Heather “Lucky” Penney: [00:00:00] Welcome to the Aerospace Advantage Podcast, brought to you by PenFed. I’m your host, Heather “Lucky” Penney, here on the Aerospace Advantage. We speak with leaders in the DOD industry and other subject matter experts to explore the intersection of strategy, operational concepts, technology, and policy when it comes to air and space power.

This week, it’s time for the Rendezvous. Our monthly look at what’s happening in Washington DC when it comes to air and space power, plus important national security trends that we should be watching around the globe. We’re recording this on Thursday, the 31st, so if world events have developed since then, we’ll catch that on the next episode.

And with that, I’d like to welcome Lazer Lazarski, one of our Washington Insiders, Laser.

Anthony “Lazer” Lazarski: Great to be back.

Heather “Lucky” Penney: And we’ve also got Lieutenant General Dave Deptula and Jen Reeves of our Mitchell team. Sir.

Lt. Gen. David Deptula, USAF (Ret.): Hey, good to be here, Heather.

Heather “Lucky” Penney: …And Boots!

Jennifer “Boots” Reeves: Always happy to be here. Thanks.

Heather “Lucky” Penney: Well, it’s great to have the team together. So Lazer, we’re gonna start off with you like we typically do to discuss what’s going on, on the hill.

The defense bills are [00:01:00] working their way through Congress. What are the main air power and space power items that you’ve been tracking?

Anthony “Lazer” Lazarski: Yeah, first and foremost, and I think all of us are, is looking at the top line for defense. Apart from reconciliation, we know what’s going on there, but is Congress going to increase, the base defense spending or keep us at or above the, inflation rate instead of the cut that we have right now?

And if you look on the house side, the House Appropriations Committee and the House Armed Services Committee essentially marked to the President’s budget. So we’re looking at a cut there, but the Senate Armed Services Committee under the leadership of Chairman Wicker and Ranking Member Reed, they increased defense spending by about 32 billion, dollars, which is just under a 4% increase that keeps us in pace with inflation. And right now as we’re talking the Senate appropriations Committee, subcommittee on defense, they’re marking up their bill and what we hear is it’s also gonna be an increase in defense spending, but I haven’t seen exactly how much [00:02:00] it’s gonna be. But I know that typically the Senate, Armed Services Committee and the Senate Appropriation Subcommittee on Defense are working very closely together.

So hopefully we’re gonna see somewhere up near, or at what the Senate Armed Services Committee increase the budget for and then going down, you know. I mean, these bills have a long way to go. So whatever we’re really talking about now, it’s gotta get through conference. We’re not gonna see any of this until the end of the year.

But what we’re seeing are certain trends. So we see the pay increase, 3.8%, pay increase. There’s other quality of life, there’s focus on innovation- unmanned systems, counter unmanned systems, munition stockpiles, which we’ve talked about before, nuclear monetization, and then the other big one, and this is gonna be probably the most difficult to conference, but in the House and the Senate Armed Services Committee, there’s acquisition reform.

And we’ve seen that many, many times before. But on the house side, you have the Speed Act, on the Senate side, you have the Forged Act, and so they’re gonna have to work those together. And they’re both doing [00:03:00] reform, but they’re doing it at slightly different ways. And there are many people that don’t like different bits or pieces.

So I think over August, or I know over August, they’re gonna try to work those together, so that they can figure out where we’re gonna go ultimately with this acquisition reform. But I do expect major, changes to acquisition. And then of course they’re taken and I would call, maybe General Deptula would disagree with me, but a small step to reverse the continue divest to invest trend that we’ve talked about on these podcasts. They’ve added funding for E-7s, prohibited accelerated retirement of the A- 10, they maintained, F-15s, 22s, Global Hawks, U-2s. They’ve increased, number F-35As, although it still stays below the 72 requirement and we want and then we’ve got B- 21, CCAs, F -47. So, there’s good stuff, but of course, this is General Deptula’s, but they haven’t fixed the pass through. So it’s still $51 billion passing through our budget. [00:04:00] But overall, while it does take steps, it doesn’t get us out of the hole we’re in and it still keeps us as the oldest and smallest force.

