11 ms·

Space Force launches new intelligence unit: Congress voices concerns over growth

94 points by Trouble_007 4y ago

visviva 4y ago
Suspicious juxtaposition of two separate stories (new unit established and concerns about growth), especially when considering that "Space Delta 18 (NSIC) is comprised of two units originally activated 15 April 2008 within the Air Force’s first Space and Missiles Analysis Group." [1] [1] https://www.spoc.spaceforce.mil/About-Us/Fact-Sheets/Display/Article/3065435/space-delta-18 https://www.spoc.spaceforce.mil/About-Us/Fact-Sheets/Display...
deleted 4y ago
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imwillofficial 4y ago
As the space force still reports to the Air Force, and the NGA and NRO exist, I don’t see the need for yet another intel unit just to have one
- StopHammoTime 4y ago
  Should the Marines get rid of their intelligence units since the Navy has them already? P.S. I don't mean this facetiously: what I meant specifically was - what is the bar for maintaining an independent Intelligence apparatus with this opinion? Do we consider a Secretary/Department to be the cutoff? I'm of the opinion that if the two deviate enough, then there is no reason for them to be conjoined.
  - markdown 4y ago
    > then there is no reason for them to be conjoined. What about, the worst attack on US soil might have been avoided if different agencies had shared data?
    - burlesona 4y ago
      The counter to that is what if one agency detects an attack that no other noticed because the culture and practices of that agency diverge from the others in a way that turns out to be positive. There are both benefits and costs to centralization and standardization. We don't want too much taxpayer-funded redundancy, but some redundancy can be a good thing.
    - anikan_vader 4y ago
      >> the worst attack on US soil. I think it is pretty strong to suggest that 9/11 was the worst attack on US soil ever without further justification. During the Battle of Gettysburg, for example, more than 7,000 soldiers died after Lee's army attacked the US army. The Attack on Pearl Harbor might also be in contention, depending on how severely you rate the crippling of the US Pacific Fleet.
      - mc32 4y ago
        I think you're right, Pearl Harbor was a major attack but it also had aspects of 9/11 in that there were major intelligence failures. This underscores the need for better more effective military intelligence.
        robonerd 4y ago
        An attack 80+ years ago does not underscore the need for any reform today, nor for that matter does an attack 20+ years ago. Not unless you think nothing has changed between then and now, which would be silly. Introspection and reform after both those attacks happened years ago. It may be the case that we do need additional reform today, but that isn't evidenced by attacks which occurred generation[s] ago.
    - chrisseaton 4y ago
      > if different agencies had shared data Do you think they're not sharing data? Why? Different agencies is about different collection techniques and domains.
- icegreentea2 4y ago
  This Space Force unit is being formed by transferring over space-based responsibilities that the Air Force use to own. This is not creating new capabilities or new units per se. The responsibilities transferred are about gathering and delivering intelligence on enemy space capabilities and enemy counter-space capabilities - which is not the strict purview of NGA/NRO either.
- colechristensen 4y ago
  One would assume that this is a step into consolidating some other things. The whole idea for a separate space force must have been that enough things were being done to merit a completely separate structure, doing this properly would entail a transition where new things were created to absorb the missions of existing fragmented space-focused resources. In other words some of the missions of AF, NGA, NRO, etc. will probably get offloaded to Space Force.
Barrin92 4y ago
as a non-American not familiar with how these structures work, is there a particular reason why these institutions are grouped by domain rather than by function, i.e. why so many branches seem to have their own intelligence agencies, rather than say, combine the intelligence agencies themselves? It seems very redundant and complicated to share information.
- chrisseaton 4y ago
  You explained it yourself - "grouped by domain". Gathering intelligence in the ground human domain is obviously different from gathering intelligence in the space photography domain.
- newaccount2021 4y ago
- no_circuit 4y ago
  Likely domain-specific knowledge for intelligence gathering. But there probably are also embedded human/political counter intelligence members from another intelligence agency to protect the branches.
- icegreentea2 4y ago
  There a few different ways to slice your question, but one thing to consider is that there are very different "types" of intelligence "agencies/units". If we use the broad definition of intelligence which might be something like "gathering and analyzing information to provide guidance to decision makers", and then label any group capable of information gathering and/or analysis as an "intelligence agency/unit", then you can see why they'd appear to proliferate everywhere. Everyone with executive agency wants their own analysis capability. And everyone with executive agency probably wants their own gathering capabilities as well. And all for pretty reasonable seeming reasons. Technical specialization, time/latency/bandwidth considerations, risk tolerance. There are lots of reasonable reasons why specialization and localization makes sense. Now the challenge obviously is to make sure you balance that against waste in resources, stuff getting lost in the shuffle, and straight up political infighting.
