

*The National Reconnaissance Office is responsible for a great deal of overhead ISR 

as well. Its role will be discussed later in this paper.
main is not necessarily the most efficient method of supporting 

them. We go to great lengths to ensure that human factors have 

been taken into account when designing rifles and aircraft 

cockpits. A great deal of effort is expended to ensure these tools 

are designed to fit the way the warrior will use them. Were our 

support forces organized to maximize coherent effects production, designed to fit the way warriors use them, it appears 

equally obvious that efficiency in battle would increase. 

AFSPC’s misidentification of its function within the larger 

machinery of national defense, its insistence on limiting itself 

to Keplerian physics,* is leading to its marginalization. Granted, 

this focus is not completely internally driven. Some of it is 

budget driven; adding further mission areas could cost money 

that is in short supply within the command. However, throwing up one’s hands at that initial speed bump is to surrender 

to the bean counter’s point of view instead of looking at the 

bigger picture of improved national defense. US Strategic 

Command (USSTRATCOM) and the DOD leadership also direct much of where AFSPC’s attention lies. However, there are 

significant internal factions within the command that continue to shun anything nonorbital; these groups may be the 

greatest inhibitors to AFSPC becoming a more effective contributor to the national fighting force.

Notably, the space doctrines of the DOD and three of the four 

services17 also treat the domain as more important than effect.†

Like every MAJCOM, AFSPC directly operates under two sets of 

doctrine: joint and Air Force. Air Force Doctrine Document 

(AFDD) 2-2 deliberately orders the two views of space, domain 

and effect, in a way that highlights the platform-based, domainfirst view:

First, space may be viewed as a physical environment—like land, sea, 

and air—within which space-centric activities are conducted to achieve 

objectives. This view is particularly relevant at the tactical (e.g., operation of specific platforms) and strategic (i.e., space as a domain that 

must be protected and controlled) levels of war. . . . The second doctrinal 

*Johannes Kepler (1571–1630) was the first to describe mathematically the behavior 

of orbiting bodies.

†Joint, Air Force, and Army doctrine treat space as a domain first. Only the Navy 

discusses effects (“capabilities,” in their words) first without mentioning domain or 

platform.
10

view of space is an effects-centric view, and is primarily relevant at the 

operational level of war.”18 (emphasis added) 

Many senior space officials and thinkers actively promote 

the idea that the space domain is so different and revolutionary that it, not effects production, becomes the primary consideration. For example, citing the rationale for separating the 

Air Force from the Army and the subsequent benefits reaped 

from that separation, Peter Teets, former undersecretary of 

the Air Force and former director of the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO), specifically addressed this mind-set. He 

discussed three guiding principles of airpower: gaining the 

high ground, applying the capabilities of the new medium to 

all conceivable forms of war fighting, and developing a new 

professional culture. He then emphasized the distinction of 

the space domain from that of the air by concluding with a 

remark analogizing those principles to what must be done in 

orbit: “It must be our goal that the United States carry this 

legacy of success into the medium of space.”19

AFSPC is thus both internally and externally driven toward 

domain as its primary reason for existence and thus appears 

only peripherally focused on effects. For a major military organization with such huge potential, focusing on the domain 

leads inexorably down the path of mediocrity.* While such a 

doctrinal view of space may help those who seek a space force 

separate from other services, it prevents the command from 

reaching its full potential to serve the cause of national defense 

by not placing effects production in the primary position. It 

also endangers the command’s continued existence because 

other organizations that do understand the benefits of massing 

similar effects under a single commander have their eyes on 

portions of its turf.

*Mediocre is a relative word. Without question AFSPC currently controls the greatest, most powerful, most capable space force in history. However, when compared with 

what the command could be with the appropriate effects-based focus, mediocre is an 

appropriate description.
11

Kepler Only

One concrete example of the command’s refusal to embrace 

non-Keplerian missions is its recent decision to discard the 

near-space regime,* transferring responsibility for it to another 

command because, although it provides satellite-like effects, it 

does not strictly operate in the domain of space. Near-space as 

a domain involves using very high altitude aircraft or lighterthan-air vehicles to provide satellite-like effects to tactical-level 

units.20 Whether the use of near-space by the military comes to 

fruition in the near future is irrelevant to this discussion;† the 

pertinent facts deal with how AFSPC reacted to its existence, 

concentrating on domain instead of effect.

A telling comment foreshadowing this topic was a remark 

made by General Chilton to Gen Ron Keys, commander of ACC: 

“I do Kepler, and you do Bernoulli.”21 The command’s domainbased mind-set was also highlighted when General Chilton 

commented that near-space was a misnomer because the region only went about one quarter of the way to orbit; the term 

concentrates on physical nearness rather than the similarity of 

the effects produced in space and near-space.22

As recently as 2004, Gen John Jumper, chief of staff of the 

Air Force (CSAF), assigned the mission area of near-space to 

AFSPC, seeing that it provided very similar effects to what 

warriors tended to associate with space but also complemented some of the weaknesses of orbital assets and gave the 

*Near-space is the relatively unutilized region above where most conventional aircraft fly and below where satellites can operate, generally defined to be 65,000 feet in 

altitude to the edge of space. Platforms operating in near-space have very large footprints similar to those of low-earth orbit (LEO) satellites but without the transitory 

nature of orbiting assets. If exploited, near-space could provide effects that are much 

more persistent and responsive to warriors at the tactical and operational levels of war 

when compared to orbital assets. Near-space, however, is subject to national airspace 

sovereignty limitations, just as aircraft are. It cannot provide the prehostilities deep 

look that satellites can.

†To be completely forthright, the author is a well-known advocate of near-space and 

its role in AFSPC. For a variety of reasons, both political and technical, near-space has 

not fared as well as had been predicted several years ago. Critics of this current paper 

may attempt to cast it off as the author’s sour grapes because a pet project was not 

embraced by the command. Such criticism would completely miss the point of this 

work. The following discussion of near-space, contrasting it with tactical satellite platforms, is only included in this article as a necessary illustrative example to demonstrate just how pervasive the domain-based mind-set is within the command.
12

command a way to contribute in a very tangible way on levels 

of war other than the strategic one so frequently associated 

with satellites.23 In a 2004 speech, General Jumper described 

his view of effects versus domain and his vision of tactically 

relevant “space”:

What if we created near-space? What if we gave it to the space guys so 

that the space guys were forced to be less platform-centric and more 

results-oriented? We tell them to solve the problem of persistence. What 

if we did that? I bet it would work!24

In response to the chief’s direction, the AFSPC commander, 

Gen Lance Lord, wrote a memo in 2005 to the CSAF asking for 

executive agency for near-space.25 That memo spawned another 

from the CSAF to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff on the 

same subject.26 Shortly after assuming command of AFSPC, General Chilton even wrote a memo that said “consider Near Space 

part of our Space portfolio. These new complementary systems 

will augment our strategic systems.”27 The command seemed 

to be moving steadily toward a more effects-based mind-set.

A little over a year later the situation had changed drastically. Near-space had suffered a forced name change,* and AFSPC 

had surrendered control of a promising mission area to ACC.28

Why the sudden disinterest from AFSPC in an area that was so 

clearly related to its mission? In the same speech where he laid 

out his vision for a broader definition of space, General Jumper 

presciently described the demise of the concept when he foresaw the internal opposition it would generate within Space 

Command. “You go try and sell a concept that makes very good 

sense like the one I just outlined,” he said, speaking specifically 

of near-space, “and you find antibodies all over the place.”29

After General Jumper’s and General Lord’s retirements and 

the retirement or reassignment of numerous similar visionaries 

at the very top levels within AFSPC, near-space antibodies 

*The term near-space is no longer accepted within the DOD, being replaced by highaltitude operations. The coincidence of the change of mission-area ownership and directed name change, along with open hostility to the linking of nonorbital and orbital 

effects through the word space from some senior AF space officers points toward an 

intentional disentanglement of effects from domain. Lumping satellites together with 

similar effects producers could have a negative impact on any push for a separate 

space force and thus would appear to be an unacceptable situation for some politically 

active officers within the space community.
13

gained less-tempered access to the ear of the AFSPC commander. Instead of trying to consolidate the mission of C4ISR 

effects delivery regardless of domain, thus leveraging the combined strengths of diverse platforms to provide maximum effects 

for the warrior, the command pressed ahead with a supposed 

competitor to near-space, the tactical satellite program. It has 

been demonstrated by several groups that such a program provides effects complementary to those from near-space but cannot provide the persistence required for support to tactical operations.30 However, tactical satellites remain the favored venue 

for attempting to insert AFSPC into tactical operations, a likely 

result of the command’s view of where its core competencies lie 

as well as a way to promote its goal of developing transformational, cheaper ways to build and deliver satellites into space.31

Near-space, on the other hand, a program that might actually 

deliver the effects AFSPC professes a desire to deliver and effects warriors need, was allowed to slip through its fingers, 

passing instead to an effects-based command.* In this case, 

AFSPC appears to have consciously chosen a space solution 

with its attendant high costs, high risks, and demonstrably 

less potential payoff for our tactical warriors because the domain was deemed to be more important than the effect.