Heather “Lucky” Penney: Okay. Lazer, I really appreciate that rundown. So how do we differentiate what was part of the big beautiful bill versus the core defense budget?

Anthony “Lazer” Lazarski: That would be the million dollar question, or should we say the billion dollar question?

So this is the first time defense spending has been included in a reconciliation package. So at the very basic level it’s easy to differentiate -this funding came outta reconciliation, this funding came out of an appropriations bills. However, reconciliation funding and you’ve seen it.

They’ve sent out the guidelines or tables, whatever you ever wanna call it, very broad buckets of funding. While as we look in what we’re all used to, defense appropriations bills, those are funding line by line. But the issue is putting the two together to understand what overall spending is.

And I will promise you nobody has an idea of what that looks like. [00:05:00] Because on July 22nd, we had both Chairman Rogers and Chairman Wicker House and Senate Armed Services Committee, they sent a letter over to Secretary Hegseth and they said hey, here are the guidelines from us on what we want in reconciliation was written by the authorizers. And then, we want back from you on the 22nd of August, your spend plan, essentially.

What’s good about that is we’re gonna get a spend plan back from the Pentagon, and everybody’s been talking to each other, that’s positive, but we’ve got the appropriators are working, both House Appropriations, Senate Appropriations, and they’re at varying degrees. Senate appropriators for defense are marking up right now. So all of those are gonna have to probably get modified because what needs to happen is they need to understand what the Pentagon is gonna spend and what buckets, and then they’re gonna take on top of that to put the appropriations bills so that ultimately when you look at the strategic plan, you get an entire budget that is nice, balanced, and everything [00:06:00] fits.

So, it’s a little murky right now. But the good thing is we’re not gonna get this stuff done until the end of the year.

Heather “Lucky” Penney: Man. So boots, I’d like to get from your perspective, what space power items cut your attention in the bills. So do the various committees see things similarly or are, do they have different views?

Jennifer “Boots” Reeves: Okay, well it’s the two big words. Golden Dome, right? The $25 billion space-based missile defense effort. It truly is the standout. It’s probably the most ambitious space power initiative we’ve seen in years. Also there we’re seeing some big pushes for resilient constellations and commercial integration.

These are two things that we’ve been banding about for years that are important and they are important, so it’s happening. Now, I would say across the committees, there’s probably a broad agreement on priorities, but I do think there’s some tension around execution, the SASC is pushing hard for accelerated fielding, they’re leaning hard into prototypes and sort of [00:07:00] SDA style, acquisition methods. Right? Let’s get after it like right away.

The HASC, though, is looking for a little more oversight and some formal reporting requirements. Like they want deadlines for Golden Dome, they want concepts of operation, they want cost baselines, that kind of thing. And then our appropriators are looking for, a lot more oversight and some risk controls.

They’re concerned about ballooning RDT&E accounts. And it’s true, they’ve trimmed some wishlist programs to protect our core operations and personnel accounts actually as Laser just mentioned. But it’s very interesting, because with the FY 26 proposed budget floating around in various spaces, what’s very interesting is that the Space Force has asked for a much larger budget than they’ve ever had, 40 billion. And an interesting, very interestingly, 75% of that is actually, RDT&E. So, there’s a legitimate concern to at least be looking deeply into how the top line is being appropriated.

Heather “Lucky” Penney: Interesting. So General [00:08:00] Deptula, you drafted an op-ed about the dangers of relying on a one year boost to defense spending. So how this reconciliation is that one boost and the risk that that poses, could you share your key points with us?

