Gen. B. Chance Saltzman, Chief of Space Operations for the U.S. Space Force, delivered the opening keynote of the 2025 AFA Warfare Symposium. Emphasizing the need for the U.S. to maintain space superiority, Saltzman made the case that the Space Force needs to develop capabilities to control the domain, perhaps the most direct message yet from a senior leader on offensive capability in space. Watch the video or read the transcript below.
Gen. B. Chance Saltzman:
Thank you. How’s everybody doing? Excited? Excited to be here for the AFA Symposium. This is great. I got to tell you just to put things in perspective, about 56 years ago, March 3rd, 1969, Apollo 9 launched into orbit, low-Earth orbit. This was the first crewed test flight of a lunar module and it laid the groundwork for the first lunar landing that occurred just a few months later on Apollo 11. Now laying the groundwork, building the foundation, these are critical to achieving bigger goals, more enduring achievements. If the hard work, dedicated effort that made Apollo 9 successful doesn’t happen, there’s no way Apollo 11 lands on the Moon, certainly not in the way we recall it today. So I’m inspired by this. People committed to their part of the achievement, particularly those committed to the building of the foundation for future achievements. So it’s a real pleasure to be with you here today, and I mean that more seriously than you might think.
Doing my part of building the foundation for the Space Force means I spend most of my time advocating in Washington, inside the Department of Defense with the joint staff, the other services across the interagency, working with Congress. This is good. This is important. These conversations need to happen. They turn ideas into policy, they turn them into resources and legislation, but there’s no audience I appreciate speaking to more than the one assembled here. You see, you are the “doers of the deeds,” as Teddy Roosevelt said. To those who spend themselves in a worthy cause, to people who take all the policies, all the resources, all those laws and turn ideas into outcomes, into concrete capabilities that secure our nation’s interests in, from and to space. They deter our adversaries and they defeat anyone who might threaten us, our allies, our partners. You’re a special group of people because when the time for talk is over, the responsibility to act falls squarely on your shoulders.
Inside the Space Force, you have a lot of diverse jobs. Intelligence analyst, cyber defender, program manager, contracting officer, satellite operator, ground terminal technician, network administrator, engineer, personnelist, knowledge manager, range operator, I could keep going. They’re all different jobs, but they require a wide range of expertise. But all these jobs are done by Guardians, officers, enlisted civilians. All these jobs contribute directly to our mission to secure our nation’s interests. So let’s take a moment and reflect on what it means to be a Guardian, especially in the context of a conflict in space. Because each and every one of you, regardless of the job you do, is directly responsible for the success of our mission.
And I’ve spoken recently about what I consider to be six foundational truths of the Space Force. I’ve told you that our capabilities are vital for the security and prosperity of the American way of life, that we are therefore obligated both to protect those capabilities as well as to defend the joint and combined force against space-enabled attack. As a result, I’ve said that we must think of space as a war-fighting domain rather than just a collection of support activities, that the Space Force must organize, train, equip, and conduct war-fighting operations as an integral part of the joint and combined force. And for this reason, Guardians are the warfighters with the unique education, training and experience required to achieve space superiority.
Now, whenever I speak to folks outside the Space Force, and this is a wide spectrum of people from an interested student at dinner in Chicago just the last weekend to the President of the United States, I refer back to these truths because I think they encapsulate our identity in just a few simple ideas. But just among ourselves from one Guardian to another, let’s take a moment to focus on only a few of these truths, to consider them in greater detail, the practical level rather than the philosophical one.
Specifically I want to call your attention to two truths, truths numbers two and three, to the idea that we must simultaneously be ready to defend American space power as well as to protect our forces against hostile space power because that is the true essence of space superiority, which is the formative purpose of the U.S. Space Force. Space superiority is the fundamental difference between a civil space agency and a war-fighting space service. It is the distinction between a company’s employees operating commercial satellites and Guardians conducting combat operations to achieve joint objectives. If you want to understand the evolution from Air Force Space Command into Space Force, it all comes down to this fundamental shift. It is now our job to contest and control the space domain, to fight and win so that we assure freedom of access for our forces while denying the same to our adversaries.
And doing so under stressing conditions of crisis and conflict requires a purpose-built organization, tailor-made with the institutions, the equipment, the tactics, the training, the warrior ethos required to use military force to control the space domain. In other words, it requires a space force. Without this mission, we might not be so different from any other space agency, a collection of talented individuals doing good work for the government. Admittedly, we’d have snazzier uniforms than them and a deep love of acronyms. But that’s really the difference between the Space Force and others. With this mission, everything changes. The way we think, decide and act, our doctrine, our organizing principles, our equipment, our processes, everything. Because it’s not enough to just deliver services from orbit anymore, it’s not enough to monitor health and status in a benign environment, to design satellites to last in the harsh environment of space. While this is still necessary, it’s no longer sufficient. We must be ready to contest and control our domain to overcome threats and outwit a thinking opponent, to build our systems to withstand a determined adversary. In short, to be space-minded warfighters.
