Foreword by Jerry Drew

Foreword

Jerry Drew, Military Space Operations Expert and Theorist

While the casual observer may not have noticed the elevation of United States Cyber Command to an independent combatant command in 2018 or the establishment (or rather, the reestablishment) of United States Space Command in 2019, these changes within the Department of Defense carried profound significance. The new organizational structures, each headed by a four-star general directly reporting to the Secretary of Defense, reflected a deeper realization that had been percolating in national security circles for a long time: the U.S. military, although cripplingly dependent on satellites and computer networks, needed to advance its thinking and its practice in these areas in order to field a joint force capable of fighting and winning in the twenty-first century.

Such advances, however, are incremental, especially in a military as large as that of the United States. To further compound the challenges of change, many military practitioners and civilian security experts still consider space and cyber as esoteric disciplines. Activities in these domains clearly enable land, air, and maritime operations but in a way that is often difficult to understand and often more difficult to explain. And although the national security space community has been engaged in an effort to provide these explanations since its inception, military space forces are now in the position of not just enabling operations in other domains but of playing an expanded role in integrated military operations with the rest of the joint force.

Under the direction of Professor Randall Nichols, Kansas State University has published a series of six textbooks that significantly contributes to the goal of explaining modern, multi-domain security activities. To date, the series has garnered more than 50,000 downloads and is averaging about 1,000 new downloads each month. In this installment, a group of fifteen dedicated experts advances the series into the realm of space operations—a discipline within the larger field of security studies that has consumed the past twelve years of my professional life. I could not be more grateful for their efforts. It is hard to imagine more experienced and dedicated professionals than the ones who have spent the past two years of their lives putting together this textbook, yet I know that similar groups are working around the world on problems of equal value to our nation, and the timing could not be better. Indeed, with China’s rapid military expansion and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine last spring, the sense of urgency among the security community seems to have reached a level only surpassed in recent memory by the tragedy of September 11, 2001.

But the times have changed over the past twenty years. As the Biden administration’s Interim National Security Strategic guidance makes clear, the United States is no longer an undisputed world power, transregional problems abound, and “America’s fate is inextricably linked to events beyond our shores.”[1] To prepare for these challenges, graduate-level students and researchers require an in-depth treatment of the most technical aspects of modern, multi-domain warfare, including orbital warfare, cyber operations, unmanned aerial systems, unmanned underwater vehicles, hypersonic weapons, and how these capabilities shape the contemporary security environment. Indeed, if the phrase “Rise of the Machines” may still ring a bit histrionic, the on-going conflict in Ukraine provides at least some insight into what the conflicts of the future will entail: rapidly evolving drone warfare, mesh network communications, the criticality of the information environment—all underpinned by satellites, servers, and the electromagnetic spectrum. Perhaps more than any other nation, the United States military depends upon the technological advantages achieved by such systems. To deter our adversaries, and to defeat them, if necessary, technology is indispensable, but the knowledge of how to employ that technology is vital. War is still a human endeavor, and humans must carry the necessary knowledge.

In writing of the German General Heinz Guderian, British historian B.H. Liddell Hart observed that in the annals of military history, “Innovators have rarely had the chance to put into practice themselves the theories they have expounded.”[2] In the modern world, however, rapid innovation and implementation, underpinned by soundly developed theory, will be critical for future battlefield success. Because of the availability of advanced technologies like drones, the fluidity of the cyber and electromagnetic environments, and the hyper-transparency offered by space systems, the innovators must, at all possible times, be prepared to apply what they have learned as expeditiously as possible. The side that innovates with more creativity and at the proper level of complexity will achieve marked advantages. It is to that end that this textbook—and this entire series of textbooks—aims to contribute, and it is your responsibility, dear reader, to advance your particular fields by building upon the knowledge and experience of others. The military establishment needs your help, and such contributions could not be more important for the future of the free world.

As the authors of this text ably demonstrate, however, the future is not all (or possibly not even mostly) one of conflict. Warfare happens to be the artistic medium of greatest concern to me, but the same technologies that are vital to our security also provide new opportunities to advance agricultural sciences, to mitigate the effects of natural disasters and climate change, and to build a cislunar economy that promises abundant economic benefits and lays the cornerstone of humankind’s expansion across the solar system. In other words, like radios, rockets, satellites, and cell phones, the technologies described in this series are often dual-use, and when the time is appropriate, they must be used appropriately. Just as our forebearers have often wished to beat their swords into plowshares, it is my sincere hope that our children will turn their hyperspectral cameras away from the enemy and use the very same reconnaissance drones to determine the most efficient placement of synthetic fertilizers. The future is always scary, but as I write this, the Artemis I launch is pending, and there is good reason to hope for a future built more on cooperation than on conflict. Good luck out there!

Jerry Drew                                                                              September 3, 2022