Lt. Gen. David Deptula, USAF (Ret.): Yeah, absolutely, Heather. The core message of my op-ed is this – a one year cash infusion to defense, just like the FY 26 plus up, in the Big, Beautiful Bill is helpful, but it’s not a strategy.

Furthermore, it doesn’t reverse 30 years of underfunding of the Department of the Air Force, which, as we all know, consists of the indispensable services that all joint force operations depend upon. So, right now we’re living under the dangerous illusion that we can deter China, Russia, Iran, North Korea, and other threats while shrinking the budget in real terms. That’s right, shrinking. President Trump’s FY 26 defense request is smaller [00:09:00] than President Biden’s the year before and when you strip out the pass through dollars that don’t stay with the Air Force, the picture gets even worse for us. Now, the Air Force is retiring hundreds of aircraft. 250 was requested in 25, 340 in 26, while we’re buying far fewer, which continues to decline in the size of the Air Force and no plan to stop that decline in sight.

Meanwhile, the average age in the Air Force is over 30 years old, which is by the way, five years beyond the official definition of antique. The Space Force is under-resourced undermanned and struggling to meet the pace of growing threats in orbit. By the way the Space Force budget was cut 9% this year, over last year.

So I argue that the FY 26 supplemental , which is what I’m gonna call it it’s -not [00:10:00] officially that, but effectively, it’s what it is , it can’t be a one-time spike. I would suggest it should become the new baseline as a floor to defense spending writ large not a ceiling for future defense budgets. And I think President Trump has an opportunity to make that shift starting in FY 27, locking in higher sustained investment in air and space power because that’s how we restored deterrence, ensure our readiness and stay ahead of, adversaries who they’re not waiting for us to catch up, they’re pressing ahead. So bottom line, peace through strength requires consistent, real increases. In the Department of the Air Force budget of at least 5% per year. Not slogans, not gimmicks, and not one year band-aids.

Heather “Lucky” Penney: Well, and this is really important because the budget is the instantiation of the strategy in resources. If you don’t have the [00:11:00] resources, you can’t have a strategy.

It’s all just talk. So Lazer, what are your thoughts on what General Deptula just shared on with us regarding- I like you calling it the supplemental. Clearly there, there’s a lot of items that were put in the big beautiful bill that will need to be included in next year’s budget in one form or another, like the fighter buy.

Lt. Gen. David Deptula, USAF (Ret.): Hey, I’m gonna butt in here, Heather, there, there’s one thing and, I’ll just be short, but it’s something to consider. There was over on the Hill talking to some professional staff member and the discussion came up with respect to what happens if we’re back on a CR next year?

What happens to those moneys in the supplemental that don’t fall under the rules that a DOD budget line would? That’s gonna cause all kinds of havoc. If in fact, or I actually, I should say, when in fact that happens.

Heather “Lucky” Penney: Yeah. ’cause since when have we actually gotten any kind of budget on time?

Lt. Gen. David Deptula, USAF (Ret.): I can’t remember and I’m an old guy.

Heather “Lucky” Penney: So since this year’s budget is just [00:12:00] gutted as a result of the funding in the supplemental reconciliation. We would be decimated when it comes to the next year’s CR.

Lt. Gen. David Deptula, USAF (Ret.): Yep.

Anthony “Lazer” Lazarski: Yeah. I think, I mean, if i’m gonna stay hopeful that, we get a, we’re not gonna be on another year long CR. Well-

Lt. Gen. David Deptula, USAF (Ret.): We’re laughing here Lazer.

Anthony “Lazer” Lazarski: I know you are. We’ve done it once in my lifetime up here. I hope never to see it again and we can talk about that a little later, but how do we handle this? We either increase the base budget, or we rely, which is ridiculous, on another reconciliation bill, which you cannot plan year to year. And General Deptula, you remember this, when we both worked for General Hornberg, back when we were at ACC and you were director of plans and programs and we were doing.

Lt. Gen. David Deptula, USAF (Ret.): Now you’re not supposed to let anybody know I was a programmer at one time.

