Working closely with allies and partners offers the Department of Defense an opportunity to build resilience and strengthen deterrence in an increasingly contested space domain. Senior leaders from several countries spoke to this issue at this week’s Space Symposium, a major annual convention for space leaders. Gen. Stephen Whiting, the commander of U.S. Space Command, invited Germany, France, and New Zealand to join Operation Olympic Defender, the U.S.-led multinational space operation. The discussion at Space Symposium demonstrates the mixed success of U.S. efforts to build relationships with allies and partners on space initiatives. There are entrenched organizational, regulatory, and practical challenges that limit cooperation, which will require sustained, high-level collaboration and change.
These challenges — and recommendations for action — are documented in Rand’s report “Allied by Design: Defining a Path to Thoughtful Allied Space Power,” published earlier this year. Organizational dynamics, including the multitude of offices in the department involved in allied issues, pose challenges, but that should not prevent the various U.S. entities from finding ways to work together to solve problems. The DOD and intelligence community have separate policies on sharing classified information with allies, which complicates cooperation. Recognizing that these are deeply rooted issues that require coordination between the DOD and intelligence community, our report proposed that the deputy secretary of defense and the director of national intelligence form a focused working group to address this topic.
The progress to date, as well as ongoing delays in revising intelligence community rules, suggest continued engagement at senior levels between DOD leaders and their Office of the Director of National Intelligence counterparts will be necessary to achieve interagency progress. The road to thoughtful allied space power is steep and requires commitment to make progress. The United States needs to be more transparent and consistent with allies and partners about the realistic prospects for cooperation.