AFSPC’s domain-based proponents appear to have won the 

near-space battle, but are they on the way to losing the effects 

war? Has their steadfast adherence to the mantra of domain 

before effects pushed the command toward the sidelines of national defense instead of to the forefront? In bureaucracy as in 

war, Pyrrhic victories come at a substantial cost to the victor.

Filling the Effects-Based Void

In hindsight, the logic behind major military commands being organized by effect is almost self-evident. Assignment of 

*During the 8 January 2007 decision brief on near-space delivered to the AFSPC 

staff by Lt Col Toby Volz, General Chilton discussed at length how balloons were governed by Bernoulli (by this, he meant aerodynamic forces; Archimedes, the discoverer 

of buoyant forces, would have been a better metaphor) while satellites were governed 

by Kepler (gravitational forces that are the basis of orbital mechanics). He then described how Bernoulli belonged under ACC while AFSPC specialized in Kepler, conferring primacy on domain rather than effect. That briefing sounded the death knell for 

the near-space mission within AFSPC.
14

responsibility for closely related effects to an organization allows single, very senior commanders to use their broad, bigpicture views of the need for those effects to guide the organization of their subordinate units, the training of their personnel, 

and the acquisition of their equipment. They can thus ensure 

that all the intricate parts work together to provide a seamless, 

interwoven, redundant-where-necessary whole with which to 

support the combatant commanders. It is hard to imagine why 

it was ever done differently.

Establishing cross-domain dominance practically requires an 

effects-based orientation. As stated by General Moseley, “We are 

transforming our thinking from considering the space and cyber 

domains as mere enablers of air operations to a holistic approach 

that factors in their interdependence and leverages their unique 

characteristics. We must continue to push this conceptual envelope—and expand the boundaries of existing tactics, techniques 

and procedures—to fully exploit the synergies of cross-domain 

dominance.”32 To become more than mere enablers, practitioners of air, space, and cyber specialties need to be fully integrated into the appropriate effects-related portions of the killchain so that those interdependent synergies may be maximized. 

As General Koziol succinctly puts it, “We must focus on how we 

achieve and assess effects, not where.”33

Conversely, organizing space as a domain is a concept that 

doesn’t appear to survive an effects-based investigation. Throughout the literature and in many speeches delivered by prominent 

space advocates, there is one consistent theme: there is a separate space force patiently gestating inside the Air Force waiting 

until the proper stage of its development to emerge like Athena, 

fully armored, from the skull of Zeus. In the view of these domain advocates, a space force is the ultimate goal—the proper 

target at which space professionals should be shooting.

The problem with the separate-space-force argument is that, 

while good for space professionals who could finally prevent 

their budgets from being raided for air-breathing exigencies,* 

it does little else to help the greater cause of national defense. 

*This problem is actually in dire need of a solution at the present time and is perhaps the only existing rational basis for pushing for a separate space force.
15

The key defining capability of any war-fighting organization is 

the ability to apply force to the enemy’s territory; air-on-air, 

ship-on-ship, and other such encounters are merely means to 

the territorial-conquest end. Until we’ve solved the dollars-perkilogram-to-orbit problem, until we can launch on a few 

minute’s notice, until we’ve truly solved the reentry energydissipation problem, and until we’re able to change orbits at 

will, implementation of a separate space force is an academic 

exercise because force application where it matters—in the 

enemy’s backyard at a time of our commander’s choosing—is 

impractical. It is hard enough to rationalize the effectiveness of 

an air occupation, much less one from space.

Of course, space-on-space combat is much closer than spaceon-other-domains. An air-on-air analogy would be if fighter 

aircraft had been developed in World War I to defend existing 

reconnaissance aircraft, but effective strike aircraft were not 

subsequently developed for decades or centuries. Such combat 

existing solely within space, while affecting the rest of the nation’s war-fighting capability due to its dependence on C4ISR 

from above, is not a proximate contributor to taking the enemy’s 

territory from him. With the ability to find, fix, track, and assess most earthbound sites but only target and engage a very 

tiny fraction of them, it is clear that for the foreseeable future 

orbital assets will remain almost exclusively in the combat support role, a role in which they produce effects complementary 

to those produced by nonorbital assets.

The other side of the coin of these dilemmas that prevent effective space-based force application is that if we shoot even higher 

than space force advocates are currently aiming, the need for a 

separate space force actually evaporates. Solve the expedient and 

affordable launch, maneuver, and reentry problems, and the 

space force begins to look a lot like today’s Air Force, but a force 

with a greatly expanded service ceiling. From a tactical point of 

view, the artificial distinction between endo- and exo-atmospheric 

regimes disappears when warriors can maneuver in and out of 

space at will. The fallacious academic argument about an artificial dividing line in the continuous transition between atmosphere 

and vacuum dissolves; current nonmaneuverable space-asset 

manifestations are recognized as the functional equivalents of 

earthly television antennae and sea-based buoys; and the current 
16

Air Force air-and-space mantra becomes reality. However, working within reasonable expectations of technological progress in 

the next several decades, instead of segregating space assets 

through an artificial domain distinction, the greater good is better 

served by integrating the effects produced by orbital assets with 

similar nonorbital effects producers. 

While AFSPC has been moving away from effects delivery and 

toward a Kepler-only focus, others within the AF have picked 

up the dropped ball and moved out in a more productive direction. General Jumper’s view that AFSPC was more interested in 

domain than effect is apparent from the speech quoted above. 

Apparently reacting to the same perceived proclivity among officers within the space community to favor platform over effect, 

the AF recently announced the formation of the very effectsbased Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance Agency, 

perhaps not so coincidentally headed by the same General 

Deptula who was so instrumental in focusing attention on effects in the first place.34 This new agency may soon have the 

imperative to take a large portion of the current AFSPC portfolio—and then morph into a MAJCOM of its own—in order to 

deliver coordinated overhead/near-space/airborne ISR effects 

to the war fighter.

While General Deptula’s efforts have been the prime mover 

behind the stand-up of the Air Force ISR Agency (AFISRA), it 

could not have happened without a champion at even higher 

levels. It is quite plausible that General Moseley was thinking 

at least in part about the potential of AFISRA when he wrote, 

“Airmen must develop creative solutions—ways—to gain and 

maintain superiority in air, space and cyberspace, exploiting 

the synergies of cross-domain dominance to attain a quantum 

leap in mission effectiveness.”35

At the current time, stand-up of AFISRA essentially involves 

only renaming the former Air Intelligence Agency, previously 

located under ACC. However, it does not take a rocket scientist 

to read between the lines in the briefing presented to AF leadership that justified the agency’s formation to see where leaders 

believe the future lies.36 General Deptula’s vision is to “transform AF Intel into a pre-eminent military intelligence organization; with the most respected personnel; and the most valued

ISR capability” (emphasis in original). The briefing states this 
17

goal as an approach designed to “manage ISR from a capabilities based perspective, and as a consolidated functional area.” 

How does one go about consolidating ISR as a functional 

area? The designers of this briefing clearly understood that in 

order to provide the nation the absolute finest intelligence capability, they needed to own and control not only the intelligence analysts but also the means of production of the data the 

analysts would use. The National Research Council also recognizes the synergy gained by locating collection and analysis 

within the same organization:

The principal function of the intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) component of command, control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (C4ISR) is to 

find, fix, and track both friendly and hostile forces, as well as to assess*

damage to hostile targets in an area of interest. In addition to sensing 

(collection), the function includes the tasking of sensors and the integration, interpretation, and exploitation of sensed information.37

On a slide from the AFISRA stand-up briefing discussing 

longer-term actions the nascent command saw as future requirements was a telling phrase: “Explore consolidation of related AF space activities into AF intel.” That statement stabs right 

at the heart of the effects-based ethos and appears to be a reaction to AFSPC’s apparent lack of emphasis on effects delivery.