Heather “Lucky” Penney: Well it gives you credibility!

Anthony “Lazer” Lazarski: You remember? You remember?

Lt. Gen. David Deptula, USAF (Ret.): Yeah. Well, at least I could call them assholes now.

Anthony “Lazer” Lazarski: You remember transformation, of course? Not everybody knew what the [00:13:00] heck it was, but I still remember my favorite quote from General Hornberg is, hey, if transformation comes with funding, call me Mr. T.

Lt. Gen. David Deptula, USAF (Ret.): Yeah.

Anthony “Lazer” Lazarski: We’re not gonna push back. If they’re gonna give us money through reconciliation, great. DO D’s gonna accept it.

Heather “Lucky” Penney: Oh yeah. We need all the money we can get.

Anthony “Lazer” Lazarski: Exactly. But, and we talked about this last time, but Global War on Terror, OCO, Overseas Contingency Operations, it’s not the way to budget for national security, and, the other thing, and sir you said this, General Deptula, it’s not just sufficient funding. It needs to be stable, reliable, and sufficient resources. That’s the bottom line. You can’t budget from year to year, you can’t go into your highs and lows, or we’re gonna increase, decrease. It actually costs us more money, it impacts DOD and it impacts our industrial base. I don’t know, we didn’t see a FYDP, right? We didn’t see the out years. I don’t know what’s gonna happen, but what really needs to happen is what General Deptula said. They need to increase [00:14:00] the base budget when it comes over so that we have enough funding plus 5% or more, so that we don’t have to rely on a reconciliation bill.

Heather “Lucky” Penney: So let’s dig into one of the issues that was going on there, like the fighter buy. So half was in the defense budget request, the F-35s, but the F-15EXs were in the big beautiful bill. So how do you see Congress and the administration handling this next year? Because you just mentioned, we need to have reliable, consistent, stable funding to provide those resources.

What’s in your crystal ball there? Laser.

Anthony “Lazer” Lazarski: Uh,

Lt. Gen. David Deptula, USAF (Ret.): You just answered your question.

Heather “Lucky” Penney: Yeah, there you go.

Anthony “Lazer” Lazarski: I don’t see it. I really don’t know what they’re gonna do if we had seen a FYDP. I know what the President has said, President said he wants to rebuild the military. So what we’re really gonna need to do is see what they come forward on the budget, but I just don’t see the large increases that General Deptula talked about. [00:15:00]

Heather “Lucky” Penney: Well, and I get General Deptula, that kind of gets back to the big issues that we’re seeing. Like recently, you just spearheaded an effort to let Congress and the administration understand the importance of continuing the E-7 program, while also calling for a bigger F-35 buy.

So you had six former chiefs of staff at the Air Force and several retired four star generals sign a letter articulating their concerns. Could you talk us through the key points and what motivated you to pursue this effort?

Lt. Gen. David Deptula, USAF (Ret.): Heather, what drove this effort was urgency, and a real concern that the United States could forfeit air dominance in a future conflict because of nearsighted budget decisions driving strategy instead of a war-winning strategy driving our budgets. You already touched on that here earlier. We’re facing a moment where the Air Force’s ability to achieve and maintain air superiority is being systematically, hollowed out even as threats from China, Russia, Iran, and the band of renowned [00:16:00] threats, grow more acute.

So, we brought together this coalition of former Air Force Chiefs of staff and other senior leaders, which is pretty unique. Getting six former Air Force Chiefs to sign anything together is pretty impressive. We did that to get a unified message over to Congress and the administration that cutting the F-35A buy to just 24 aircraft and terminating the E-7 program are both serious strategic mistakes.

Why? First, the F-35 is not some hypothetical aircraft, it’s clearly demonstrated its value. It was central to and decisive in Israel’s success in neutralizing Iranian’s military and a critical element of Operation Midnight Hammer. Now our allies clearly recognize its value many of them expanding their own F -35 forces.

