ORLANDO, Fla. (AFNS) —
As Delivered by Chief of Space Operations Gen. Chance Saltzman on Dec. 10, 2024 –
Good morning, everyone! I’m excited to be here with all of you—December in Orlando talking Space Force with Guardians racing towards our 5th birthday… not bad, not bad at all.
NOTE FROM SPEECHWRITERS: [Insert funny dad joke here]. Whoops, don’t think I was supposed to read that part. Yeah, I really need better speechwriters. Anyone interested? Now I have to come up with a dad joke.
Hmmm…okay…Where do bad rainbows go? They go to prism…I know, it’s a light sentence but it gives them time to reflect.
Thanks, Bill, for that kind introduction. I’ve known Bill for a very, very long time. We’ve known each other in good times and bad, and he’s seen me at my best and worst.
That’s why he’s the only friend that I’ve forced to sign a non-disclosure agreement. So, I’m feeling pretty confident about the chat we are going to have…
Thanks so much to the Space Force Association. This is the second annual Spacepower Conference, and it’s such a pleasure to have a forum dedicated to the Space Force and to military space. We so rarely get the chance to talk amongst ourselves in such large numbers, so let’s take this opportunity to learn from each other, to share ideas, and to form connections. That’s what events like this are all about.
And it could not come at a better time! As fall becomes winter, the days grow shorter, and the nights stretch longer, it’s traditional to gather with friends and family… to consider what lies ahead and to reflect on what came before.
And with the Space Force preparing for its 5th birthday, I find myself feeling particularly reflective. Five years…what a truly incredible milestone!
When you’re hiking up a mountain, it’s easy to just focus on taking one step after another. To fixate on where you’re going and to some degree to lose sight of where you’ve been. It’s only when you pause and look back that you truly take stock of just how far you’ve come.
But now imagine a mountain without a summit…a journey without an end. That’s where we are headed…the unknown. You see, you can’t win history, you can’t arrive at destiny…the future just unfolds. But these unknowns do not relieve of us of our responsibility to be ready. To be ready for any and all challenges that we might face. So, what we do is build foundations… solid foundations in our people, our processes, and our structures.
And these foundations must form the base for us to grow in any number of ways to do what must be done. So, that is what we have been doing. Building foundations.
But when you stop to consider a mansion, the foundation and its elements are mostly unseen… like the cinder blocks, plumbing, and electricity providing structural integrity and flexible utility. These offer little to curb appeal, and they will be costly, time consuming, and mostly invisible to outsiders when complete. But they are critical to the outcome.
That is what we’ve been building. And I don’t care if outsiders don’t see these things… I’m extremely proud of where we are and what we’ve accomplished.
So, let’s take stock!
When Bill and I joined the Space Force, we numbered less than 100 Guardians, and 86 of those were newly minted Second Lieutenants. We had a shoestring budget and a mountain of work to do. Today, the military and civilian personnel serving the Space Force total nearly 15,000. Average that out, and you’re talking about almost tripling our size every year for five years—an unheard of and monumental administrative feat in any government organization.
We should not lose sight of the amount of effort it takes to triple an organization every year. The scale is enormous!
At its establishment, the Space Force was the first new American military service in 72 years. All the processes, policies, and mechanisms necessary to build a service from the ground up had long been forgotten.
We had to relearn and rebuild so many things that other services now just take for granted. It is easy for outsiders to oversimplify our tasks, to critique the speed of our efforts, to under value the strides we were making… that’s okay. That’s always the case with external critics and armchair quarterbacks.
But don’t listen to them. We insiders know our challenges and how well we’ve addressed them.
And it was more than just people and administrative work. We have absorbed and become singularly responsible for missions without which the Joint Force would fail. Satellite communications; missile warning; weather; positioning, navigation, and timing… sometimes those missions came with people and sometimes we had to grow them ourselves.
We stood up Field Commands, activated Service Components, and built out institutions for the design, development, generation, and employment of space forces.
