DoD Memo Signals Shift to Prioritize Counterspace
A recent memorandum from the Secretary of Defense on Army Transformation and Acquisition Reform includes a critical directive: prioritize counterspace investments. This signals a fundamental shift in how the Army must prepare for future battlefields, where seamless integration across multiple domains is essential.
Why Army Counterspace?
The move isn’t just about recognizing the importance of space; it’s about ensuring the Army can operate effectively even when adversaries target U.S. reliance on space-based systems. From GPS jamming to satellite communication disruption, these threats are already a reality.
Unique Army Approach
Despite the existence of the Space Force, the Army’s counterspace approach is distinct. While the Space Force focuses on achieving space superiority, Army counterspace capabilities are tailored to support ground maneuver commanders directly. The key difference lies in their form factor: agile, scalable, expeditious systems co-located with ground forces.
Operational Requirements Drive the Need
The Army’s space vision directs the service to both integrate friendly space capabilities and interdict adversary space capabilities in support of ground commanders. This includes countering satellite communications, surveillance, reconnaissance, and navigation warfare operations. These activities demand well-trained personnel equipped with the right authorities and tools to ensure U.S. land dominance.
Multidomain Task Forces and Theater Strike Effects Groups
Currently, forward-deployed Army multidomain task forces integrate space, cyber, and electronic warfare capabilities to disrupt enemy defenses. By 2028, theater strike effects groups will complement these task forces as the Army’s premier space formations. These units must be agile, scalable, mobile, and supported by flexible command structures to maneuver with ground forces, protect them, and enable decisive wins in contested environments.
Not Redundant, but Complementary
The Army’s focus on expeditionary counterspace formations and systems is crucial. Army aviation provides close air support to enable the land component, but it doesn’t aim for air superiority. Similarly, Army counterspace capabilities aren’t intended to achieve space superiority; they are purpose-built to support ground maneuver units.
Scalable and Distributed
Army counterspace programs are adopting smaller form factors for greater distribution. This approach aligns with how each military service develops counterspace capabilities tailored to its unique needs, similar to counter-unmanned aerial system capabilities.
Defining Roles and Responsibilities
The Space Force Chief of Space Operations emphasizes that space control is the mission that drove the creation of the Space Force. Space control enables the Space Force to achieve space superiority through a range of effects, from temporary disruptions to permanent destruction of targets.
Overcoming Interservice Rivalry
The joint force should embrace healthy competition rather than interservice rivalry. The early days of the U.S. space program serve as a good example of how competition can drive innovation.
The Way Forward: Normalizing Counterspace
Modern warfare ignores artificial domain boundaries. All services operate from land-based installations and must be prepared to defend them against multidomain threats. The joint force must normalize counterspace capabilities across all services.
Key Actions for Defense Leadership and Congress:
- Reduce Classification: Encourage services to write counterspace requirements at the minimum classification level. The Army is embracing the new space policy and encouraging others to do the same.
- Common Terminology: Codify common counterspace terminology and lexicon in joint doctrine.
- Recognize Space Force’s Focus: Understand that the Space Force’s creation was focused on space superiority, not a space monopoly. Just as the Air Force’s establishment didn’t eliminate Army aviation, the Space Force’s existence doesn’t diminish the need for Army counterspace.
- Accelerate Funding: The Pentagon must accelerate funding for all service-specific counterspace programs. The Army’s mobile, expeditionary systems fill capability gaps that strategic-level systems cannot address.
An Operational Necessity and Strategic Imperative
The Army’s counterspace investments represent a necessary evolution in military capabilities. Ground commanders cannot wait for strategic-level responses when facing space-enabled threats. These capabilities will complement Space Force systems, providing tactical-level protection that strategic systems cannot deliver. The joint force must embrace this level of multidomain integration to maintain a competitive advantage. The Secretary of Defense’s directive to prioritize Army counterspace investments acknowledges this strategic necessity.
