The United States needs to engage Asia-Pacific partners, particularly in its protected military satellite communication (MILSATCOM) systems, as part of its “pivot” to the region, according to an analyst from a leading Washington think tank.
Todd Harrison, from the nonpartisan Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments (CSBA), said while it is great the Defense Department brought in international partners Canada, the Netherlands and United Kingdom for the Advanced Extremely High Frequency (AEHF) MILSATCOM program, the Pentagon should reach out to nations like Japan, South Korea and Australia for teaming arrangements.
“Bringing these countries in, maybe they would agree to host a payload on one of their satellites, or fund a hosted payload,” Harrison said on Sept. 19 as part of a George C. Marshall Institute panel on MILSATCOM in downtown Washington. “That would be a win-win situation for all of us. Save us money and give them capability they otherwise wouldn’t’ have and help our forces be more interoperable in the region.”
DoD’s 2012 defense strategic guidance emphasized strengthening the U.S. military presence in the Asia-Pacific region while shrinking the size of conventional ground forces as troops draw down from Afghanistan. The Pentagon’s AEHF program provides improved global, survivable, highly secure and protected communications capabilities, according to prime contractor Lockheed Martin [LMT]. DoD, in addition to launching its third AEHF satellite on the morning of Sept. 18, anticipates another significant milestone to take place in the next couple months when it will potentially perform terminal development testing with partner nations.
Harrison also said DoD’s MILSATCOM assets, at least the way they are being made today, don’t have the kind of protection they’ll need against future threats like different forms of jamming and cyber attacks. Earlier this year in his report, The Future of MILSATCOM, Harrison said U.S. MILSATCOM assets are vulnerable because the nation continues to assume that its space systems will not be attacked in conventional conflict. Harrison said, additionally, potential adversaries are not as reliant as the United States on space-based capabilities and do not have symmetric vulnerabilities, making traditional deterrence in space a difficult proposition.
An industry source said on Sept. 19 the commercial satellite industry generally agrees with Harrison’s statement about protection for the future and that industry is “very willing” to do what DoD needs to address real threats like interference. This could happen if DoD would show its commitment through partnership with industry, the source said, and would lead industry to move beyond today’s designs and technology to help counter current and future threats
Intelsat General Vice President of Engineering and Operations Mark Daniels told Defense Daily on Sept. 19 the company has been focused on how to manage anti-access, area denial (A2AD) threats, which can be countered by emerging innovations in anti-jamming capabilities for DoD. Daniels said, additionally, Intelsat General has addressed these challenges by boosting security–both at the information assurance level and at the physical terminals where the systems are operated–and is also working with the Pentagon to create backup plans if worse-case scenarios should occur.
Intelsat General, a subsidiary of Intelsat S.A. [I], provides satellite communications solutions for government, military and commercial customers.