The impetus behind the creation of AFISRA, giving a single 

commander control over both the means of production and the 

means of analysis for ISR, is a line of thought that logically 

crosses organizational lines at a higher level than just within 

the Air Force. The 2001 Space Commission report touched on 

this even more politically sensitive thrust when it suggested 

that the NRO shift a large portion of its responsibilities to the 

AF.38 Many of its NRO recommendations have been implemented, such as making the director of the NRO three-hatted 

as the undersecretary of the Air Force and the executive agent 

for DOD space-system acquisition.† However, an even broader 

*Note the F2T2EA reference that leaves out target and engage; these authors definitely understood the break between combat and combat support.

†The status of the current director of the NRO has changed from that recommended 

by the Space Commission. The director is no longer the executive agent for DOD space 

acquisition and is only the assistant to the secretary of the Air Force for intelligence 

space technology instead of being an undersecretary. The current director also has a 

Central Intelligence Agency background instead of military experience.
18

consolidation would significantly enhance the nation’s ability 

to deliver ISR effects. Former undersecretary of defense for intelligence Stephen Cambone commented on exactly that topic 

by saying that “the DoD and IC must refashion their forces 

when necessary.”39 Efficiently grouping organizations by effect 

also appears to be in line with the recommendations of the members of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks upon the 

United States relating to improving the flow of intelligence information within the government.40

In its early days the NRO was an agile acquisitions organization that could quickly field systems vital to the nation’s defense. However, according to the report, “The NRO’s capacity to 

convert leading edge research and technology into innovative 

operational systems is inhibited by the requirement to maintain its legacy programs.”41 What better way to return to the 

lean organization of the NRO’s glory days than to shed its longterm maintenance requirements by passing them on to an AFISR 

Command (AFISRC)? With such an organizational shift, AFISRC 

would assume control of all day-to-day space-based ISR activities, integrating them seamlessly into USSTRATCOM’s global 

operating picture, while allowing the NRO to return to a “skunk 

works” mentality led by the considerable Central Intelligence 

Agency brainstorming and expertise that was present in its 

early days.42 Such an organization could quickly deliver cuttingedge technology to meet war-fighter needs without having to 

devote large amounts of manpower to supporting the operational tail once the system was delivered. Considerable coordination between AFISRC and the NRO would need to take place 

to make each handoff run smoothly, but such coordination 

would undoubtedly facilitate a better understanding within 

both organizations of the requirements from the field that drove 

the development of each NRO system in the first place.

The reason that nontraditional acquisitions organizations, 

such as the services’ tactical exploitation of national capabilities (TENCAP) programs, produce effects far in excess of their 

on-paper funding is that they develop innovative products 

quickly and then pass them on to the user commands. The 

NRO could be transformed into a similar organization, albeit 

with a vastly larger budget and vastly broader responsibility. It 

has been argued that the real strength of the old NRO was the 
19

system-specific end-to-end responsibility and accountability 

for a single pillar of excellence vested in a single individual.43

However, ship builders do not routinely go on to captain ships; 

aircraft designers are not ultimately the pilots. Even the acquisition arms of the uniformed services are separate from the 

operational arms. While all of those groups take input from the 

end users and are even manned in part by those who have been 

or will be end users, the entire organization does not normally 

become the operator.

The natural break between designer/manufacturer/acquirer 

and operator takes place after the initial shakedown of the system. There appear to be no fundamental reasons that such a 

model would not also work for a revamped NRO. Individual accountability could be assessed upon successful delivery of a 

fully functioning asset to the end user. Once NRO developers 

had designed and launched their few-of-a-kind birds, they 

could transfer day-to-day operations to AFISRC and begin 

working on the next generations of systems. Other than turf, 

organizational prestige, and the potential for domestic operations not sanctioned for the military, there appears to be little 

reason to have IC and AF satellites operated by separate organizations as long as the combined organization remains responsive to the National Command Authority.

The synergies of having IC and DOD overhead assets work 

together under one commander would appear to have an extremely valuable payoff in terms of effects-based capabilities. 

Mr. Cambone appears to agree, commenting that “the country 

doesn’t need defense intelligence and national intelligence, but 

a single intelligence capability.”44 General Deptula adds similar 

thoughts:

It does little good to perfect military capabilities and concepts of operations in isolation from the other elements of national power. Our greatest national security challenge today is to build a truly integrated architecture that optimizes capabilities in the [diplomatic, information, 

military, and economic] domains—an architecture that melds these capabilities in the context of long-range strategies and plans to defeat the 

broader spectrum of threats facing the nation.45

Unfortunately, arranging our intelligence infrastructure to 

achieve that single intelligence capability is easier said than 

done. While the IC versus DOD institutional jealousies men-
20

tioned above play a role in these difficulties, the root cause is 

actually much higher than the level of the individual agencies 

and cabinet departments. It lies in the basic structure of Congress itself. Both the House of Representatives and the Senate 

each have separate committees that oversee the DOD and the 

IC (the Senate Committee on Armed Services and Select Committee on Intelligence, and the House Armed Services Committee and Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence). Each of 

these committees fiercely guards its own empire and none is 

likely to surrender budgetary or oversight authority to another 

without momentous political bargaining, even if such actions 

result in demonstrably better effects production from the assets that are currently separately managed. It is difficult enough 

for military professionals to develop the trust required to implement such interdependent systems; developing that level of 

trust among politicians is likely to be considerably more difficult, especially in today’s highly polarized and closely divided 

political climate. 

Further discussion of the desperately needed consolidation 

of orbiting and airborne C4ISR functions controlled by the defense and IC divisions of Congress is beyond the scope of this 

paper. The subject was introduced here to give the reader an 

idea of just how daunting a task true effects integration may 

be. However, there are a number of things in addition to the 

stand-up of the AFISRA that the Air Force can do independently of other services and government agencies that can significantly increase the efficacy of the C4ISR effects for which it 

is responsible.

Further Consolidation for 

Better Effectiveness

The move by the Air Force to consolidate all of its ISR in one 

effects-based organization is definitely a move in the right direction. However, it could go just a little further and become 

even more effective. By just adding two characters to the command’s name and mandate, the Air Force could fuse in one 

place all the assets required not only to gather and disseminate 

intelligence information but also to make sure that information 
21

goes to the right place to influence good decision making. Those 

characters are C and 4.

ISR does not operate in a vacuum, isolated from all other 

things. ISR information requires some means of being communicated across distances near and far, from point of collection, 

to point of analysis, to point of use. Most, if not all, of the information generated by our ISR system is passed machine-tomachine, being processed almost exclusively by computer. ISR 

information is also one of the primary influencers of the orders 

that pass through the command and control networks, likewise 

almost totally handled by computer. C4 is the label commonly 

used to describe the four functions so critical to an effective 

ISR program: command, control, communications, and computers. Instead of stopping at the AFISRC, consolidating functions so that the command becomes the Air Force C4ISR Command (AFC4ISRC) would make it even more effects based.* 

With the addition of those functions, its commander could then 

concentrate on all the interrelated problems of being the premier deliverer of C4ISR effects to the entire DOD and the nation as a whole. It would become, in the words of General Koziol, 

“an all-source, full-spectrum ISR mission-capable organization.”46

If one uses Col John Boyd’s OODA (observe-orient-decideact) loop model to see how interrelated these support effects 

are,47 the grouping is even more logically effects based. In this 

model, the observe portion is obviously ISR. ISR observations 

are merely data until they are transformed into information 

through intensive computer and computer-assisted analysis—

the orient portion of the model. ISR data are then transmitted 

to commanders via some form of communications. The commanders then decide—the command portion of C2—and transmit their decisions to subordinate units in the field, again using communications, for the control portion of C2. Only after 

*It has been pointed out that “AFC4ISRC” is a mouthful. We shall continue to use it 

in this paper, as it clearly spells out what the command is intended to do. Should the 

consolidation actually occur, we hope that a better name can be found. Two suggestions from reviewers of drafts of this paper are “Neural Command” and “Cognition 

Command.” An added benefit of the second name would be that the office symbol for 

the commander of Cognition Command would be CC/CC, or C4 for short, recursively 

referencing part of the original mouthful.
22

the entire C4ISR process has had its say do warriors execute 

the act portion of the loop. Thus C4 can be viewed as a domain 

of a sort—a virtual, digital medium from which effects can be 

derived and the domain that enables the entire OODA loop. 