Space superiority is the reason that we exist as a service and the vagaries of warfighting must inform everything we do if we’re going to succeed. So if you want to understand why the Space Force has been making so many changes since its establishment, well with new responsibility comes new requirements. And believe me, I hear it all the time. Other senior leaders will say, “Hey, the Space Force has so many things going on. We need to catch our breath. Why can’t we just slow down, wait a while, consolidate some of our gains?” And I really do wish it was that easy. I get it, I do.
But the answer is right there. The Space Force we have is still not the Space Force we need. We’ve come a long way, but I think we can all acknowledge that there’s still work to be done. We’ve been called up to the major league. We can’t get away with using minor league gear or little league tactics. And to complicate matters, we need to play a game tonight while keeping one eye on the World Series down the line. In other words, we need to conduct day-to-day operations while we prepare for the high-end fight. Everything we’re doing, every new initiative, every project, every task is designed to get us where we need to go while threading that needle. And I’ve spoken on many of these things before, but let me highlight it just a few examples through the lens of space superiority.
If we’re going to be agile enough to outthink and outsmart our opponents, then we’ve got to maximize unity of command within our mission areas. So we created integrated mission deltas, which combine operations, capabilities development and sustainment to enhance the delivery of combat effects. They empower mission owners with the authority and resources they need to gain and sustain readiness. We started small with just two IMDs, but we just activated two more and we’ll be standing up more right behind those. Likewise, we’re working hard to formalize systems deltas which focus acquisition activities within mission areas to further enhance delivery and collaboration. Paired together, IMDs and system deltas will create a more effective responsive feedback loop between capability delivery, employment and sustainment. But if those IMDs are going to create and generate combat-credible forces, then they need to carve out the time to allow for advanced threat-based training. So we designed a force generation process to account for reconstitution of our force elements to deliberately create space for the training needed for the high-end fight.
Likewise, we consolidated the efforts to build our operational test and training infrastructure, providing an O-6 level focus and expertise to the acquisition of a modern space test and training capability. But if our combat-credible forces are going to effectively employ the mission command required for complex and variable operations, then we need leaders with a broad awareness of all the disciplines of space power. So we created the officer training course which provides 12-month initial skills training for new officers just to lay these foundations so that once they graduate, junior officers will have the baseline understanding of all disciplines needed for effective mission operations. In the future, regardless of their career path, all officers will have the training and experience to speak fluently and engage collaboratively across all essential functions of U.S. Space Force missions.
The future vision is that Guardian leaders in acquisition roles will have operations credibility and Guardian leaders in operations roles will have the credibility to deliver combat capability. But if Guardians are going to integrate Space Force capability into the joint force by design, then we need to expand and normalize our touch points with the combatant commands. So we created component field commands to align service forces under each combatant commander. We have already established six components in Space Command, Indo-Pacific Command, Europe and Africa, Central Command, Korea and Japan. The remainder of these critical units are deep into the planning phase and will be coming soon.
Finally, if the integrated capability we provide to the joint force is going to remain relevant, then we need a long-term institutional mechanism to ensure our technical advantage. So we’re proposing Space Force’s Futures Command to take responsibility for the design of the objective force to envision, validate, and describe in detail the force we need to win wars and maintain our space advantage into the future. Our idea is for this command to bring together the best and brightest among our cyber, intel, space, acquisition experts. It will ensure that we are identifying and investing in innovation, leveraging the tremendous technological advancements we’re seeing in the commercial sector. Taken together, all of these initiatives lay the groundwork for a space force with a capacity to win space superiority and secure our nation’s interests in, from, and to space.
And now like the blocks in an arch, each of these efforts builds upon one another distributing the load of transformation as we bridge from the Space Force we have to the one we need for tomorrow. And the keystone in that arch, the thing that holds it all together are the Guardians. It’s you. But that means that our efforts are putting a particularly heavy strain on you. So I want to speak very honestly with you here. We’re building an incredibly complex system and it takes time to get everything just right. I’m not going to stand here and pretend we have all the details of these initiatives perfectly planned prior to implementation. My experience is that if you wait until you have it perfectly planned, you never get to execution and when you do, the plan is somewhat obsolete.
So going fast means finding a minimum viable product. It means sketching out a vision and then adding details as you learn. It means adapting the plan to make it better through experience. Change is never easy, but I promise you it’s vital and we need it. This is the challenge we face. It’s a generational challenge. Transform into a warfighting service now. The nation needs us. The enemy’s not waiting. We must succeed. We will succeed because so much is riding on our success. As an ancient proverb goes, “Time isn’t free, but it is priceless. You can’t own it, but you can use it. You can’t keep it, but you can spend it. And once it’s lost, you can never get it back.”