So slashing, slashing is the right word, our [00:17:00] buy when they’re ramping up there sends the wrong message. As for the E-7 , it’s the only viable replacement for the aging E-3 AWACs, which frankly can no longer meet modern battle management needs. Combatant commanders simply can’t count on it being available.

Now, I think everyone on this podcast probably knows the E-2 Hawkeye was proposed as a stop gap, but it simply doesn’t have the range, the capability or the battle managers to control large scale air battles over the Pacific. And it’s much more vulnerable to threats than the E-7. So while we support the eventual shift to space-based AMTI, that potential is still years away, we need the E-7 now. The other point I’ll make is this just isn’t about aircraft. What it’s really about is ensuring the United States can control the skies in a future fight. You know, if China moves on Taiwan within the [00:18:00] next few years as their planning indicates, the margin for error is gonna be razor thin. So decisions made in this year’s defense budget, specifically authorizing much greater numbers of F-35As and accelerating the E-7, could be the difference between deterrence and disaster. I just wish the members over there would understand that. So that’s why we took action.

This isn’t about institutional loyalty, it’s about national security and making sure America has the tools to win when it matters most.

Heather “Lucky” Penney: Sir, I wanna push back on one thing because yes, here at Mitchell we completely endorse having the A MTI and GMTI capabilities from space. But even if they were here tomorrow, or even today, we would still be pushing for the E-7, because having that layered battle management and sensing capability is going to be absolutely crucial.

There’s a reason why China is continuing to [00:19:00] build and pursue advanced battle management and sensing aircraft. So we need to make sure that we are also continuing to have those kinds of capabilities that will give us a situational awareness and have the battle managers who can really play the chess across the entire Pacific, and unfortunately, the Hawkeye just isn’t that platform. AMTI is well into the future. We don’t even really know how that’s going to end up being fielded. So what is mature, what is proven, is the E-7 and we need to really commit and invest heavily into that right now.

Lt. Gen. David Deptula, USAF (Ret.): Well, even the senior most leaders in the Space Force would agree with you.

It’s not about either or. It’s a matter of both.

Heather “Lucky” Penney: Yeah. So, keeping on lines with what’s going on with the current events President Trump changes tone with when it comes to Ukraine. What are your thoughts there?

Lt. Gen. David Deptula, USAF (Ret.): It’s a very welcome development and mainly because it’s in the best interest of US national security.

Now what matters most is translating his change in perspective into [00:20:00] action. Look, Ukraine’s not just a regional issue, it’s a frontline test of whether the west will stand up to authoritarian aggression. If Putin’s allowed to succeed in Ukraine, it’s gonna embolden others: Xi in the Pacific, the Iranian regime in the Middle East, Kim Jong-Un in North Korea, and so on. So, it’s time for the US to weigh in big time to support Ukraine with sufficient means that they can use in their fight as well as taking other actions to force Putin to halt his aggression. What we need to see from President Trump is clear action that increases US decisive action to provide Ukraine with the tools it needs. Not just to survive, but to win.

And that includes advanced air defenses, deep strike capabilities, and the freedom to use those systems to impose real cost on Russian military targets in Russia. So no more [00:21:00] sanctuary for Russia. So if President Trump is realigning toward that posture, great. But the test will be whether future policy, budgets and decisions reflect the kind of peace through strength approach that’s needed to halt Putin’s current war against Ukraine, stabilize Europe, and deter future Russian aggression.

Heather “Lucky” Penney: So laser, how’s the hill taking this, change of heart?

Anthony “Lazer” Lazarski: Well with president Trump changing or toughening his stance on Russia, whatever you wanna call it, more Republicans have been able to come out public support for Ukraine and against Russia than have before. But we’ve discussed this, in the past. Overall, Congressional support hasn’t changed. If you look at both House and Senate bipartisan, it remains supportive of Ukraine. What they’re focused on, and maybe not gets directly what General Deptula just talked about, but they’re focused on oversight of the funding and then, and we’ve heard it from President Trump, [00:22:00] burden sharing with the allies.