Consolidation of C4 with ISR would certainly optimize the possibilities for improved delivery of ISR effects.

Once all this consolidation had occurred, C4ISR Command 

would certainly become a much more effective organization 

supporting USSTRATCOM’s Joint Functional Component Command for ISR. It would work hand-in-glove with other intelligence organizations, such as the National Geospatial-Intelligence 

Agency (NGA) and the National Security Agency (NSA), to satisfy 

combatant command and national operational and intelligence 

requirements. The critical effects for which a C4ISR command 

would be responsible would even enable much of the work of 

those other agencies. Having a single person responsible for 

coordinating delivery of all Air Force ISR effects—whether derived from satellites, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV), or nearspace platforms—can only improve the service’s ability to function in the joint arena.

So what would a C4ISR command look like in practice? It 

would certainly start with the structure being established for 

an AFISRC, including the previously mentioned assumption of 

control of much of the AF space ISR collecting structure. However, it could also draw upon the existing structure within AFSPC. 

AFSPC primarily consists of two numbered air forces and an 

in-house acquisitions arm. The Fourteenth AF is in charge of 

operational control of the Air Force’s satellites. The Twentieth 

AF commands the nation’s land-based intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) fleet. The Space and Missile Systems Center 

(SMC) is the AF’s procurement arm for rockets and satellites.48

The key to organizing the new command is to first be explicit 

that its function is one of support.* Seen in this light, whether 

AFSPC absorbs AFISRC or vice versa is irrelevant as long as the 

effects producers end up in the right relative positions.

*There are elements currently within AFSPC that are not support units. These units 

do not logically fall under the proposed C4ISR Command structure. Their disposition 

will be discussed later in this paper.
23

Combat Support Is the Mission

But what are the right relative positions, and what portions 

of the two commands should actually join? To answer this 

question, it is instructive to look at how one of our sister services describes its own organization. The Army classifies its 

units under three different functional labels: combat arms, 

combat support, and combat service support. The definitions 

of these types of units are as follows: 

• “Combat arms are units and soldiers who close with and 

destroy enemy forces or provide firepower and destructive 

capabilities on the battlefield.” Examples of these kinds of 

units include infantry, armor, and artillery.

• “Combat support encompasses critical combat functions provided by units and soldiers, in conjunction with combat arms 

units and soldiers, to secure victory.” Examples of these kinds 

of units include military police and military intelligence.

• “The primary role of Army tactical [combat service support] 

units is to sustain Army forces.” Examples of these kinds 

of units include finance, supply, and transportation.49

While this paper is not a call for branching of AF troops like 

the Army does, if the Air Force were to similarly classify its 

units, it is clear that the new C4ISR Command would fall under 

the heading of combat support. It would not contribute to sustaining troops, nor would its personnel be charged with firing 

shots in anger. It would exist to support the warriors in the 

field. This distinction is critical because it is the warrior that 

establishes requirements, and the support troop’s function is 

to respond to those requirements.

The proposed AFISRC structure is inherently combat-support 

oriented. AFSPC, however, has operated for 25 years with a 

split personality. A large portion of its tasks are combat-support 

related. However, a significant minority of its functions are distinctly combat arms. The most obvious of these functions is 

that of the ICBM force. For reasons that have never been satisfactorily explained, the formerly distinct specialty codes for 

missile crew members and space operators were merged, although it seems that the only similarity in the two missions is 
24

that they both rely on rocket power. Once the boost phase is 

over, the mission similarity and overlap of required expertise 

ends. Combat arms troops fire shots in anger. While the vast 

majority of satellite operators are unquestionably support 

troops, it is difficult to imagine more anger than would be required to fire shots from a missile silo. Missile crews definitely 

fall in the combat arms category. Those specialty codes need to 

be separated again to allow better tracking of actual capability 

and experience: combat versus support.* Likewise, there are a 

relatively small number of AFSPC personnel who plan for actual space-on-space combat. These specialists in offensive and 

defensive counterspace (OCS and DCS) also are without a doubt 

combat arms troops.

Neither of these groups, the ICBM crews or the OCS/DCS 

warriors, belong in a support command. They are more logically grouped with the effects-based command that specializes 

in actually putting weapons on target: ACC. Under that new 

mantle, they would be able to work with their brothers in arms 

to develop coordinated tactics to deal out destruction in even 

more effective ways. Removing them from the mix, were AFSPC 

and AFISRC joined, would allow the newly formed C4ISRC to 

concentrate on becoming the premier supplier of C4ISR effects, 

a support function, to warriors across the DOD and the IC.

Similarly, there are a number of systems that currently reside within ACC performing purely support missions that could 

much better serve the nation by being located in the C4ISR 

command. These systems include the U-2, RC-135, and all unarmed, unmanned aerial systems (UAS). These systems are already tasked with providing C4ISR support to the war fighter, 

but are assigned to a command whose mission is weapons delivery. Moving these systems to a command whose focus is 

C4ISR effects delivery would allow them to garner the budgetary attention they need and would also allow single-commander 

oversight of the integration of the data they provide into a single 

*This problem is already recognized within AFSPC, as those personnel wearing a 

space badge are being internally tracked by the command with a code to make sure the 

leadership knows what type of specialty they have. Once the two career fields were 

artificially joined, it became impossible to ensure the right officer would be assigned to 

the correct billet based only on his or her Air Force specialty code.
25

integrated database from which users could pull an overall picture of the battlespace appropriate to their needs.

The split-out of combat/combat support functions in the cyber world are a bit more on the gray side, as the difference in 

many cases is the intent of the actions taken by cyber personnel. 

Cyber warriors may probe enemy defenses one day in a combat 

support function and then put on their combat hats the next 

day to conduct an actual attack. There are some information 

operations (IO) functions that are clearly combat related and 

would belong in a combat command: computer network attack 

(CNA), computer network defense (CND), and computer network exploitation (CNE). Although one could argue that CNE is 

a combat support function, it would be difficult to separate, in 

this case, CNE from CNA/CND because in some cases the same 

resources could be used to support all three activities. Other IO 

functions such as electronic warfare, operations security, and 

psychological operations are more frequently used to influence 

enemy actions rather than deny them the use of their assets. 

Perhaps those functions would be a part of a combat support 

command. Now is the time to be thinking about these issues of 

cyber combat. As the command is so new, they will be much 

easier to resolve than they will be for space since we won’t have 

to sort out the nonsensical structures developed during a 

decades-long organizational mistake.

We don’t have all airborne assets in the same command. They 

are organized according to the effect they provide. Space assets 

should be similarly apportioned according to effect. Such a 

structure runs counter to some recommendations in the Space 

Commission report that called for a near-complete segregation 

of space assets and personnel from the remainder of the Air 

Force,50 but conversely that structure is quite compatible with 

the report’s overall emphasis on developing space capabilities. 

The AF has recently become aware of some of the flaws in segregating space activities and is in the process of reintegrating 

them with the rest of the service. After having set up a highprofile operations directorate office for space on the Air Staff as 

a direct response to the Space Commission report, the AF has 

recently closed that office and reassigned its space experts 

within the staff to facilitate better understanding of space 

throughout the organization.51
26

It is the production of a single, integrated picture of the battlespace, from the mud to the stars, that should be the goal of the 

new C4ISR command. Populating the battlespace with information and enabling the timely command and control through 

robust communications channels that allow the picture to be 

used should be the effect that defines the command’s core competency. Total consciousness should be its overarching goal. 

As stated previously, warriors don’t care where their information comes from. If they have target imagery when they need it 

and can talk when they want to, they’re happy and effective. 

They could not care less whether their images come from a satellite or a UAS or whether they are communicating via satellite 

link or fiber optic cable, as long as credible and correct information arrives when they need it.

