Maj. Gen. Ed Vaughan [00:07:50] Yeah, I'll start with starting with iteration No. 3. So this is the fifth iteration we call them bolts. So this is Bolt 5. It's just the fifth time we've done this exercise. Sarting with No. 3, we've integrated allies and partners and we had Brazil in Bolt 3. Bolt 4 we actually brought in our NATO ally, Poland. And that was really a fantastic opportunity to get after National Defense Strategy objectives. As you look through the National Defense Strategy, you'll see allies and partners listed in there. I forgot what the word count was, but it's pretty high. And that just shows you the emphasis. We will never go to war alone. We're going to go to war fully integrated with allies and partners. And so that's what this exercise allows us to do. When you talk about the space mission, the United States is clearly the leader militarily in some of those capabilities. And many of the nations that want to participate and want to join with us are just starting to bring their space operations into fruition. And so that's where we are able to help develop those capabilities on their side appropriately, again, in coordination with Space Force, SPACECOM and others. But we're also able to give them an opportunity to see how our folks operate and what a professional space operation looks like.
Maj. Gen. John Harris [00:09:07] I'd like to add to that, that as as as each bolt advances, the exercise becomes more complex and more more advanced for the participants. So, so the learning that has happened from 1 to 5 has been pretty significant. And that's important because this exercise integrates not only the seven National Guard states that are supporting the sporting space, the Space Force, but also, as was mentioned, our our coalition partner, Brazil. And this is critical because you mentioned the National Defense Strategy, and we're all aware that the highest state of readiness in space is critical right now. And this exercise ensures that we, the National Guard, can continue to support this on a day to day basis and avoid any disruption in the high level of readiness that's critical for our space forces to maintain. So this exercise keeps them on the leading edge of their craft. It helps them hone their skills, it strengthens relationships. And as I mentioned, with each level of the exercise, it becomes more advanced. It makes our professionals better. And that's critical in today's environment because we cannot afford any interruption in the readiness of this capability.
Maj. Gen. Ed Vaughan [00:10:21] And Doug, if I could add one thing to that, please, and I appreciate General Harris kind of triggered my thought. On the 18th of July, Forbes magazine published an article written by Loren Thompson, who many of you may know. And it talked about electromagnetic warfare and lessons from Ukraine. So I started this job little over a month ago. And before that, though, I was the deputy director for security cooperation in space at the United States European Command. One of my responsibilities was space integration into the Ukraine fight from a combatant command perspective. And just looking at Loren Thompson's article and again, I really appreciate the fact that he wrote that and that Forbes published it. It brings to the forefront one of several critical mission sets that are that will be primarily fought in the space domain, and that's electromagnetic warfare. That's one of the things where the National Guard is absolutely out in front and working closely with Space Force to continue pushing that forward. So electromagnetic warfare, the electromagnetic interference on the battlefield, all the reports you see from Ukraine, various lessons you can we can probably write several big books on the lessons that come out of there. But there needs to be a big chapter on that electromagnetic environment. How do we fight through that air, sea, land, space and cyber?
Moderator (Deidre Forster) [00:11:46] Doug, do you have a follow on?
Doug Ware (Stars & Stripes) [00:11:51] The only thing I could think to ask as a follow up would be, I'm interested to hear more about the electromagnetic threats that you just mentioned. I haven't heard a whole lot about that, especially in relation to this exercise, because you may be just driving that just a little bit more so I can understand what kind of threat you're talking about when you mentioned those.
