'Schriever War Game' begins this week

Air Force Space Command is poised to begin the ninth iteration of the "Schriever War Game," according to an announcement issued by the command this week.

The war game will take place at Schriever Air Force Base in Colorado Springs, CO, beginning Dec. 11.

Set in the year 2025, the war game "will explore critical space issues and investigate the integration activities of multiple agencies associated with space systems and services," according to the AFSPC statement, and will include about 200 military and civilian personnel from the United States, Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the United Kingdom.

The war game will have three objectives:

"1) identifying ways to increase the resilience of space that includes our Intelligence Community, civil, commercial and Allied partners;

"2) exploring how to provide optimized effects to the warfighter in support of coalition operations; and

"3) examining how to apply future capabilities to protect the space enterprise in a multi-domain conflict."

This year's scenario "depicts a peer space and cyberspace competitor seeking to achieve strategic goals by exploiting those domains," the AFSPC statement reads, adding: "It will include a global scenario with the focus of effort towards the European Command (EUCOM) Area of Responsibility. The scenario will also include a full spectrum of threats across diverse operating environments to challenge civilian and military leaders, planners and space system operators, as well as the capabilities they employ."

Inside the Air Force reported last month that the service and its allied partners have no shortage of strike forces around the globe, but they are still lacking in both cyber and intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance capabilities:

As the Air Force expands its partnerships outside traditional allies such as Australia and the United Kingdom, the service is also seeking new opportunities for cooperation in space and cyberspace, Maj. Gen. Lawrence Martin [the service's assistant deputy under secretary of international affairs] said at a Nov. 10 Air Force Association event. The initiative aims to fill gaps in command and control and ISR, which plagued coalition forces in Libya and more recently, in Syria.

In an effort to facilitate sharing among allies, the service has established space situational awareness agreements with eight countries, including Japan, Korea and Australia. The Air Force has also explored small, low-cost, rapid space-based solutions with nine countries through an operationally responsive space memorandum of understanding, Martin said.

The Air Force and its allies have already made concrete efforts in space and cyber. The service has partnered with Singapore to develop resilient computer systems capable of fighting network attacks and, along with Australia, the U.S. operates an Air Force-owned space surveillance telescope, Martin said. In August, the U.S. signed an agreement with Canada's armed forces which will allow the U.S. Air Force to host Canadian distress signal repeaters on next-generation GPS satellites.

In September, the Defense Department announced plans to establish a Joint Interagency Combined Space Operations Center (JICSpOC) at Schriever AFB:

The move follows a strategic review designed to maintain U.S. technological superiority in space, outlined in a June 23 speech by Deputy Defense Secretary Bob Work.

According to a Sept. 14 DOD press release, the new facility "will improve processes and procedures, ensuring data fusion among DOD, intelligence community, interagency, allied and commercial space entities" to better respond to growing threats to space capabilities.

The JICSpOC will "provide backup to the Joint Space Operations Center" at Vandenberg Air Force Base, CA, but is not designed to replace it.