APOGEE STAFF
For the Pentagon, space is the key to deterring aggression and allies are the key to operations in space. Across the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD), people are working to build a coalition of like-minded nations to head off adversaries such as the People’s Republic of China (PRC), identified by military leaders as the “pacing threat” in space and all other domains. One of the chief drivers of this effort is Kelli L. Seybolt, who has spent much of her three-decade career in government as a civilian Air Force employee specializing in international relations.
For the past five years, she has headed the Office of the Secretary of the Air Force for International Affairs (SAF/IA) as deputy undersecretary. The office’s mission: “Advance U.S. national security by cultivating deep, enduring relationships through security cooperation with our Allies and Partners in support of U.S. Air Force and U.S. Space Force global operations.”
The mission goes to the heart of the goals set out in the DOD’s 2020 “Defense Space Strategy,” among them: “promote burden-sharing with our allies and partners, developing and leveraging cooperative opportunities in policy, strategy, capabilities, and operational realms.”
Seybolt’s work takes her around the world, including Australia, Malaysia, Tunisia, and in July 2023, to the United Kingdom, where she joined U.S. Space Force Gen. B. Chance Saltzman, chief of space operations, for a meeting with British defense leaders. Seybolt moderated a panel of top space defense officers from around the world at the April 2023 Space Symposium in Colorado Springs, Colorado. Speaking with reporters there, she discussed which space capabilities are in most demand from U.S. allies, how space is the same and different when it comes to foreign military sales, and how to keep U.S. classification rules from slowing advances in space. Here are highlights from the briefing, edited for length.
Opening remarks
Space, by its very nature, is international and always has been. SAF/IA, Air Force International Affairs, has had a strong focus on space, developing those international relationships for about 20 years. Most recently, with the standup of the Space Force, we’ve established a space division. We have a dedicated service, which, if you hear Gen. Saltzman talking about it, is an institutional specialization for this domain just as we do for all the other domains. Allies and partners are certainly very eager to partner with us and they always have been, but we’re looking to really accelerate space cooperation and expand it with our partners. Resourcing-wise, it’s a challenge for us because the Space Force as a separate service is disproportionately demanding when it comes to international cooperation.
Traditionally, when we speak of someone in your role, it’s about allies who want to buy aircraft and other types of hardware. When it comes to space, what are the types of systems and technologies that allies are asking for?
All of the above. One thing that we’re certainly seeing as a trend, especially among some of our closest allies, is that they’re really interested in developing robust space industries in their countries. You see that in the policy of the Australians, who have a space strategy, and their larger strategy talks about putting more skin in the game when it comes to capability and investment. So, what we’re seeing is that before the Space Force, we had about 200 military sales cases predominantly focused on MILSATCOM [military satellite communications] terminals and GPS-related equipment and we’re seeing a shift in interest now with numerous partners looking at counterspace-related capabilities that we may be able to provide via foreign military sales [FMS].
Also, looking at studies and analysis cases that we’re doing for several partners as they’re looking to acquire entire constellation capabilities to support their joint forces, so we’re helping to figure out what the right answer is for them. I think one of the things that’s unique about space is related to releasability and exportability. I had a meeting with one of the major defense partners yesterday and when you think about it, there’s a lot of special sauce, if you will, in space capabilities. Space has always had much more classified information. But it’s possible that some of our companies might be able to sell turnkey systems where the partner would have ownership of the system, but they never would have to take ownership of the satellite itself.
It could be like delivery on orbit, which opens the possibility, I think, for partners, and it could create areas where some of those exportability issues aren’t as difficult to navigate. And on that front, one of the things that we’re doing in SAF/IA, just as we do for the Department of the Air Force, is we’re establishing what the baseline is for exportability of space capabilities. So that we already have the Department of the Air Force position in place, which allows us to move much more quickly when a partner asks for a capability as we try to negotiate the exportability and releasability issue. We try to knock down as many policy hurdles before we’re at a point where it’s an urgent issue that we’re trying to address.
You mentioned counterspace capabilities. Can you further describe what types of systems that would mean?
I wouldn’t describe them right now, no. But when you think of the types of things that the adversaries are doing, those are areas where partners are interested … just to protect their assets as well.