Maj. Gen. Ed Vaughan [00:12:09] Yeah, absolutely. And I'll I'll do it on wave tops. I'll use some examples that we might encounter on a daily basis. So if you look at the feedback and this is out in the public space, but it's not always kind of assembled together in an easily digestible way. As Ukraine employs against Russia, again, we're watching state on state warfare. It's not an exact match to an Indo-Pacific fight, but it gives us some glimpses into what state on state would look like. We've spent the last 30 years, obviously, in a different kind of fight. And so as we start to evolve and our national defense strategy has pivoted to kind of this this new fight as we start to evolve the way we do combined arms, the way we fight as a joint force, we have to look at these various domains. Electromagnetic warfare is a big part of that. We used to have a pretty well developed EW is what it was referred to capability in the Cold War because we were preparing for that state on state fight. And by preparing and having great capabilities, we're able to deter it. That's the same approach it is now, but slightly different environment. And so the electromagnetic warfare part of this has to do with the effectiveness of weapons. It has to do with communications, it has to do with maneuver, and it has to do with even the entire logistics trail. Everything is subject to jamming. Everything is subject to interference. Everything is subject to delay and degradation in that electromagnetic environment. If you look at some specific weapon systems that the Ukrainians are employing in the land domain, for example, those weapons, the ammunition involved, a lot of that might be GPS guided. And if you have a GPS guided precision weapon, then that is something that could potentially be subject to electromagnetic jamming, interference, degradation, for example. And so if you want to really maximize your resources, maximize your firepower, ensure that you're going to they hit the target you're going for, that has to be something you consider. And those are some of the missions that our folks get after to support the joint fight.
Maj. Gen. John Harris [00:14:07] That's an important point that General Vaughan made. This this domain we think of, we think of space as being space, but it literally, the effects literally go from surface to space. And one of the one of the beautiful things about Vulcan Guard about this exercise is is that it teaches our forces or they have the opportunity to rehearse and practice every aspect of this. And we can see we can truly see in real time the benefits of having National Guard troops in some cases at home station who can perform these duties and affect what's happening on ground somewhere around the world from home station. And so to provide that capability to the combatant commanders and in some cases in real time, in some cases, doing it today in real life is an incredible asset for our nation. And it's really impressive to see it in action here at Vulcan Guard.
Doug Ware (Stars & Stripes) [00:15:08] Thank you both.
Moderator (Deidre Forster) [00:15:11] Tom, do you have any questions for the gentlemen? If you're asking questions, you're on mute. Appears, not. Theresa Hitchens from Breaking Defense has joined us. I'm sure she would like to have a quick question or two with you guys. Theresa?
Theresa Hitchens (Breaking Defense) [00:15:38] I thank you. And I'm sorry I joined on late. I am at the SMD Conference down in Alabama in Huntsville, and I just got back to my hotel from there. I wanted to just note that that the person who spoke here today, Major General Morrissey from Spacecom, talked a lot about joint activities and combined activities, and I wondered if you guys might address how the Vulcan exercise fits in with kind of joint all, you know, practicing for joint, all domain. And maybe I don't know if there is actually any of your, your foreign colleagues that come to these. Maybe, maybe not. But I know you have the program the Guard has the program of outreach to their compatriots in different countries. So maybe you could address that issue and how you train for that.
Maj. Gen. Ed Vaughan [00:16:43] Hey, Theresa, first of all, I appreciate you connected with me on LinkedIn and I'm a big fan of your work, so I think I can say that. And I'm glad you're here today and I'm glad you're at SMD. We have one of our top innovators at SMD, probably in the crowd along with you. For an example to your question about jointness. General Morrissey is the J5 at Spacecom and he and I sat next to each other at Space Symposium back in April. At the time I was wearing my EUCOM patch, and so I was there on behalf of General Cavoli and he was there obviously on behalf of General Dickinson. And we were engaging with allies and partners. Exactly to the question you asked: How do we take these capabilities that we have on orbit, on the ground, but then transmitted through the space environment? And how do we apply those to the joint by ensure that it's jointly enabled? One of the things that we've done in this exercise to loop that back and General Morrissey passed on some very important guidance to us on how to align with what they're doing in Spacecom. And one of the ways we do that is, as you well know, the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, Space Force, all the services have some level of space capability. The Army has some systems out there, particularly in electromagnetic warfare, missile defense. The Marines have very innovative mobile light capabilities that can be used not just for their Marine Corps fight, but can also be applied to a broader joint fight. And so we've incorporated those elements into this exercise. In the cases where we have allies and partners, and this time we have our partner, Brazil, with us, what we we're careful to make sure that a level of discussion, the level of complexity is appropriate to their training objectives, also appropriate to security classification levels. And so that's that's something that we work through very deliberately in advance of the exercise. But once our Brazilian team show up and by the way, they have a virtual connection back to their space operations center in Brazil. And I got to say hi to those folks today back in in Brasilia. It's just a fantastic opportunity to dig into that. And at the tactical level, our operators are coming back with lessons that we then feed back through the system up to Space Command, up to Space Force and others that inform our TTPs, our techniques, tactics and procedures, and informs our strategy and plans going forward.