So what we’re seeing is that, as we’re getting the equipment out, we’re going through NATO and then let NATO go ahead and provide it. E ven look about earlier this month, there was anger from Congress when they found out the Pentagon halted some weapon shipments and there was a lot of engagement.

You saw Senator Reed push back. He wanted some supplemental appropriations for Ukraine because he doesn’t want to just leave Ukraine alone without the help of the United States. In the Senate Armed Services Committee FY 26 NDAA, they’ve authorized an additional $500 million for Ukrainian security assistance initiative and authorized that all the way through 2028.

Chairman McConnell, ranking member Koons on the Senate Appropriation Subcommittee on defense are both aligned in support for Ukraine. I haven’t seen it, but I’m told that there is military funding for Ukraine in the SAC-D Bill that they’re writing right now. And then if you look [00:23:00] on the foreign relations committee with Senator Risch, and he came out and announced, well both Risch and Wicker are gonna put out legislation that is essentially follows Jumpstart, which is allows European countries to buy use equipment, deliver it to Ukraine. That what they call the Peace Act that gives President Trump the authority to transfer US weapons to Ukraine in the near term. And then NATO allies buy new equipment in the long term. So there’s commitment, and I hope they follow through.

Heather “Lucky” Penney: Well, I think it’s all goodness. We need to empower, General Deptula as you said, Ukraine. We need to equip them and then remove the restrictions so that they can be empowered to win, not just not lose.

There’s a big difference there. So, other current events is the White House nominated General Bussiere to serve as the Vice Chief of Staff of the Air Force, General Deptula?

Lt. Gen. David Deptula, USAF (Ret.): Yeah. It’s really a smart and timely nomination. General Bussiere brings exceptional both fighter and bomber and command [00:24:00] experience and credibility to the position.

And that’s especially important because Air Force is at a very critical time. He’s flown multiple combat aircraft, the F-15 B-2, B-1, F-22 and served in key roles as strategic command and US Northern Command, which gives him both tactical and strategic depth as commander of Air Force Global Strike Command.

He’s at the Center of the Nation’s Nuclear Deterrent Enterprise, overseeing the bomber force, the Minuteman III ICBM force, and now managing the transition to the B 21 Raider. His nomination is coming at a time when the Air Force is addressing an accelerating set of challenges. You know, we’ve talked about some of these touched on them today, but restoring nuclear readiness, long overdue recapitalization of what can only be called a geriatric force in dealing with a declining force structure while aligning available [00:25:00] aircraft and ICBMs with Global Strike needs. I think everyone, I am stating the obvious, but the Vice Chief position is really important not just for day-to-day staff oversight, but a lot of folks may not know this, but that position does a lot of the advocating for Air Force priorities with the joint staff and the Office of Secretary of Defense and, you know, mainly nowadays centered on around readiness, modernization, and global posture. So in short, there’s not a better pick. His leadership view is geared toward the challenges ahead and, the Senate’s gonna have a chance to review his record soon.

But he’s the kind of experienced forward-looking officer, the Air Force desperately needs in that role.

Heather “Lucky” Penney: Sir, I completely agree. General Bussiere is amazing and he’s gonna be the right man, at the right time for this job.

Boots. Let’s talk with you because the Space Force is also getting some leadership changes.

Lieutenant General Bratton got the nod to [00:26:00] serve as the Vice Chief of Space Ops, so what are your thoughts on the challenges and opportunities that he’ll face in that position?

Jennifer “Boots” Reeves: So first and foremost, just like General Deptula gave a rousing endorsement to general Bussiere, I would like to give a similar rousing endorsement to General Bratton.