General Chilton has noted that one of the best counters to 

recent antisatellite tests is to acquire redundant C4ISR capabilities, both in space and in the air.52 General Deptula is adamant that all services buy systems that can feed common distribution pipes.53 The most effective way to ensure such an 

omniscient picture exists and can be delivered when and where 

it is needed appears to be locating all the means of picture production, all the personnel required to process and distribute it, 

and all the means of acquisition and delivery under a single 

commander who can ensure that the disparate data streams 

play well together to provide a seamless, transparent view of 

the battlespace to all users who need it. General Deptula’s vision for an AFISRC is proceeding along those lines. It won’t 

take an extraordinary organizational leap to finish the job.

There will no doubt be some who will resent being told they 

are not combat troops. The problem is not that we’re now telling them they’re not warriors; it began long ago when, in an 

attempt at inclusiveness, we began telling all Airmen they are

warriors instead of leading them to act like warriors, to have a 

sense of urgency and a feeling of deep camaraderie, regardless 

of their actual function within the service. An obvious example 

of the dilution of the word warrior is that phrases like “trigger 

pullers”—the F2T2EA link is obvious—have entered the service’s lexicon precisely to distinguish those people who actually 

deliver combat effects from the rest of the Air Force’s warriors. 

Regardless of what we are called, it is critical that each of us 
27

understands what it is we do, what the importance of our job 

is, and where we actually fit in a structure designed to prevent 

and, when necessary, prosecute wars.

There is no shame in being a combat support or combat service support troop. As is evident in military organizations 

throughout history, there are always many more people required 

to support the frontline warrior than there are warriors themselves. It is still possible to have the “warrior attitude” without 

actually being a warrior, and it is highly desirable to cultivate 

exactly such an attitude. Failure to appropriately cultivate that 

attitude brings with it problems, though. When you tell people 

they are warriors long enough in an attempt to cultivate the 

warrior attitude, many people begin to believe that they are 

actually warriors instead of support troops with the warrior attitude. It is far too easy for them then to lose sight of the mission of supporting warriors and responding to their needs. They 

can then begin to believe that they set requirements instead of 

respond to them; the tail attempts to wag the dog.* The Army’s 

explicit division of functions into combat arms, combat support, and combat service support is a much better way to delineate these differences than the current Air Force mind-set in 

which everyone is a warrior. The Army’s division of functions 

focuses its soldiers on their important part in getting the mission done to generate their sense of pride and place in the conflict.

One way to help clarify these differences that will not only 

properly identify the dog and the tail but also allow much more 

effective delivery of support effects like C4ISR is to change the 

way we develop our combat support troops. It’s especially important for combat support troops to understand how the war 

is fought. We must avoid stovepiping through effective crossflow of officers between the different commands, ensuring that 

our warriors spend time in the combat support fields so they 

*A related problem is that while warriors establish requirements, it is also incumbent 

upon them to set them broadly. Too often, warriors think they know what the solution is 

and write a narrow requirement that will get them exactly what they think they need. 

Setting broad requirements that concentrate on the effects needed allows the expertise 

within the support community to devise the appropriate means with which to satisfy the 

requirements, following the dictum of Gen George S. Patton, who said, “Never tell people 

how to do things. Tell them what to do and they will surprise you with their ingenuity.” 

(Patton, War as I Knew It [New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1947].)
28

understand combat support troops’ pain while simultaneously 

ensuring that Airmen in the combat support specialties experience at least one tour of duty in a warrior command, preferably 

actually taking part in combat-related activities. Such is not 

the currently preferred method.

The Space Commission report did not help on this front either. 

Its dictum to create a professional space cadre54 has been interpreted in such a way as to develop an even more insular 

corps of personnel who, in their quest for the ultimate technical 

competence, can spend an entire career shuttling between Colorado Springs, Southern California, and perhaps Albuquerque 

or Washington, DC.* While certainly a good way to create a professional with extreme competence in the craft of space and 

inculcated with the technical culture of space, such a career 

does a disservice to the nation by minimizing the ability of such 

a person to understand and contribute fully to the larger function of national defense. Only a very few AFSPC personnel below the grade of colonel ever get out to see the world, the place 

where the very warriors their space careers are designed to 

support train and sometimes die. As one retired naval flag officer with extensive NRO experience recently noted, “Only the 

Air Force defines space ‘operations’ as hands-on satellite command and control by uniformed personnel. The benefit of this 

‘operational’ experience is questionable.”55

Senior AF space officers are close to recognizing and admitting this problem. In a recent interview Maj Gen Roger Burg, 

then the deputy director of operations for space on the Air Staff, 

discussed how “having a [separate] space office [in the Pentagon] meant that airmen coming from other backgrounds to the 

Air Staff did not have to learn about space because the questions did not cross their desks.”56 A corollary of that statement 

*Colorado Springs is the home of Headquarters, AFSPC; the 21st Space Wing (missile warning and space object identification); the 50th Space Wing (controls AFSPC’s 

navigation, communications, and warning satellites); and the Space Innovation and 

Development Center. Southern California hosts SMC, the Air Force’s procurement arm 

for space and Fourteenth Air Force (commands AFSPC’s satellite assets). Albuquerque 

is the location of the Air Force Research Lab’s Space Vehicles Directorate which works 

closely with SMC to develop technologies required for advancing the capabilities of 

military spacecraft. Space assignments in Washington, DC are usually at the Pentagon 

or the NRO.
29

with perhaps broader implication is that Airmen coming from 

space backgrounds do not have to learn about issues critical to 

warriors because those questions do not cross their desks. “The 

Air Staff needs to be integrated,” Burg said in that interview. It 

is not only the Air Staff that needs integration. Integration with, 

or at least intensive personal exposure to, combat arms units 

is an essential part of the development of a truly useful space 

officer.

Unfortunately, integration is not a major focus of the current 

space training mind-set. Following the Space Commission recommendations, AFSPC would like nothing more than to take in 

young second lieutenants, provide them with the appropriate 

training to work on the operations floor of a satellite squadron, 

and keep them in space-related billets within Fourteenth AF 

and SMC until a leader eventually rises to command Space 

Command. The command is very proud of the fact that its officers are deploying to theater along with the rest of the AF.57

However, many of those deployments are to rear areas where 

all they get to see is how a combined air operations center 

(CAOC) works and not the end user’s needs for C4ISR support. 

A few months of casual exposure to combat operations is a 

start, but not really the correct prescription to cure what ails 

the command.

A better model appears to be that of the Army. Army space 

operations officers are typically drawn from a pool of captains 

with seven to 10 years experience in a primary branch. While 

not required by written policy, most Army space officers have 

experience in combat arms units along with command and staff 

experience.58 Such officers have a much bigger picture about 

why they are providing their space support than the typical Air 

Force officer who was intentionally grown solely in the space 

career field. They do not typically have the depth of knowledge 

that their AF counterparts do in the day-to-day operation of 

satellites, but that is not generally their function. They exist to 

ensure their bosses have an expert in their organizations who 

can advise them on what space can provide. It is their experience with space that makes them so useful to their units. It is 

their previous knowledge of combat operations that allows 

them to understand the true utility of their space experience. 
30

The AF does have a much greater requirement for hands-on 

satellite operations than the Army, and using the first third to 

half of officers’ careers to gain operational experience in the 

field with the warriors they will eventually support is probably 

excessive for their needs. However, at least one tour early in 

those young space professionals’ careers would be profitably 

spent down in the weeds with the operators they are destined 

to support. Their experience with warriors would make them 

even more valuable to their space units. General Lord recognized the need for this career broadening much earlier: “The 

expeditionary nature of our service must extend to include all 

space professionals if we are to fully embrace and comprehend 

the complexities of joint warfare.”59 With the predominance of 

single-seat weapons systems in the frontline combat arms role 

of the Air Force where only the pilot will be directly exposed to 

tracking and engaging functions, it is likely that the best way 

to get this kind of experience would be a joint tour with the 

Army as an intelligence officer. 

The above discussion of how to develop a warrior attitude 

among space professionals harks back to the thoughts of many 

space-force visionaries. One of the persistent themes of their 

writings, and one of the major themes of the Space Commission report, is the need to develop just such a warrior culture. 

Frequently making an analogy with the development of a unique 

air-warrior culture in the early years of the Army Air Corps, 

some writers implicitly or explicitly extrapolate the similar development of a unique space-warrior culture.60 The problem 

with that analogy is that it does not truly apply. It implicitly assumes conditions necessary for the accuracy of the analogy 

that do not actually exist.