Theresa Hitchens (Breaking Defense) [00:19:05] Thank you for that. I appreciate it and I appreciate the kind words. With regard to you mentioned classification. And do you, I mean, is this something that you have that causes challenges for you? You know, I know that like General Saltzman and others, John Plumb, Secretary Plumb are working to try to figure out how to deal with the classification problem and allow better sharing with allies. But I just wondered if that's something that on a day to day basis, since you're working with folks like Brazil, that that it's it's a can you just address that and the challenges that might pose to trying to train together.
Maj. Gen. Ed Vaughan [00:19:46] And that's something ASD Plumb has mentioned last year, a little over a year ago. Wearing the EUCOM hat I was able to participate with him as we put together some points for National Security Space Strategy. And that became one of the overriding concerns. It is a challenge. We have highly classified things that we do. We have the United States has capabilities that no other country has. It's important in many cases to keep that appropriately handled. So it doesn't give our adversaries an advantage. And so when you have countries come in, whether it's Poland or Brazil or the U.K. or Canada, many of whom sit in some of our space operation centers, they understand, we understand, that we're going to work through the the classification levels, the classification systems. That has to be done, though, in a very deliberate manner. It's not as fast as some of us in operations would like. But there's a reason it's not that fast, because as you only get one chance to do it right, and we're we're going to make sure we do it right.
Theresa Hitchens (Breaking Defense) [00:20:48] Thank you. I appreciate it.
Maj. Gen. John Harris [00:20:52] I'd like to add to that if I could. I have to praise the the designers of this exercise for accomplishing what they have, in spite of in spite of those security challenges. Because as I mentioned earlier, each each bolt, each iteration of this exercise, the team and the players get better, the participants get better. And this is one of the things that this team has really done a great job of working through to ensure that in spite of those classification challenges that the training audience, the participants in the exercise, leave the exercise with with the learnings that they were intended to. So so the White Cell, the team that designed the exercise has done a fantastic job to make sure that our partners leave with the same training experiences as as our own soldiers and airmen as a result of this exercise. And I really can't praise them enough for all the effort work that went into doing that.
Moderator (Deidre Forster) [00:21:48] Thanks, sir. I believe that Tom is able to ask his question now. So we'll go to Tom with Military.com.
Tom Novelly (Military.com) [00:21:56] Hi. Can you hear me okay?
Maj. Gen. Ed Vaughan [00:21:57] Yes, we can hear you.
Tom Novelly (Military.com) [00:21:59] Okay, good. I was making sure my microphone was working. Sorry about that. Thank you so much for taking the time to do this. I really appreciate it. My first question is, I kind of wanted to get a sense of the people element of this. You mentioned at the beginning that more than 1,200 folks in the National Guard around the country have been performing these missions. How many people are involved in this operation, in this training exercise? And you said seven states. I was hoping you could clarify which states those are. And just wanted to get a sense of the scope of the number of people involved.
Maj. Gen. Ed Vaughan [00:22:37] So there's there, there. The great thing about space operations and the way it connects with cyber and and it and some of the others is that we have 35 people that are physically on hand that have shown up here. But the broader group of 1,200 across the National Guard and then the broader group of folks that are plugged in and observing and getting at the lessons, the actually the the impact and results of the training goes across hundreds of people.
Tom Novelly (Military.com) [00:23:06] Got it.
Maj. Gen. John Harris [00:23:07] And to follow on, there are seven states involved. Those states are New York, California, Florida, Colorado, Alabama, Hawaii and Ohio all have participants in this program. In addition to, as we mentioned, our partner nation, Brazil, who is who is actually physically on ground here also.
Tom Novelly (Military.com) [00:23:27] Excellent and a quickfire.
Maj. Gen. John Harris [00:23:29] Oh, by the way, by the way, that includes U.S. Space Force as an integral player in the event. That may seem obvious, but I think it needs to be said.