- 4y ago
motohagiography 4y ago
I used to joke that if you don't have air superiority, you just have permission. I'd change that by saying I would extend that to space, and it's not a joke anymore. If I weren't too old, would move to the US and enlist to join Space Force. It is really the most important place to be in the world right now. I have some familiarity with some of the problems they need to solve, and they are the only place in government seriously engaged in countering our actual existential threats. The only real fully existential physical threats to the US will come not from sea, air, or land, cyber, or biology where it is already well defended, but from space. The existence of a Space domain dilutes the integrity of a US ability to secure a physical perimeter in which it can exercise its sovereignty and from where it can project its power. Just in the next 50 years, near earth orbits are going to be full of self-defending orbital satellite and space faring vehicles providing economic resources back to nations on earth. Because of the physical distances and latencies in space, the only thing that secures those vehicles from each other (and therefore any commerce and national interest in space) is cybersecurity. Managing orbital and space faring traffic and securing access to key orbits that facilite whatever economics come out of them is essential. If an axis of China, Russia or and any other countries domainate space, you aren't free or sovereign when you need to ask their permission. This is on top of how our infrastructure needs to be resilliant to to solar events and even metorites. I'm glad this agency is starting. It's smart.
- rootsudo 4y ago
  This is an excellent perspective. I can imagine everything you wrote as growing pains and putting time in now would really help the agency's mission and challenge yourself to overcome/fix them. Outside the Netflix series, I really had no idea about Space Force.
  - motohagiography 4y ago
    Thanks! Check out the threads about post quantum crypto and NIST evaluating candidate standards. We're going to need it, because space is going to be full of largely autonomous/ML quantum and classical computers. The only way we keep peace on earth over space conflicts is by providing space vehicles with enough autonomy to defend themselves, while still being subject to terrestrial policy. At some point we figure out only sending our smartest people out into the void is probably unwise from an evolutionary perspective, and so then the drone swarms we have out there are going to be where machine learning, economics, policy and physics meet. The remote sensing and signals capabilities are going to drive a lot of research funding. On earth, the prevailing nation will necessarily be the one that succeeds at manufacturing at scale, and maths. May the odds ever be in your favour!
ARandomerDude 4y ago
> Delta 18 and the brand-new National Space Intelligence Center were officially commissioned late last month at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio. It will be staffed by nearly 350 civilian and military personnel. Meh. This looks more like a government re-org than a substantive change to me [1]. The National Air and Space Intelligence Center (NASIC) has been around for decades at Wright Patterson AFB. The earliest form of it goes back to 1951 [2]. In 1993, the National Air Intelligence Center (NAIC) added space to the list of things they cared about, forming NASIC. It looks like now space is being split off into its own group, so there will be NSIC, and presumably NASIC will go back to being NAIC. [1] I've been through a few DoD re-orgs. This is what they usually look like. [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Air_and_Space_Intelligence_Center#National_Air_Intelligence_Center https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Air_and_Space_Intelli...
mise_en_place 4y ago
Hopefully it doesn’t turn into Section 31.
poulpy123 4y ago
I remember Trump being mocked for creating the space force, but it seems useful enough to not have been disbanded
- seanw444 4y ago
  People mocked Trump for everything, regardless of how useful what he did was. Actually, CNN's news cycle still consistently has "Trump" in the title of multiple top-level articles. It's quite funny.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

94 points by Trouble_007 4y ago

Suspicious juxtaposition of two separate stories (new unit established and concerns about growth), especially when considering that "Space Delta 18 (NSIC) is comprised of two units originally activated 15 April 2008 within the Air Force’s first Space and Missiles Analysis Group." [1] [1] https://www.spoc.spaceforce.mil/About-Us/Fact-Sheets/Display/Article/3065435/space-delta-18 https://www.spoc.spaceforce.mil/About-Us/Fact-Sheets/Display...