The development of the air-warrior culture was a direct result 

of the shared threat of death or injury at the hands of the enemy. 

That condition does not exist among space professionals. By and 

large, space professionals inhabit a shift-work office environment 

where military members are surrounded and frequently outnumbered by contractor support. The esprit de corps required for the 

development of a warrior culture does not flourish in such an environment, at least not the kind of camaraderie experienced by 

warriors bound by the common experience of mortal combat or 

even of training that can be nearly as deadly as combat itself.
31

Certainly there are situations where space professionals work 

long, hard hours directly supporting a critical operation to save 

warrior lives, perhaps maneuvering a critical communications 

satellite into position so it can pick up the load from an overtasked asset. However, such action is not the norm. For the most 

part, these officers go back home to their families and lawns 

every day, even in war time, never giving a second thought to the 

possibility that their jobs may require the ultimate sacrifice at 

any time. In the personal experience of the author, developing 

esprit de corps is much more problematic in an office environment than in an operational unit. These comments are not meant 

as a criticism—it is not the job of space officers, or of most other 

combat support specialties, to put their lives on the line for their 

country. The subject is only brought up to point out a critical 

and perhaps fatal impediment to the development of the warrior 

culture so desperately hoped for by space-force advocates.

Constantly wearing a wry smile is an almost universal experience for those officers with extensive experience in a “warrior 

command” who are then assigned to AFSPC and subsequently 

told they are warriors when they maneuver their satellites. If 

more officers in the command actually experienced duty in 

combat operations, there would be no need for this section of 

this paper. In the personal experience of the author, it is not 

the years spent as a warrior that were the pinnacle of his career; rather, it was the time spent in AFSPC delivering program 

after space-related program designed to keep warriors from dying needlessly where the author feels he made his greatest contributions. He was a support troop and knew it; however, it was 

his previous experience as a warrior that allowed him to understand why his support was so important to the much bigger 

picture. A cross-cultural training program that exposes support officers to combat arms officers in the field as outlined 

above will go a long way toward allowing the space professional 

to gain such a perspective.

Conclusion

While chief of staff of the AF, Gen Michael Moseley articulated three precepts for revolutionizing airpower.61 The two of 

these precepts germane to this discussion are developing new 
32

operational concepts that integrate air, space, and cyberspace; 

and transforming the AF culture and how it is organized. An 

effects-based way to integrate the three existing organizational 

domains of air, space, and cyberspace is to group shooters together and nonshooters together, regardless of domain, gaining 

synergies from organizing, training, and equipping combat effects producers and combat-support effects producers in only 

two organizational locations. This separation of effects also 

transforms culture and mind-set, helping execute the broader 

mission by clearly defining which organization is the supporting and which is the supported function. Finally, it minimizes 

the overhead money required to set up major commands whose 

function is to organize, train, and equip by almost a factor of 

two; instead of ACC, AFSPC, AF Cyberspace Command, and 

AFISRC, there are now only a combat command and a combat 

support command to fund. Organizing by effect is a key enabler to the goal of establishing cross-domain dominance. It 

“refocus[es] our organization and culture on the warfighting 

mission [by] implement[ing] advanced operational concepts to 

fly, fight and win in all domains.”62

Being able to operate in space, having personnel who understand that domain in exquisite detail, is without a doubt one of 

the key enablers of modern warfare. However, just like a hilltop 

taken by ground forces, being in space is of no inherent value. 

Troops in combat do not take a hill just to be there. They understand that it is what they can do from the hilltop that makes 

it valuable. Likewise, it is the effects we produce from space 

and cyberspace that matter.

The primary goal of all the recommendations in this paper is 

to develop a new structure that supports joint DOD operations, 

combat operations, and the national intelligence community 

more effectively than the current organizational structure can 

possibly do. At the present time, disparate organizations are 

responsible for small, isolated bits of C4ISR effects delivery. 

Large combat arms units not related to those effects are ineffectively lumped into what is primarily a combat support organization, a situation that leads to a bit of organizational schizophrenia as commanders try to satisfy two very different 

missions. Training and career progression in this support command is insular enough that many of its officers never truly 
33

understand that their real purpose is to provide support to 

warriors in the field. By focusing on effects instead of domain 

and by exposing support officers to warriors through crossflow assignments early in their careers, a new approach such 

as is outlined above will solve many of these problems, enabling the even more effective support that is surely the goal of 

all of us on the team.

It is apparent that the tide is running strongly against AFSPC’s 

domain-first proponents. The signs of impending hemorrhage 

are all too apparent. How can the command halt its slide toward marginalization? That answer is easy. It is time for AFSPC 

to adopt the effects-based attitude the rest of the military has 

been pursuing for decades. To effect this change, it will be necessary to consolidate all support functions that deal with C4ISR 

effects, regardless of whether the platforms delivering those effects reside in air, space, or cyberspace, under one command. 

The command needs to embrace an expanded vision of its role 

within the greater whole of national defense instead of pushing 

away and separating missions with which it logically should be 

integrated. Instead of waiting for effects-based commands to 

swallow AFSPC missions, we all need to work together to ensure 

we’re providing the best, most effective support to our warriors 

in the field. Proactive AFSPC actions will allow more input to 

the inevitable fusing of missions producing related effects and 

will help determine whether the combination will be a merger 

or a hostile takeover.

It is imperative for the cause of national defense that we integrate our C4ISR effects to move more effectively toward the 

goal of a seamless picture of the battlespace and significantly 

improved command and control. Completely coordinated intelligence is every bit as important as a properly coordinated attack. The first step toward realization of that goal is revision of 

service and joint space doctrine to reflect the primacy of effect. 

As cyberspace doctrine is in its formative stage, consideration 

of these crucial points should be built in from the beginning. 

From these doctrinal changes will logically flow an integration 

of C4ISR effects producers.

By appropriately identifying support and combat troops, a 

new command solely devoted to C4ISR effects production will 

emerge; combat functions formerly residing in this new sup-
34

port command, cyber and space warriors, will simultaneously 

be moved to organizations that will allow their effects to be better utilized. Finally, the training of all of our support troops 

needs to include close contact with warriors so support troops 

have a better understanding of why their support is so important and how it is actually used in the field. There will never be 

a 100-percent-clean break between combat effects and combat 

support effects. However, separating functions on the basis of 

effects as much as possible can lead to significant efficiencies 

in training for and prosecuting military actions in support of 

national objectives.

While not previously brought together under one heading, as 

has hopefully been done in this paper, the conclusions presented here are not those of the author alone. In fact, in the 

very speech cited above which set providing “space effects” as 

a goal for AFSPC, General Chilton also demonstrated that he 

thoroughly understood the fundamental problem: “It’s about 

delivering effects. It’s not about just flying satellites.”63 AFSPC 

is currently sitting on a cusp of history. Along one path lies the 

potential to become perhaps one of the most important enabling 

commands in the entire DOD. Another path leads to marginalization and mediocrity. The decisions that will tip the balance toward greatness or dissolution will soon be made. 

Notes

1. Robyn Read (College of Aerospace Doctrine, Research and Education 

[CADRE], Air University), personal communication with the author, 21 May 

2007.

2. Col David A. Deptula, Firing for Effect: Change in the Nature of Warfare

(Arlington, VA: Aerospace Education Foundation, 1995); Deptula, EffectsBased Operations: Change in the Nature of Warfare (Arlington, VA: Aerospace 

Education Foundation, 2001); and General Deptula, personal communication, 24 May 2007.

3. US Joint Forces Command J-9, A Concept Framework for Effects Based 

Operations, White Paper Version 1.0 (18 October 2001).