We’ve doubled our budget since we became fully operational, and we’re still well short of the resources required to accomplish the new and evolving missions that the Department of Defense has asked us to do.
And let’s not forget the COVID pandemic. It hit when the Space Force was less than 6 months old and bogged us down for our first two years. But it did not stop us.
The fact that we are here, today, at a conference for a military service dedicated to spacepower is nothing less than a modern-day miracle. A miracle of hard work made possible by the unified effort of people who raised their hands, by the thousands, and said “I want to be a Guardian. I want to be a part of this. I want to make a difference.”
We are here today because of you and people like you who accepted the uncertainty of a novel endeavor. The challenge of breaking the old to forge something new. It wasn’t easy then, and it isn’t easy now. There are a lot of challenges we are still working through… but we are here. The Space Force is here.
So, let’s take a breath! We’ve done a lot, and we should never let the fact of work yet to be done undermine the value of work accomplished. Truth be told, military services are never complete… they are always changing, improving, being tested, evolving to meet new challenges.
But an interesting thing happened amidst all that work over the last five years. In the process of building a space service, I think we’ve also learned a lot about the people doing the building.
I’ve always said that culture takes time… that it can’t be downward directed but rather has to emerge organically. Well, enough time has passed, now, that some things are starting to become clear.
To my mind, there are six “truths” that have taken shape—truths that define the Space Force and sketch the contours of the Guardian identity. So, I’d like to take this opportunity to share them with all of you.
Truth number one—space matters. If you’ve been paying attention, you know that space has never been more vital to our national security as well as to its prosperity. At least half of the U.S.’s critical infrastructure depends on space. The Joint Force is sized with the assumption that military spacepower will be there as its backbone. It makes no sense to train for a “day without space.” It’s simply inconceivable.
We are no longer icing on the cake; we are the eggs in the batter of that cake…there’s no extracting us anymore. In modern warfare, without space, kill chains don’t close, our strategic advantage evaporates, and we lose.
Truth number two—because space matters, we must be prepared to defend it. Throughout history, wherever national interests collide, competition, crisis, and conflict inevitably follow. Our adversaries understand the importance of spacepower, and they are ready and willing to take it from us.
If you need convincing, just take a look at Russia. They’ve got an eye-watering counterspace portfolio that includes Direct Ascent-ASATs, co-orbitals, lasers, EW, you name it. When they invaded Ukraine, one of their opening moves was a cyberattack against a ground station impacting the space data network.
This is part of their playbook, and they will absolutely try to disrupt, degrade, and destroy U.S. space capabilities.
This is unacceptable. In short, what we have, we will fight to keep. That’s why we identified space control as one of our core functions. That was a mission that did not exist in its complete form before the Space Force, but now it is our top priority. The space domain is our responsibility, and we contest and control it to ensure freedom of action. That’s why the Space Force exists.
Truth number three—because space also matters to our adversaries, we must be ready to deny hostile spacepower. I’m sure most of the folks in this room understand why we call China our pacing challenge, but let me add a little color to that.
Since 2022, China has launched over 400 satellites, half of which are designed to find, fix, track, and target objects on Earth. By 2029, China plans to launch a further 1,300 satellites to build out an exquisite communication and sensing architecture. There should be no doubt in your mind that China can and will use their space capability to hold the Joint and Combined Force at risk.
All the aircraft and naval vessels in the world can only do so much when they’re targeted before they even reach theater.
It’s our job to make sure that doesn’t happen.
Taken as a collective, these first three truths explain why the Space Force exists and what it must do. They also explain the rationale behind something I consider to be one of our most significant accomplishments to date: the Space Force Generation model.
SPAFORGEN draws a line between the force-enabling services provided by our predecessor, Air Force Space Command, and the warfighting capability presented by the Space Force. The concept is simple, but it’s the shift in thinking that really makes the difference.