Could you talk about some of the challenges in your area relating to classification? Does the amount of classified information make it more difficult to work with allies and partners?
I think we’ve lived with this for years. I think that space had more things that are compartmented, historically. I think there are efforts to look at changing that. There are also efforts to invite some of our closest partners into the really important compartmented programs. When I look at that question, and I’ve been thinking about it a lot, it’s no different than it is for air or any other [domain].
Partners are historically frustrated by that, but in my opinion, the policies are clear. Security classification guidelines documents are written, and that’s where a lot of this is derived from. One of the biggest challenges is that we don’t have the culture moving in the right direction. The policies have been moving progressively in the right direction, but the culture among Airmen and Guardians hasn’t changed. There’s a lot of misclassification, mismarked things that we have to address. And then we have to go back and look, if you want to release something, you have to kind of go backward and unravel and start where the original classification happened and then go through all these steps to declassify it.
So, it’s two pieces. But here’s the big message that I would have: We have 15 foreign disclosure officers in the Department of the Air Force that are fully empowered, and they live within SAF/IA. There are 300 foreign disclosure officers across the Department of the Air Force, but they have delegated authority only for those things that are within their world of work. So, when you think of the size of our Air Force, that’s crazy. We have to look at that. Because if we’re going to address the backlog issues of declassification, we’re going to need more resources to do that, and then, today, we’ve got to start sifting our culture so that “Airman Snuffy,” as we used to say, can’t write “secret” on a document when they don’t realize they don’t have the authority to do that. But once it’s on there, getting it off there is super challenging. We’ve just drafted a paper on this issue for the department and I made the team go back and add culture as one of the challenges we have. Because the policy is the policy, and if people aren’t following the policy, then the culture hasn’t changed. We’re still just digging holes for ourselves.
You mentioned that allies want to bring more to the fight. Is your office working on trying to address that? Gen. Dickinson (Army Gen. James Dickinson, then head of U.S. Space Command) has talked about allies jointly developing systems with the U.S.
I think we’re certainly open to all of those opportunities. I think the whole gamut of security cooperation tools are open for space. There’s nothing different really than there is for air. I think if you listen to SecDef [Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III], he’s also been talking about allies being more involved in providing capabilities. I think that Ukraine has taught us that they’re there. When we looked to the Pacific, this was back when [Hillary] Clinton was the secretary of state, the Pacific Century speech, we talked at that time a lot, like, “We’re going to make our NATO and European allies very nervous by this shift,” and we had to reassure them.
I think now we look at what’s happened in response to Ukraine, our allies — you look at what Poland has done to step up — they’re reassuring us. So, we don’t need to reassure them anymore. I think the combination of our partners wanting to develop space industries, and many of them have them, innovative, newer, smaller companies, I think that opens up the door to collaboration to include co-development opportunities. But also, opportunities for them to bring something to the table. I think the space order of battle, you’re going to get resilience and robustness the more that we’re integrated with our partners.
A small example is that Canada many, many years ago decided to provide an on-orbit capability with the Sapphire satellite, which is a deep space surveillance capability. That was the first sort of allied architecture on the military side. We actually had a Canadian sovereign satellite that was launched to be part of something larger. It was a huge contribution and now Canada is looking at what’s next and really growing their investments in space.
I think the combination of our partners wanting to develop space industries, and many of them have them, innovative, newer, smaller companies, I think that opens up the door to collaboration to include co-development opportunities. But also, opportunities for them to bring something to the table.” ~ Kelli L. Seybolt, Office of the Secretary of the Air Force for International Affairs
Many space defense leaders describe the value of space collaborations with our allies as helping close gaps in capabilities, and in research and development, as well. Can you speak to that?
I think if you were to listen to U.S. Space Command, they still really focus a lot on space domain awareness. Having worked in space for many years, I always used to say more is more and no, there is never enough. So, let’s say that SATCOM is like water to a warfighter, you can never get enough water. So, SATCOM is another area. I think where we may shift is to look a little more at collaborating on more exquisite capabilities. Commercial SATCOM has proliferated and leveraging that gives you robustness, as well. But having partners that are also operating similar systems also allows us to have that. And maybe not the same systems, so that if they go after one capability that there’s others that you can shift and have resources.