4. Donald Lowe and Simon Ng, “Effects-Based Operations: Language, 

Meaning, and the Effects-Based Approach” (paper presented at the Command 

and Control Research and Technology Symposium: The Power of Information 

Age Concepts and Technologies, San Diego, CA, 15–17 June 2004), http://

www.dodccrp.org/events/2004_CCRTS/CD/papers/207.pdf (accessed 25 

February 2008).
35

5. Lani Kass, “Cyberspace: A Warfighting Domain” (speech, Air Force Association Air and Space Conference, Washington, DC, 26 September 2007), 

http://www.afa.org/events/conference/2007/scripts/Space-Kass.pdf (accessed 25 February 2008); Maj Kelly G. Robinson, “The Death of Information 

Operations: Making the Case for Non-Kinetic Operations” (unpublished thesis, 

Air University, Maxwell AFB, April 2005), https://research.maxwell.af.mil/

papers/ay2005/acsc/2114%20-%20Robinson.pdf (accessed 25 February 

2008); and John C. K. Daly, “US Air Force Prepares for Cyber Warfare,” Space 

War Web site, 9 October 2006, http://www.spacewar.com/reports/US_Air

_Force_Prepares_For_Cyber_Warfare_999.html (accessed 25 February 2008).

6. Joint Publication (JP) 3-60, Joint Targeting, 13 April 2007, II-12–II-19, 

http://www.dtic.mil/doctrine/jel/new_pubs/jp3_60.pdf (accessed 25 February 2008).

7. Lt Gen David A. Deptula, “Toward Restructuring National Security,” 

Strategic Studies Quarterly 1, no. 2 (Winter 2007): 10, http://www.maxwell

.af.mil/au/ssq/2007/Winter/deptula.pdf (accessed 25 February 2008).

8. Bernard C. Nalty, ed., Winged Shield, Winged Sword: A History of the 

United States Air Force, vol. 2 (Washington, DC: Air Force History and Museums 

Program, 1997), 546–50, https://www.airforcehistory.hq.af.mil/Publications/

fulltext/winged_shield_winged_sword2.pdf (accessed 25 February 2008).

9. Twentieth Air Force Fact Sheet, http://www.warren.af.mil/library/fact

sheets/factsheet.asp?id=4697 (accessed 25 February 2008).

10. Gen Kevin P. Chilton, transcript of testimony before the House Armed 

Services Committee, 23 March 2007, http://www.afspc.af.mil/shared/media/

document/AFD-070511-052.doc (accessed 25 February 2008); and Chilton 

(speech, 23rd National Space Symposium, Colorado Springs, CO, 12 April 

2007), http://www.afspc.af.mil/library/speeches/speech.asp?id=318 (accessed 

25 February 2008).

11. Maj Anthony Knight (US Marine Corps space officer), personal communication with the author, 17 May 2007.

12. Gayle S. Putrich, “US Air Force: Don’t Short Space Programs,” Defense 

News, 9 April 2007, http://integrator.hanscom.af.mil/2007/April/0412

2007/04122007-20.htm (accessed 25 February 2008).

13. Deptula, “Toward Restructuring National Security,” 12.

14. Nalty, Winged Shield, 546.

15. Donald H. Rumsfeld et al., Report of the Commission to Assess United 

States National Security Space Management and Organization, 11 January 

2001, 13, http://www.dod.mil/pubs/space20010111.html (accessed 25 

February 2008).

16. Maj Gen J. Craig Koziol (presentation given at the 2nd Annual Distributed Common Ground Station Conference, Denver, CO, 30 April 2008).

17. JP 3-14, Joint Doctrine for Space Operations, 9 August 2002, vii: I-4, 

http://www.dtic.mil/doctrine/jel/new_pubs/jp3_14.pdf (accessed 25 February 2008); US Army Field Manual (FM) 3-14, Space Support to Army Operations, 1-2, para. 1-4, http://www.fas.org/irp/doddir/army/fm3-14.pdf (accessed 25 February 2008); and Secretary of the Navy Instruction 5400.39C, 
36

Department of the Navy Space Policy, http://www.fas.org/irp/doddir/navy/

secnavinst/5400_39c.pdf (accessed 25 February 2008).

18. AFDD 2-2, Space Operations, 27 November 2006, 4, http://www.dtic

.mil/doctrine/jel/service_pubs/afdd2_2.pdf (accessed 25 February 2008).

19. Peter T. Teets, “Shaping Space Activities to Secure America’s Future” 

(speech, Air Force Association National Symposium, Los Angeles, CA, 15 November 2002, http://www.afa.org/AEF/pub/teets1102.asp (accessed 25 

February 2008); and Teets, personal communication with the author, 13 November 2007.

20. Edward B. Tomme, The Paradigm Shift to Effects-Based Space: NearSpace as a Combat Space Effects Enabler, Airpower Research Institute, Research Paper 2005-01 (Maxwell AFB, AL: CADRE, 2005), https://research

.maxwell.af.mil/papers/ay2005/ari/CADRE_ARI_2005-01.pdf (accessed 25 

February 2008); and Tomme and Sigfred J. Dahl, “Balloons in Today’s Military? An Introduction to the Near-Space Concept,” Air and Space Power Journal 19, no. 4 (Winter 2005): 39–49, http://www.airpower.maxwell.af.mil/

airchronicles/apj/apj05/win05/tomme.html (accessed 25 February 2008).

21. “Remember Your Science Classes,” Air Force Magazine Daily Report, 

26 September 2007, http://dailyreport.afa.org/AFA/Reports/2007/Month09/

Day26/1176science.htm (accessed 25 February 2008).

22. Ibid.

23. Gen John P. Jumper, Operating Concept for Joint Warfighting Space, 

18 Mar 2005; and Jennifer Thibault, “Near-Space Programs to Provide Persistent Space Capability,” Space Daily, 15 March 2005, http://www.space

daily.com/news/milspace-05g.html (accessed 25 February 2008).

24. Gen John P. Jumper (speech, C4ISR Summit, Danbury, MA, 27 October 2004).

25. Gen Lance W. Lord, “Designation of Lead Agency for DOD Near Space 

Activities,” memorandum for the CSAF, 15 July 2005.

26. Gen T. Michael Moseley, letter to the chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff, 

8 September 2005.

27. Gen Kevin P. Chilton, “Near Space Directive,” memorandum for distribution, 25 July 2006.

28. Ryan Henry, principle deputy undersecretary of defense for policy, 

“Use of the Term ‘Near-Space,’ ” undated memorandum, circa January 2007; 

and Maj Gen Roger Burg, deputy chief of staff for air and space operations, 

personal communication with the author, March 2005.

29. Jumper, speech, 27 October 2004.

30. John Brock, Michael Yarymovych et al., “Operational Utility of Small 

Satellites” (summer session outbrief, Air Force Scientific Advisory Board, 28 

June 2007); Maj Gen William L. Shelton, personal communication with the 

author, 10 August 2006; Edward B. Tomme, The Strategic Nature of the Tactical 

Satellite, Airpower Research Institute, Research Paper 2006-01 (Maxwell 

AFB, AL: CADRE, 2006), https://research.maxwell.af.mil/papers/ay2006/

CADRE/tomme.pdf (accessed 25 February 2008); Edward B. Tomme, “The 

Myth of the Tactical Satellite,” Air and Space Power Journal 20, no. 2 (Summer 2006): 89–100, http://www.airpower.maxwell.af.mil/airchronicles/apj/
37

apj06/sum06/tomme.html (accessed 25 February 2008); Cdr V. Srivatsan, 

letter in “Ricochets and Replies,” Air and Space Power Journal 20, no. 3 (Fall 

2006): 9–10, http://www.airpower.maxwell.af.mil/airchronicles/apj/apj06/

fal06/Fal06.pdf (accessed 25 February 2008); RADM Thomas Betterton, letter in “Ricochets and Replies,” Air and Space Power Journal 20, no. 4 (Winter 

2006): 17, http://www.airpower.maxwell.af.mil/airchronicles/apj/apj06/

win06/win06.pdf (accessed 25 February 2008); Col Michael T. Baker, letter 

in “Ricochets and Replies,” Air and Space Power Journal 21, no. 2 (Summer 

2007): 25, http://www.airpower.maxwell.af.mil/airchronicles/apj/apj07/

sum07/sum07.pdf (accessed 25 February 2008); LTC Bob Guerriero, “Tactical Satellites: The Rest of the Story,” Air and Space Power Journal 21, no. 3 

(Summer 2007): 27–29, http://www.airpower.maxwell.af.mil/airchronicles/

apj/apj07/sum07/sum07.pdf (accessed 25 February 2008); and Edward B. 