Before, our focus was on providing consistent services in a benign environment. There was little time or need for advanced training, little time to develop tactics against realistic threats, very little time to build readiness. As of July, we completely shifted that thinking to fully implement a force generation model that can meet the demands of our nation… a model that prepares Guardians to excel in a warfighting domain.
From the Headquarters to the Delta down to the Crew level, this required an incredible amount of work in planning, building processes, and execution.
Finally, after five years, we can say that the Space Force is a full-scale, cross-squadron force provider, ready and able to employ spacepower under the authority of Combatant Commanders.
We’re going to continue to refine our implementation of SPAFORGEN, and we’re still learning lessons for future cycles. But let’s not forget that we have something, now, that we didn’t have before. Making something from nothing, especially something as crucial as warfighting readiness, is an outstanding accomplishment.
If the first three truths dealt with what the Space force does, then the next three explain who the Guardians of the Space Force are.
Truth number four: space is a warfighting domain.
Let me say that another way. The Space Force is a military service not a support element.
There is a stark difference between those two things—the operational concepts, training, TTPs, and equipment required for the one are entirely different from those required for the other.
Why does this matter? It’s because the way you think about something informs how you engage with it. Space is a geographic region that the Unified Command Plan defines from 100 kilometers out to infinity, and it’s increasingly populated by other nations, commercial entities, civil agencies, academic institutions, and so on.
If Guardians just provide support functions, we have no responsibility to any of those other entities. No responsibility to do anything about the region. We would simply operate within it to deliver effects, day in and day out.
If space is a warfighting domain, though, and we are a military service dedicated to it… well, then Guardians have an obligation to contest and control that region… making it safe, secure, and stable… in order to ensure that all like-minded nations can continue to use it for the myriad of peaceful activities that we’ve come to count on. To preserve and enforce norms for the responsible use of the domain so that it remains open to us indefinitely.
It is the Guardians’ job to see space as a warfighting domain so that we are prepared to secure it and thereby ensure it remains peaceful.
Truth five builds on this point: the Space Force organizes, trains, and equips, but also conducts warfighting operations as an integral part of the Joint Force.
You will hear people say that services OT&E and Combatant Commands fight wars. That is a gross oversimplification of headquarters’ responsibilities.
Yes, the service headquarters is responsible for OT&E. Yes, the Combatant Command headquarters is responsible for executing warfighting authorities necessary for planning, synchronizing, and directing operations. But you know who actually fights the wars? The services’ units of action aligned under Service Components. Organizations that operate under the authority of Combatant Commanders but remain part of the service.
Do you know why that matters? Because the service responsible for contesting and controlling a domain is the one that knows best how to fight in that domain.
It is the Service Component that writes tactics, builds CONOPs, and gains and maintains space superiority. Guardians are warfighters not simply force providers.
To think otherwise sacrifices the credibility and gravity we need to properly carry out our service-level responsibilities. To interact with authority among our Joint and Combined Force counterparts. To sit at the table and make ourselves heard so that space will be effectively integrated into the joint concepts, organizations and activities.
This is another one of those things that other, older services take for granted. Can you imagine telling a Marine that they’re not a warfighter or that the Marine Corps is just a force provider? Absolutely not. “Every Marine a rifleman,” after all.
You are warfighters, whether you carry a gun or not. In accordance with the law and at the direction of the President, you are trained and expected to directly carry out offensive and defensive action against the military forces of other countries or support other military elements as they do.
When you’re in a Combat Squadron, you’re the first line of defense for conflict in space, and your actions directly impact lives on the ground in and out of harm’s way. So, stand tall and walk proudly, because you carry a heavy responsibility.
Truth six brings it home: not only are Guardians warfighters in space—Guardians are the only warfighters with the unique, career-long specific training, education, and experience required to achieve space superiority.
You know, almost every other military service has an aviator of some type… but if a combatant commander wants air superiority in the AOR, they rely on airmen in the U.S. Air Force. Why? Because the service focuses on it. U.S. Air Force Airmen have the greatest depth of expertise, experience, operational concepts, and necessary equipment to achieve theater-wide air superiority.
