Space is ‘ultimate high ground’

  • Published
  • By Master Sgt. Scott Elliott
  • Air Force Print News
WASHINGTON --  Integration of hardware, software and can-do spirit has allowed America to move into an era of space-enabled warfare, a senior Air Force space official said.

And given the significant advantages space gives those who use it, that is a very good thing, according to Brig. Gen. C. Robert Kehler, Air Force director of national security space at the Pentagon.

“There’s no doubt about it, space is the ultimate high ground,” he said. “Space allows us to see, to hear and to act.”

Kehler’s comments came on the heels of Operation Iraqi Freedom. According to Air Force officials, 70 percent of the bombs dropped on Iraq were precision-guided munitions. Another success story the general attributed to timely use of space assets was the B-1 Lancer strike against an Iraqi leadership location April 7.

“The evidence of success, of integrating space with mainstream operations is everywhere,” Kehler said. “You don’t have to look very far to find them.”

The success story made most painfully obvious to Iraqi adversaries, he said, was the coalition’s ability to compress what is known as the “kill chain” -- the six-stage process of engaging a target: find, fix, track, target, engage and assess.

“Integrating space capabilities together across the military and intelligence communities … is clearly transformational,” he said. “The time from when someone says they’ve found a target, communicates it with a shooter, and the shooter puts a bomb on the target has been tremendously compressed.”

While many of the military’s current space-based successes have roots that reach back to Operation Desert Storm, the general said integrating space with terrestrial assets was a key theme of the recent congressionally mandated Space Commission.

Kehler said the Space Commission’s Jan. 11, 2001, report made several recommendations geared toward streamlining command and control of America’s national security space mission. As a result, the undersecretary of the Air Force gained both responsibility for the Air Force space mission and leadership over the National Reconnaissance Office, and Air Force Space Command was restructured with a four-star general in command.

“The bottom line is integration, unity of effort and focus to make sure the whole team goes down the road together in doing what’s best for national security,” he said.

Kehler said Air Force and NRO officials have always worked closely together, but the focus was different during the Cold War.

“What came home to all of us was that the post-Cold War world was going to be a far more dynamic place,” the general said. “In order to be effective and carry out our nation’s national security strategy, we had to find a better way to integrate (surveillance satellites) with the tactical need of joint commanders in the field.”

It is space-based assets that often provide combatant commanders with such information as weather and details of the enemy’s latest troop movements, Kehler said.

“Precision strike is the sum of knowledge and accuracy,” Kehler said. “I would never suggest that space does all of these things alone … space enhances other things, and vice versa.

“What we have here is, with space included, the sum is greater than the individual parts,” Kehler said. “We’re trying to make sure we are bringing the best of every system (together) to create the effects our commanders need.”