For that reason, at the headquarters level, we’ve leaned forward, we’ve accepted risk by rolling many of these initiatives out as soon as possible. Our plan is to go fast, iterate, improve, because we think that’s the quickest way to learn. And that can be particularly challenging for those who are holding it all together, folks down in the trenches doing the day-to-day operations and activities who don’t have all the context or even the time to understand the entire service-level picture. And without that understanding, all these things we’re doing seem like change for change’s sake. I get it. But please fight the urge to judge the effort by the amount of work it requires, the degree of change necessary or even short-term results. Nothing of consequence is built without these kinds of sacrifices and we are truly building something of consequence.
My hope is that by sharing all of this with you, by explaining that space superiority is our prime imperative, that we do not yet have the service we need, that you might understand a little better while we are asking you to do so much so quickly. It will get better and it will be worth it. These are the growing pains, but the alternative is so much worse. Fighting against a near-peer threat that has unfettered access to space, while we do not is a recipe for death and destruction. Even in a stalemate where both we and our adversary retain space power, there will be an unacceptable cost in American blood and treasure. It is our job to make sure that doesn’t happen.
So our only way forward is to change and keep changing, but rebuilding ourselves from the ground up was never going to be easy. For now, all I can do is say thank you for what you’ve done to get us where we are today and to tell you that our nation needs us to keep going, but where are we going? How are we going to get there? Precisely. We talk about space superiority, about the initiatives designed to help us achieve space superiority, but how exactly are we going to achieve it? The answer to that lies in our newest core function: space control. Domain control is the special province of warfighters, a unique responsibility that only military services hold. It is the thing that distinguishes the Navy from the Merchant Marine and the Air Force from Southwest Airlines. It is the purpose of the Space Force to achieve space superiority, then space control is the tool by which we do so.
Admittedly compared to our other core functions of global space operations and assured access to space, space control is a new function for our fledgling service. And it’s my number one priority whenever I speak to executive and legislative leaders because we currently don’t have the resources to perform it as effectively as the joint force requires. Put simply, space control encapsulates the mission areas required to contest and control the space domain, employing kinetic and non-kinetic means to affect adversary capabilities by disruptions and degradation, even destruction if necessary. It includes things like orbital warfare, electromagnetic warfare, its counter space operations can be employed for both offensive and defensive purposes at the direction of combatant commands.
Historically, we’ve avoided talking too much about space control, but why would you have a military space service if not to execute space control? If we’re going to truly embrace our status as space warfighters, then we need to also embrace our fundamental responsibility for space control. Now shortly, we will publish Space Force Doctrine Document 1. As the name implies, this release articulates the doctrinal concepts that will shape the Space Force moving forward, space control among them. And if you take away one message from my remarks today, then let it be that the Space Force will do whatever it takes to achieve space superiority. And if you take away one request from my remarks, then let it be to read Space Force Doctrine Document 1 as soon as it’s available. Think about what it means to you, your daily activities, discuss it with your fellow Guardians because this is only the step in a much longer journey.
The first war in space has yet to be fought, but doctrine is inherently backwards looking. So our only option is to use logic, reason and training as a substitute for practical combat experience and there are bound to be things that we miss. As we continue to learn and grow, we will publish more doctrine and very likely revise what we’ve already released in Space Force Doctrine Document 1. That will always be our starting point though.
But what about our work today? We can’t lose sight of the fight tonight because we’re preparing for tomorrow’s conflict. So where should we focus in the interim? Hopefully this won’t be a surprise to this audience of warfighters, but my answer to that question is always going to be readiness, understanding it as well as enhancing it. When astronaut Rusty Schweickart came back from space, he said this about getting ready for the Apollo 9 mission. “It involves simulation after simulation, going through launch after launch, memorizing all those millions of procedures.” Millions of procedures. That seems like a lot. “Memorizing all those millions of procedures required to save your life and the life of your fellows if you run into a problem. You spend another 100 hours or more in practicing and thinking about everything that could possibly happen, everything that can break, can malfunction, can go wrong so that when the time comes, you don’t have to go through that debate, but you carry out what you’ve already decided. These are mission rules. They will keep you alive or will kill you if you don’t know what you’re doing.”