Maj. Gen. Ed Vaughan [00:23:37] Yeah, at the operational level, you really can't tell the difference between whether somebody has Space Force, Air Force, Army. In some cases, everybody's working seamlessly together.
Tom Novelly (Military.com) [00:23:49] Mm hmm. Mm hmm. Excellent. Is a quick follow up question, and I bring this up just because this is a massive exercise that you all are doing right now. It's involving so many different factors, you know, other partners outside of the country. You know, as we're seeing now with the premise of part time Space Force Guardians, as well as the push for the creation of a Space National Guard. I'm curious how that fight underpins what you all are doing right here in the sense that you've had to collaborate with a bunch of different states, you had to organize a bunch of different people and in the background, kind of the organizational structure of some of these units is being discussed at the highest national level. And this is something that that the Space Guard has spoken about for the last year has been this ongoing effort in Congress. So I'm curious if this, you know, during this exercise, would this exercise be complicated if, say, there were part time Space Force Guardians or if there was a formal Space Force Guard or Space National Guard unit, would that would that complicate what you're trying to do today?
Maj. Gen. Ed Vaughan [00:25:12] One thing I can I can comment about that. So we're we're aware that's obviously going on. The administration and Congress will work through that and figure out what's best for the country. Our task here and and to get to your point in these kinds of exercises, just highlight it. We want to make sure that whatever that longer term solution is, that's nothing new for the military to evolve the way we're structured appropriate to the next fight. But as we do that, we want to make sure that our forces have the highest level of readiness. They have the capabilities to conduct that warfight, particularly an Indo-Pacific warfight, as we talked about. And that's really where our focus is on war fighting and readiness.
Maj. Gen. John Harris [00:25:50] If I might follow on to that. For the participants in the exercise, that that that's seamless. But the discussion is an important one to have because as I mentioned earlier, that the risk of any interruption of readiness of this force would be very great for for our nation. So the Ohio, the Ohio National Guard and other National Guard states have been providing support to to space for over 28 years. So that experience is irreplaceable. And the transition from the Air National Guard assets to a Space National Guard would be almost seamless. What they're doing today, they would continue doing tomorrow regardless of the name tag on their uniform. And that's important. The alternative of transitioning facilities and personnel and systems to a complete Space Force and doing away with with these National Guard assets as National Guard assets would would be dangerous in a couple of ways. First of all, the decline in readiness as that transition happened would would be a risk to this country. The other thing is the costs would be pretty significant. The proposal to have a Space National Guard to simply transition the people doing the mission today to a Space National Guard tomorrow, as I mentioned, would be seamless and almost, almost, almost cost free. It would be a matter of changing name badges and signs, quite frankly. There seems to be misinformation that we'd have to create another bureaucratic structure to create a Space National Guard. That is absolutely not true. Absolutely false. Those people supporting this U.S. Space Force today would support the U.S. Space Force tomorrow simply under a different name badge. And there would not be not be additional structure created to do that.
Tom Novelly (Military.com) [00:27:41] Thank you very much.
Moderator (Deidre Forster) [00:27:44] Tom, do you have another question?
Tom Novelly (Military.com) [00:27:47] No, that'll be great.
Moderator (Deidre Forster) [00:27:49] Doug, do you have another follow up or Teresa?
Doug Ware (Stars & Stripes) [00:27:55] Yeah. Quickly, I'll just ask the Space defense and space operations is obviously one of the more rapidly changing components of the U.S. military. I was just curious as to what you both thought, what Vulcan Guard might look like ten years from now.
Maj. Gen. John Harris [00:28:14] I let the space guy answer that.
Maj. Gen. Ed Vaughan [00:28:15] So this is interesting because you have, so we're we want to make sure we capture General Saltzman, chief of space ops, his vision for the future, how this looks. General Dickinson, who is in the process of handing off space command, as well as the combatant commanders, as well as joint staff and others. So there's a lot of folks that participate in that vision. My opinion on what ten years from now would look like is that we would be a lot more connected globally with our allies and partners. And so this exercise would have a combination of in-person participation, as we're seeing now with Brazil. There's a virtual participation with their space ops center. I think you'd see that robust out. I think you would also see the exercise turn more into a rehearsal for specific scenarios. And that's nothing new for the military to use exercises to rehearse various hypothetical or expected combat scenarios. And we're starting to move towards that as we as we talk right now and do this exercise.