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

imwillofficial 4y ago

As the space force still reports to the Air Force, and the NGA and NRO exist, I don’t see the need for yet another intel unit just to have one

StopHammoTime 4y ago
Should the Marines get rid of their intelligence units since the Navy has them already? P.S. I don't mean this facetiously: what I meant specifically was - what is the bar for maintaining an independent Intelligence apparatus with this opinion? Do we consider a Secretary/Department to be the cutoff? I'm of the opinion that if the two deviate enough, then there is no reason for them to be conjoined.
- markdown 4y ago
  > then there is no reason for them to be conjoined. What about, the worst attack on US soil might have been avoided if different agencies had shared data?
  - burlesona 4y ago
    The counter to that is what if one agency detects an attack that no other noticed because the culture and practices of that agency diverge from the others in a way that turns out to be positive. There are both benefits and costs to centralization and standardization. We don't want too much taxpayer-funded redundancy, but some redundancy can be a good thing.
  - anikan_vader 4y ago
    >> the worst attack on US soil. I think it is pretty strong to suggest that 9/11 was the worst attack on US soil ever without further justification. During the Battle of Gettysburg, for example, more than 7,000 soldiers died after Lee's army attacked the US army. The Attack on Pearl Harbor might also be in contention, depending on how severely you rate the crippling of the US Pacific Fleet.
    - mc32 4y ago
      I think you're right, Pearl Harbor was a major attack but it also had aspects of 9/11 in that there were major intelligence failures. This underscores the need for better more effective military intelligence.
      - robonerd 4y ago
        An attack 80+ years ago does not underscore the need for any reform today, nor for that matter does an attack 20+ years ago. Not unless you think nothing has changed between then and now, which would be silly. Introspection and reform after both those attacks happened years ago. It may be the case that we do need additional reform today, but that isn't evidenced by attacks which occurred generation[s] ago.
  - chrisseaton 4y ago
    > if different agencies had shared data Do you think they're not sharing data? Why? Different agencies is about different collection techniques and domains.
icegreentea2 4y ago
This Space Force unit is being formed by transferring over space-based responsibilities that the Air Force use to own. This is not creating new capabilities or new units per se. The responsibilities transferred are about gathering and delivering intelligence on enemy space capabilities and enemy counter-space capabilities - which is not the strict purview of NGA/NRO either.
colechristensen 4y ago
One would assume that this is a step into consolidating some other things. The whole idea for a separate space force must have been that enough things were being done to merit a completely separate structure, doing this properly would entail a transition where new things were created to absorb the missions of existing fragmented space-focused resources. In other words some of the missions of AF, NGA, NRO, etc. will probably get offloaded to Space Force.

Barrin92 4y ago

as a non-American not familiar with how these structures work, is there a particular reason why these institutions are grouped by domain rather than by function, i.e. why so many branches seem to have their own intelligence agencies, rather than say, combine the intelligence agencies themselves? It seems very redundant and complicated to share information.