Now that’s what readiness looks like. Preparing today for the crisis tomorrow, putting in the work now to make sure that we come out on top in whatever challenge we face. And in the Space Force, that means we need to sharpen every one of the components of readiness. Personnel, training, equipment, and sustainment. If any one of these elements is lacking, then our readiness as a whole is impacted. But let’s get one thing clear. While headquarters supports your readiness, at the end of the day, when push comes to shove, it doesn’t own it. You do, the Guardians in the field. That’s how it has to be. Sure headquarters are responsible for advocating for more people, money, setting policy, enabling your success. But headquarters is not on crew. We’re not living the mission day to day. We are not making sustainment decisions. The space staff simply does not have the same level of understanding, awareness or daily insight to direct the activities for readiness.
We know space superiority is an end goal. It’s the headquarters’ job to provide the means to achieve it, to create the environment, set the conditions for victory, but it’s the job of the warfighters in the field to define the way to connect the two. What do I mean by that? Let’s take training as an example. I told you that advanced threat-based training is critically important, but I also told you that our operational test and training infrastructure effort is still only part way through acquiring modern simulators and training capabilities. So we have a disconnect between the plan and the operational reality, between the end and our means. That’s where I need your help. I would love to wave a wand and give every crew advanced virtual reality trainer that incorporates the latest and greatest threat data, but I can’t.
So does that mean the solution is to shrug, mark it red, move on? Absolutely not. In the field, you’re going to have to figure it out because that’s what you do because that’s what the nation needs you to do. If advanced training is nothing more than a whiteboard, whiteboard sessions talking about tactics and threats, that’s fine. It’s not perfect, but it’s better than nothing. And while something better works its way into the field, we have to do what we can. Now at the headquarters level, we will not be satisfied with that solution and we’ll continue to push hard to develop the systems that enhance our ranges, simulators, training venues. But you cannot afford to wait on the headquarters to deliver the better answer.
So how about equipment? Every squadron has an equipment table that lists the critical tools it needs to accomplish its mission. Are we confident that every table is accurate, complete? Does it include things like infrastructure, the power, the cooling we need to actually employ our weapons systems? If not, why not? I’m willing to bet there are things we should be funding or at least accounting for in our budget that we aren’t. The headquarters can’t fix problems it doesn’t know about. And as much as I would like to, I’m not on the ops floor anymore to find out. And readiness is not just a matter for operators by the way. Acquirers, don’t think I’ve forgotten about you. Equipment and sustainment, half the elements of readiness fall inside your job jar. I need the skills you bring to the table to ensure our systems are up to speed. Are you tracking deficiencies sufficiently to predict equipment failure? Do delivery schedules meet expected timelines? Are systems secured from changes in the cyber threat environment?
Every Guardian is a warfighter regardless of your functional specialty. And every Guardian contributes to Space Force readiness. Whether you built the gun, pointed the gun, pulled the trigger, you are a part of a combat capability. That’s what it means to put on the uniform in a military organization. And we all need to take pride in our roles.
I will continue to spend every chance I get telling our nation’s senior leaders that we need more people, more money, more policy support, and based on every engagement I’ve had, they are committed to helping us. But it won’t be tomorrow. Until that help arrives, I need Guardians in the field to find a way. This is a partnership. The headquarters will drive everything it can from the top down, but I need you to meet us from the bottom up. And I’m confident there will come a day where we finally put the institution’s processes in place to take the heroics out of our daily activities. But until then, I need your ideas, I need your effort. If headquarters can help, let me know. If there’s a Space Force policy we need to change or something we need to do differently, I want to hear about it. The caveat is that whatever we do, it has to move us closer to the end, to our ultimate goal of space superiority and performing our role in the joint force.
So long as that remains true, I’m willing to take risk and try new things because I know that old processes don’t always yield new results. You may not believe me, but I remember what it was like to be a junior officer. No smiling. I saw you down there, Wilsbach. I remember what it was like to be a junior officer trying to get things done in spite of all the stuffy senior leaders who just didn’t get it. Now, I’m one of those senior leaders. You’ll notice I didn’t say stuffy. But I know I’m out of touch with the daily life on the front line. If there’s one thing I hope we can agree on it’s this: space superiority is our core mission. And I need your help to evolve the service so it can deliver.
Thankfully, I’ve got a room full of warfighters listening. They’re listening to me today and they understand the challenge. They’re going to pass it along to their colleagues back at home, and I never get tired of saying this. It’s you, the Guardians that are the Space Force’s single greatest resource. We have so many brilliant minds powered by commitment to service, and I appreciate every day, and I’ll never take that for granted.
Things are probably going to get a lot harder before they get easier, but I choose to believe we have the strength to get through them. That’s what we signed up for. The challenge, the call to duty. That’s what it means to live and work in the greatest military the world has ever seen, to be warfighters regardless of the uniform we wear or the job we hold. So let’s embrace it. Let’s make the most of it. I assure you, when it’s all said and done, when you hang up the OCPs for the last time, you will be proud. You’ll be proud because you did something hard, you did something of consequence, and you built a service that this nation needs. Thank you. Semper Supra.