I think that we have to look for where we can co-develop together and leverage one another in an equitable way. But also, where they have a sovereign capability, we have a sovereign capability, but we’ve figured out how that works together so that we can take advantage of that and get that robust resilience through that capability. Reconstitution is another area. We have a responsive space MOU [memorandum of understanding] with partners where we can really work together and rapidly reconstitute what we can do.
An example of capability gaps is our polar SATCOM. We were headed down that road and we were able to collaborate with Norway to accelerate and get payloads on orbit three years earlier through that collaboration. It saved us millions of dollars having that payload on their satellite and launch. We get X band capability [used in radar applications] from Norway. In return we gave them Y band mobile SATCOM capability. So, we can do those kinds of trades. I think space offers a whole bunch more innovative ways to cooperate.
You just mentioned responsive space MOU. Are you looking at ways for maybe a partner nation to respond and service a U.S. satellite? Where do you see that heading?
There are companies that are innovating in that area and really focusing on what they can do. The opportunities are huge if you can keep that capability on orbit longer. But it’s also challenging too, right? [That is], if you can get software that’s upgradable and things like that. I guess if you could take the DSP [Defense Support Program, first launched in the 1970s], the early missile warning satellites. Some of those are still operating. So how much can you service and what can you do? Fuel obviously is one potential.
More broadly, as you’re working with close allies to develop capabilities doing these export baselines, are there any lessons you learned from the traditional FMS process? It can be kind of a pain to sell a plane and bullets.
The biggest thing we have to do with space is accelerate and go faster. [In] foreign military sales, you’re asking the Air Force or the Space Force to be your program manager. So, we are responsible for representing that partner with industry and getting the best capability, delivery on time and on budget. The lessons learned that I would take is the more we can do to define what we’re doing up front. That’s really important. The case is the case, and then it’s 18 months to contract. And then delivery comes later. So, what we want to do is accelerate that process to match the innovations that might occur with the Space Force and how they’re trying to rapidly acquire things.
I think the Space Development Agency and what they’ve done is miraculous. It’s like light years fast compared to how we normally acquired. One of the things that we all need to be thinking about, not just in the FMS world, is how quickly we can develop an international agreement. Because those are just as long. It’s 18 months if it’s perfect to get an agreement in place. That’s not that fast if you want to do something quickly. Space acquisition has always been complex, but look at what’s happening with Starlink. We need to look at what industry is doing, as well.
Obviously, freedom of access to space is a priority for the U.S. military. How can international norms, law, codes of conduct play a role there and what is the work the Air Force is doing in that area?
Gen. Saltzman was very clear about the fact there are a lot of unique things about space. One is that it’s not self-cleaning. We self-clean GEO satellites by launching them way out, but one day gravity takes over. [In the] early days, we worked with NASA on space debris and worked within the U.N. Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space to get people to adopt voluntary standards. And the idea back then was that even in low Earth orbit, any debris would reenter.
One of the other big achievements of that was venting rocket bodies, because in the old days they didn’t do that. Those were the biggest contributors to space debris back in the day. We fixed those things. So normative behavior is a priority and responsible behavior is a priority. The other thing is there are reversible effects. You can do [non-physical] things like jamming, you can do things that create a problem for the adversary in space without having deleterious effects on the domain itself. We would not want to damage the domain that our joint force relies on, so that’s a commitment by us. We need to work closely with partners. The office of space policy … they take the lead in DOD on normative space behavior, and I think all of our close partners are on board with responsible space behavior. You have to get your adversaries also signing up for the same thing. There’s also a deterrence question for space. When I think about it, WGS satellites soon will have 12 nations’ flags on the side, so an attack on a WGS satellite — that’s a deterrent in itself that there are 12 partners.
[It’s a] different calculus when [adversaries] look at going after that capability. And I think Gen. Saltzman’s discussion is about what we need to do to disincentivize the first maneuver in space. A lot of the wargames say first maneuver wins because of some of these things. We need to work on what is deterrence in space, how do you get strategic stability in space, and go from there. There’s a lot of work being done, but you need to just continue that dialogue because it has to be something where anybody damaging the orbital regime, there would be consequences, whether it’s economic or something else.