chrisseaton 4y ago
You explained it yourself - "grouped by domain". Gathering intelligence in the ground human domain is obviously different from gathering intelligence in the space photography domain.
newaccount2021 4y ago
no_circuit 4y ago
Likely domain-specific knowledge for intelligence gathering. But there probably are also embedded human/political counter intelligence members from another intelligence agency to protect the branches.
icegreentea2 4y ago
There a few different ways to slice your question, but one thing to consider is that there are very different "types" of intelligence "agencies/units". If we use the broad definition of intelligence which might be something like "gathering and analyzing information to provide guidance to decision makers", and then label any group capable of information gathering and/or analysis as an "intelligence agency/unit", then you can see why they'd appear to proliferate everywhere. Everyone with executive agency wants their own analysis capability. And everyone with executive agency probably wants their own gathering capabilities as well. And all for pretty reasonable seeming reasons. Technical specialization, time/latency/bandwidth considerations, risk tolerance. There are lots of reasonable reasons why specialization and localization makes sense. Now the challenge obviously is to make sure you balance that against waste in resources, stuff getting lost in the shuffle, and straight up political infighting.
4y ago

motohagiography 4y ago

I used to joke that if you don't have air superiority, you just have permission. I'd change that by saying I would extend that to space, and it's not a joke anymore. If I weren't too old, would move to the US and enlist to join Space Force. It is really the most important place to be in the world right now. I have some familiarity with some of the problems they need to solve, and they are the only place in government seriously engaged in countering our actual existential threats. The only real fully existential physical threats to the US will come not from sea, air, or land, cyber, or biology where it is already well defended, but from space. The existence of a Space domain dilutes the integrity of a US ability to secure a physical perimeter in which it can exercise its sovereignty and from where it can project its power. Just in the next 50 years, near earth orbits are going to be full of self-defending orbital satellite and space faring vehicles providing economic resources back to nations on earth. Because of the physical distances and latencies in space, the only thing that secures those vehicles from each other (and therefore any commerce and national interest in space) is cybersecurity. Managing orbital and space faring traffic and securing access to key orbits that facilite whatever economics come out of them is essential. If an axis of China, Russia or and any other countries domainate space, you aren't free or sovereign when you need to ask their permission. This is on top of how our infrastructure needs to be resilliant to to solar events and even metorites. I'm glad this agency is starting. It's smart.

rootsudo 4y ago
This is an excellent perspective. I can imagine everything you wrote as growing pains and putting time in now would really help the agency's mission and challenge yourself to overcome/fix them. Outside the Netflix series, I really had no idea about Space Force.
- motohagiography 4y ago
  Thanks! Check out the threads about post quantum crypto and NIST evaluating candidate standards. We're going to need it, because space is going to be full of largely autonomous/ML quantum and classical computers. The only way we keep peace on earth over space conflicts is by providing space vehicles with enough autonomy to defend themselves, while still being subject to terrestrial policy. At some point we figure out only sending our smartest people out into the void is probably unwise from an evolutionary perspective, and so then the drone swarms we have out there are going to be where machine learning, economics, policy and physics meet. The remote sensing and signals capabilities are going to drive a lot of research funding. On earth, the prevailing nation will necessarily be the one that succeeds at manufacturing at scale, and maths. May the odds ever be in your favour!

ARandomerDude 4y ago

> Delta 18 and the brand-new National Space Intelligence Center were officially commissioned late last month at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio. It will be staffed by nearly 350 civilian and military personnel. Meh. This looks more like a government re-org than a substantive change to me [1]. The National Air and Space Intelligence Center (NASIC) has been around for decades at Wright Patterson AFB. The earliest form of it goes back to 1951 [2]. In 1993, the National Air Intelligence Center (NAIC) added space to the list of things they cared about, forming NASIC. It looks like now space is being split off into its own group, so there will be NSIC, and presumably NASIC will go back to being NAIC. [1] I've been through a few DoD re-orgs. This is what they usually look like. [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Air_and_Space_Intelligence_Center#National_Air_Intelligence_Center https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Air_and_Space_Intelli...

mise_en_place 4y ago

Hopefully it doesn’t turn into Section 31.

poulpy123 4y ago

I remember Trump being mocked for creating the space force, but it seems useful enough to not have been disbanded

seanw444 4y ago
People mocked Trump for everything, regardless of how useful what he did was. Actually, CNN's news cycle still consistently has "Trump" in the title of multiple top-level articles. It's quite funny.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]