The same is true for space. If you want to win a war in space, you had better be leaning on Guardians to get it done. That is precisely because there is no one better suited. Other services have space operators, and they certainly contribute to the fight in space. They certainly have equity in the domain… but only the Space Force grows its Guardians from day one to be space warfighters.
That’s what we are. Guardians are the preeminent space warfighters with the knowledge and training necessary to achieve U.S. military objectives in the domain.
Building out the educational pathways required to ensure that remains true is another great accomplishment. We created service-specific PME at Johns Hopkins University. We revised BMT to build space-minded Enlisted Guardians. And we stood up the Officer Training Course to produce officers with a broad awareness of all the disciplines of spacepower.
The reason for all these initiatives was to institutionalize these truths. To instill and reenforce the mindset, the understanding, and the critical thinking required for Guardians to thrive in the development and employment of spacepower.
Breaking with our legacy roots and Air Force linkages was hard but necessary… and upon reflection it has made both organizations stronger and more focused. In the fast-paced, modern battlefield that stretches from seabed to geosynchronous orbit, it would be unfair to expect the institutions dedicated to training air domain professionals to also be responsible for developing the next generation of space domain experts.
I cannot tell you how heavy of a lift this was. How much effort went into determining what was necessary, revising what was not, and orchestrating the work to bring this vision into being.
Quite a lot of what we have built so far was carved out of hide with no additional people or resources. Just like with SPAFORGEN, we made compromises and accepted risk to make progress.
The path has not always been smooth, but we are learning, we are iterating, and we will get better. That’s what we need to build strong Guardians, and strong Guardians will continue to lay the foundation for the Space Force our Nation needs now and into the future.
So, why did I want to share these truths with you? It’s because you’re responsible for them. I’ve been defining these truths in the notes app on my phone since I became the CSO, and I consult them before every major event to get my thoughts in order.
Why was this necessary? Because I spent 29 years in the Air Force, and we did not talk in this detail about space superiority, ever. I have to overcome this DNA and retrain myself… but I’m committed to making the Guardian experience of today different… focused on these truths not ignoring them.
But it’s your work that drove these truths into the light, carved them into stone, and forced them into the core of the Guardian identity. These truths form a common thread among us—something to rally around, unify behind, and build upon for generations to come. They connect us, regardless of our backgrounds or positions, as part of something far bigger than ourselves.
It is through your efforts that these truths became so obvious as to be self-evident. Over time, I fully expect that future Guardians will take these core truths for granted, just as servicemembers do in other services. That’s actually a good thing—it’s part of the maturing process.
But for the moment, let’s remember that these foundational truths were never granted—you worked for them; you made them real; and so, it’s only right that we take this moment to recognize that you have laid the foundations of our culture.
If I have said something here today that you don’t agree with, then I want you to find another Guardian and debate it until you understand why you should agree with it. For me, these are non-negotiable, not up for debate… these are truths we will center on.
My hope is not that you learn these truths word for word but rather than you think about them, wrestle with them, and internalize their meaning. These truths explain why we need a Space Force, and they explain what it means to be a Guardian—our role and our purpose.
If these truths live in your head, inform your actions, and shape your thinking, then we will be unified as never before.
I want you to be unapologetic about these truths. So, I’m trusting you to speak up if you hear something that contradicts them. You are the Space Force’s best advocates. We still have a lot of education to do—even within our service, there are people who don’t fully understand. That’s natural, but the only way we’re going to make progress is if we embody our Guardian identity and act as one.
I am so proud to be a Guardian because you have made “being a Guardian” into something special.
We have a lot of work ahead of us, but in this time of reflection, I hope you take a moment to recognize your own hard work and to celebrate the work of your colleagues.
Be proud! You should be, you have earned the right.
Thank you, and Semper Supra!
source: www.spaceforce.mil