A new construct for Air Force counterspace doctrine - Vortices

Air & Space Power Journal, Fall, 2002 by John Grenier

FEW PEOPLE WOULD argue with the suggestion that space operations, especially counterspace operations, will play an increasingly larger role in the Air Force's future. Unfortunately, Air Force counterspace doctrine is poorly developed and lacks detail. (1) This article provides a new construct for the service's counterspace doctrine by asking what counterspace should consist of and how its doctrine should be presented to war fighters. An examination of the current state of Air Force counterspace doctrine and a comparison with counterair doctrine reveals that (1) the Air Force has far to go in defining what counterspace is and should be and (2) counterspace and counterinformation are nearly indivisible, a fact that has profound importance for the future of space and information operations (IO).

The Air Force's existing counterspace doctrine is less than robust. Airmen gain their first familiarity with counterspace in Air Force Doctrine Document (AFDD) 1, Air Force Basic Doctrine. Designed to address overarching themes, AFDD 1 provides a rough guide to where counterspace--"those operations conducted to attain and maintain a desired degree of space superiority"--fits in Air Force operations. (2) It places counterspace among the Air Force's 17 air and space power functions--the service's broad, fundamental, and enduring missions. (3)

Both AFDD 1 and AFDD 2-2, Space Operations, the Air Force's space doctrine, note two subtasks within the counterspace mission: offensive counterspace (OCS) and defensive counterspace (DCS). (4) According to AFDD 1, OCS seeks to "destroy or neutralize an adversary's space systems or the information they provide at a time and place of our choosing through attacks on the space, terrestrial, or link elements of space systems." It also points out that war fighters conduct OCS to achieve five goals, commonly known as the "5Ds"--deception, disruption, denial, degradation, and/or destruction. (5) AFDD 2-2 expands upon the 5Ds structure found in AFDD 1, noting that OCS uses either lethal or nonlethal methods (the 5Ds) to target an adversary's space systems or third-party space capabilities that support an adversary. (5) As such, a significant disconnect exists within the doctrine. AFDD 1 rightly discusses the 5Ds in terms of goals, yet AFDD 2-2 muddles the meaning by addressing them as methods. Since doctrine demands consistent and precise terminology so as not to confuse its readers, this article considers the 5Ds as effects--the tactical-, operational-, or strategic-level outcomes (read "goals") that a military operation produces. (7)

According to both AFDD 1 and AFDD 2-2, DCS operations consist of active and passive measures to protect friendly space-related capabilities from enemy attack or interference. "The objective of active counterspace defense measures is to detect, track, identify, intercept, and destroy or neutralize enemy space and missile forces." Passive DCS involves designing survivability features in satellites and maneuvering satellites, as well as employing camouflage, concealment, and deception techniques to protect space assets. (8)

Readers familiar with air doctrine will recognize superficial similarities between counterspace and counterair doctrine. The latter, contained in AFDD 2-1, Air Warfare, divides the counterair mission into offensive counterair (OCA) and defensive counterair (DCA). Subsumed within OCA are surface attack, fighter sweep, escort, and suppression of enemy air defenses (SEAD). Like DCS, DCA includes both active and passive variants. AFDD 2-1 amorphously defines active DCA as using reactive air-to-air assets to destroy an attacking adversary's air and missile assets, while passive DCA uses camouflage, concealment, and deception, together with hardened shelters. (9)

Basing counterspace doctrine on a counterair model, however, leads to problems, the first of which emerges when counterspace doctrine tries to call out the tasks for OCS. Space has no equivalent to air's surface attack, fighter escort, sweep, and SEAD. Counterspace doctrine, therefore, lists the 5Ds as the methods for OCS. But, as noted above, the 5Ds are desired effects--not methods.

Second, the DCA-DGS comparison falls apart for both active and passive DCS. Because the Air Force lacks the capability to maneuver on-orbit satellite assets as easily as air platforms, active DCS based on an active DCA model does not work. As previously mentioned, AFDD 1 lists active DCS effects as detecting, tracking, identifying, intercepting, and destroying an adversary's space and terrestrial forces. These closely resemble the traditional air tasks of finding, fixing, targeting, tracking, engaging, and assessing, but, as will become clear below, they are not particularly useful. Basing passive DCS on the passive DCA model is more appropriate but still problematic. Because space assets are capable of variations in camouflage, concealment, and deception as well as hardening techniques, passive DCS mirrors passive DCA to some extent, but the devil is in the details.