Maj. Gen. John Harris [00:29:18] I also I think that it's important to add that as this this domain becomes more congested and more contested, doing exercises like these in a distributed way. As General Vaughan mentioned, there are many participants in this exercise who are not geographically here on ground today. But the ability to do this in a in a distributed IT structured sort of way is is is the future. And I think that we're demonstrating here how this can be done in a very meaningful way. But I also believe that operationally, our space forces will be operating in a distributed way that that the need to mass people in a central location to perform a mission is one that not only puts them at risk, but also also becomes unnecessary, quite frankly, in this environment. So for our space forces to be able to operate in a distributed way from locations different from where the actual geographic combatant commander is, is something that we're going to see emerging pretty abundantly in the future and something I think is necessary for us as a country, not only because it enables us to engage our partners in a more meaningful way, but it also allows us to do it in a way that's affordable for our nation so that we can we can afford to maintain the force that we need to carry out these operations.
Moderator (Deidre Forster) [00:30:45] Teresa, we have time for one more question, if you have one.
Theresa Hitchens (Breaking Defense) [00:30:48] Actually, I do. Thank you. I appreciate it. I would like to ask about the about training again. And General Bratton has talked about, you know, trying to find ways to get people to do hands on training. You know, it's not like you can set up a training range in space, you know, and you don't necessarily want, you know, youngsters maybe flying satellites nearby active satellite. So. But I wonder if you might address the value of being able to do hands on training with with real assets as opposed to, you know, doing stuff in a simulator.
Maj. Gen. Ed Vaughan [00:31:27] Yeah. So there's a concept and Theresa, I know you've covered this before live virtual constructive, LVC, in a in a previous position I work in headquarters U.S. Air Force and had responsibility for part of that portfolio. And there are certain parts of our defense design, particularly when you're talking space, cyber and some of the higher end capabilities that we simply can't afford to operate kind of out in the open because that creates a real security risk when it comes to our adversaries. So those those elements of that have to be simulated or or constructed virtually. So the live virtual constructive model, especially for your readers who may not be familiar, is where you have an exercise. And we do one now in this part of it's called Virtual Flag. And Virtual Flag has a a version once per year where you have a lot of allies and partners come in and participate. Some of them fly in. And to General Harris's point, others commute virtually commute in from their countries. And that's the kind of model we're doing here, too. So General Bratton, as you referenced, the commander of Starcom, the Training and Readiness Command, and I think he's moving, he may be moving on to another position as well. But he and I discussed this at length and how we can plug in and and align what we're doing here with exactly what you talk about and give people those hands on opportunities. There are some on orbit assets that that present opportunities for us to give folks practice steering a satellite doing maneuver on orbit, that sort of thing. And so when you look at that and then I don't know if you've been following Lieutenant General Shaw's discussion about going forward, we need more ability to maneuver, which really kind of breaks with the old mold of fuel construction, conservation on orbit, that sort of thing. You're starting to see a perfect alignment. So live virtual constructive, Starcom looking at more opportunities for hands on and then General Shaw and some of the others who are really looking forward at what warfare and what operations on orbit are going to look like in the future. And I think we're in the sweet spot there with this exercise.
Theresa Hitchens (Breaking Defense) [00:33:36] Thank you very much. I appreciate it.
Moderator (Deidre Forster) [00:33:38] Thanks, everyone. That's all the time we have for today. Thank you. General Vaughan, General Harris, for your time. And thanks to the reporters for taking time out of your day today. If any of you have additional questions, please get them to the NGB-PA media team and we'll run down answers for you. A transcript of this roundtable will be posted on National Guard court mail later today. Have a great rest of your day. Goodbye.
Maj. Gen. Ed Vaughan [00:34:03] Thanks, everybody. Thanks for having me. Maj. Gen. John Harris [00:34:04] Thank you.