Tomme, “Tactical Satellites: It’s Not ‘Can We?’ But ‘Should We?’ ” Air and Space 

Power Journal 21, no. 2 (Summer 2007): 30–33, http://www.airpower.maxwell

.af.mil/airchronicles/apj/apj07/sum07/sum07.pdf (accessed 25 February 

2008).

31. Maj Gen William L. Shelton, “Draft Operationally Responsive Space 

Enabling Concept Review,” memorandum for the AFSPC/A3, director of operations, 8 May 2006.

32. Gen T. Michael Moseley, The Nation’s Guardians: America’s 21st Century Air Force, CSAF White Paper, 29 December 2007, http://www.afa.org/

grl/CSAF_Whitepaper.pdf (accessed 25 February 2008).

33. Koziol, presentation, 30 April 2008.

34. Robert K. Ackerman, “New Flight Plan for AF Intelligence,” Signal 61, 

no. 7 (March 2007): 43–46, http://www.afcea.org/signal/articles/templates/

SIGNAL_Article_Template.asp?articleid=1275&zoneid=31 (accessed 25 February 2008); and C. Todd Lopez, “Changes Planned for ISR Community,” Air 

Force Print News, 30 January 2007, http://www.af.mil/news/story.asp?id

=123039294 (accessed 25 February 2008).

35. Moseley, The Nation’s Guardians.

36. Lt Gen David A. Deptula, “USAF Intelligence Way Ahead” (briefing 

given to the CSAF, 21 February 2007).

37. Naval Studies Board, National Research Council, C4ISR for Future 

Naval Strike Groups (Washington, DC: National Academies Press, 2006), 175, 

http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=11605 (accessed 25 February 

2008).

38. Rumsfeld et al., Report of the Commission, ix, xxiii, xxvi, xxx, xxxiv, 

65–68, 90–95.

39. Marc V. Shanz, “The Split Up in Space,” Air Force Magazine 89, no. 4 

(April 2006), http://www.afa.org/magazine/April2006/0406NRO.asp (accessed 25 February 2008).

40. Thomas H. Kean et al., The 9/11 Commission Report: Final Report of 

the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks upon the United States (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 22 July 2004), 407–19, http://www

.gpoaccess.gov/911/pdf/fullreport.pdf (accessed 25 February 2008).

41. Rumsfeld et al., Report of the Commission, xxiii.
38

42. Robert Kohler, “One Officer’s Perspective: The Decline of the National 

Reconnaissance Office,” Studies in Intelligence 46, no. 2 (2002): 13–20, https://

www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/csi-publications/

csi-studies/studies/vol46no2/article11.html (accessed 25 February 2008).

43. RADM Tom Betterton, retired, personal communication with the author, 13 November 2007.

44. Shanz, “The Split Up in Space.”

45. Deptula, “Toward Restructuring National Security.”

46. John A. Tirpak, “The Big Squeeze,” Air Force Magazine 90, no. 10 (October 2007): 32–36, http://www.afa.org/magazine/oct2007/1007squeeze.html 

(accessed 25 February 2008).

47. Col John R. Boyd, A Discourse on Winning and Losing, Air University 

Library document number MU43947 (unpublished briefing notes and essays, 

Maxwell AFB, August 1987).

48. Gen C. Robert Kehler, “Management Headquarters Reorganization—

Implementation Directive 08-01,” memorandum for HQ AFSPC directors, 2

January 2008.

49. US Army FM 3-90, Tactics, 4 July 2001, A-2–A-15, http://www.global

security.org/military/library/policy/army/fm/3-90/index.html (accessed 

25 February 2008). 

50. Rumsfeld et al., Report of the Commission, xxxiv, 89–90.

51. Bruce Rolfsen, “USAF Merges Air, Space Ops Offices,” Defense News.com

Web site, 6 August 2007, http://integrator.hanscom.af.mil/2007/August/

08092007/08092007-19.htm (accessed 25 February 2008).

52. John A. Tirpak, “Chinese Nerve,” Air Force Magazine Online Daily Report, 26 September 2007, http://dailyreport.afa.org/AFA/Reports/2007/

Month09/Day26/1101nerve.htm (accessed 25 February 2008).

53. Tirpak, “The Big Squeeze.”

54. Rumsfeld et al., Report of the Commission, 42–47.

55. Betterton, personal communication, 13 November 2007.

56. Rolfsen, “USAF Merges Air, Space Ops Offices.”

57. Gen Kevin P. Chilton (speech, 232nd Army Birthday Ball, Colorado 

Springs, CO, 16 June 2007), http://www.afspc.af.mil/library/speeches/

speech.asp?id=333 (accessed 25 February 2008); Lt Gen Frank G. Klotz (undated speech, National Defense University Breakfast, Capitol Hill Club, 

Washington, DC, circa 2007), http://www.afspc.af.mil/library/speeches/

speech.asp?id=246 (accessed 25 February 2008); and Col Richard White 

(speech, Fifth Responsive Space Conference, Los Angeles, CA, 25 April 2007).

58. Maj Aaron Luck, Army space operations officer, personal communication with the author, 1 August 2007; and Lt Gen Larry J. Dodgen, “Army 

Cadre Ensure Security of the Vertical Battlefield,” High Frontier 1, no. 1 (2004): 

15–17, http://www.afspc.af.mil/shared/media/document/AFD-070622-055.pdf 

(accessed 25 February 2008).

59. Gen Lance W. Lord, “Space Support to the Warfighter,” High Frontier

1, no. 4 (2006): 2–3, http://www.afspc.af.mil/shared/media/document/

AFD-070622-058.pdf (accessed 25 February 2008).
39

60. Bruce M. DeBlois, Beyond the Path of Heaven: The Emergence of Space 

Power Thought (Maxwell AFB, AL: Air University Press, 1999), http://aupress

.maxwell.af.mil/Books/Deblois/Deblois.pdf (accessed 25 February 2008); 

Maj Gen Richard E. Webber, “In Search of a Space Culture,” High Frontier 4, 

no. 1 (2007): 14–16, http://www.afspc.af.mil/shared/media/document/

AFD-071119-017.pdf (accessed 25 February 2008); Col Kevin J. McLaughlin 

and Col Chris Crawford, “Forward to the Future: A Roadmap for Air Force 

Space (Part 1),” High Frontier 3, no. 4 (2007): 23–31, http://www.afspc.af

.mil/shared/media/document/AFD-070814-023.pdf (accessed 25 February 

2008); Col Kevin J. McLaughlin and Col Chris Crawford, “Forward to the Future: A Roadmap for Air Force Space (Part 2),” High Frontier 4, no. 1 (2007): 

27–34, http://www.afspc.af.mil/shared/media/document/AFD-071119-017.pdf 

(accessed 25 February 2008); and Teets, “Shaping Space Activities,” 2002.

61. Erik Holmes, “Flight Plan,” Air Force Times 68, no. 10 (24 September 

2007): 12–13.

62. Moseley, The Nation’s Guardians.

63. Chilton, speech, 12 April 2007.

41

List of Acronyms

ACC	 Air Combat Command

AF	 Air Force

AFC4ISRC	 Air Force Command, Control, Communications,

Computers, Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance Command

AFDD	 Air Force Doctrine Document

AFISRA	 Air Force Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance Agency

AFISRC	 Air Force Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance Command

AFSPC	 Air Force Space Command

C4	 command, control, communications, and

computers

C4ISR	 command, control, communications, computers,

intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance

CADRE	 College of Aerospace Doctrine, Research and

Education

CAOC	 combined air operations center

CNA	 computer network attack

CND	 computer network defense

CNE	 computer network exploitation

CSAF	 chief of staff of the Air Force

DCS	 defensive counterspace

DOD	 Department of Defense

F2T2EA	 find, fix, track, target, engage, and assess

FM	 Field Manual

IC	 intelligence community

ICBM	 intercontinental ballistic missile

IO	 information operations

ISR	 intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance

JP	 joint publication

LEO	 low-earth orbit

MAJCOM	 major command

NGA	 National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency

NRO	 National Reconnaissance Office

NSA	 National Security Agency

OCS	 offensive counterspace

OODA	 observe, orient, decide, act
42

SMC	 Space and Missile Systems Center

TENCAP	 tactical exploitation of national capabilities

UAS	 unmanned aerial system

UAV	 unmanned aerial vehicle

USAFA	 United States Air Force Academy

USSTRATCOM	 United States Strategic Command
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