He’s a great choice for this position. And of course this is happening because General Guetlein was moved to another position. The current, or immediately former Vice Chief of Space Operations was moved to a new position as the Golden Dome Czar and now we need a new vice. General Bratton brings just the right mix of experience, and savvy to the job.

He is a weapons officer who has commanded, a cyber operations group, he has commanded for training organizations including Starcom, and in space operations, he’s currently the deputy chief of space operations for strategy, plans, programs, and requirements. I know that’s a lot. He’s called the Cicero [00:27:00] and what that means is he’s the eight right in charge.

He’s the money guy and he’s also the five. He’s the strategy guy, and as we know, of course, strategy should be revealed in our monetary policy. He’s doing great things for the Space force both as a leader and what he did earlier in his career.

I think one of the things that’s most interesting is that, most of his early career, he has been a member of the Arizona National Guard. He was Guardsman and that experience is going to be incredibly useful as the Space Force implements the Space Force Personnel Management Act. It has five years to do that starting about a year and a half ago, bringing part-timers into the active component, which is something that has never been done before in the department, and all the services are waiting to see how the Space Force actually maneuvers this very interesting task that’s been put before them. Bratton is gonna be exactly the right guy with the right experience, [00:28:00] and upbringing to do all of these things. So I think he’s just spectacular.

He’s a friend of the Mitchell Institute. We’re very glad to have him up for this position.

Heather “Lucky” Penney: Yeah, no, it sounds like he, like you said, is the right man for the job. And we’ll be interested to watch how this moves forward with the Space Force Personnel Management Act, because as you mentioned, very different from how things have gone in the past.

So, we’ll be closely watching that, so other big leadership moves, sir, is the news that General Spain has been confirmed to serve as the commander of Air Combat Command. As a matter of fact, I think he moved down there, just last week. So what’s your advice for him in that new position?

Lt. Gen. David Deptula, USAF (Ret.): Yeah well, I think as most folks on the podcast know, general Spain stepping into one of the most consequential leadership positions in the United States Air Force at a very pivotal time. As the incoming commander of ACC, he’s gonna be responsible for shaping the very tip of the spear. My advice to him is threefold.

Number one, [00:29:00] prioritize readiness and modernization in tandem. Air Combat Command must simultaneously rebuild the readiness of our current forces. While aggressively driving modernization. You know, we’ve said it multiple times, but the current force is too old, too small and increasingly vulnerable, so he must be relentless in reversing that trajectory.

Number two, he’s gotta be an unapologetic advocate for air superiority. The future fight, whether it’s in the Pacific, Europe, or Middle East, is gonna be won or lost in the air first. Ukraine and Israel have both recently dramatically shown us that without air superiority, joint operations will fail, period.

So General Spain, has gotta ensure the Air Force maintains unchallenged dominance in the air. And number three, empower and inspire war fighters. Air Combat Command strength lies in its [00:30:00] people, pilots, maintainers, cyber operators, intel analysts, in all of them.

General Spain needs to continue to cultivate a culture of innovation, accountability, and mission focused. Above all, general Spain, should think strategically, but act urgently.

The pacing threat is not slowing down and neither should we.

Heather “Lucky” Penney: No, and I think that’s another reason why it’s great that he has been selected and confirmed to be COMACC.

More MAJCOM changes Boots, the Space Force, Indo-Pacific Command Leadership just changed. So walk us through what that means.

Jennifer “Boots” Reeves: Well, the bottom line up front is the Space Force is normalizing. So as a new military service, the Space Force has been standing up its service components to each of the combatant commands over the last couple of years.

It’s the standard construct for all military services. Now, it is actually taking a little time for the Space Force, and there’s a [00:31:00] big draw on manpower to actually do this. Plus the leaders of each of these components have to come with the right rank to have that voice or seat at the table.

Heather “Lucky” Penney: The gravitas, yeah

Jennifer “Boots” Reeves: Pretty typically service component commanders are actually three star Generals, but the Space Force simply doesn’t have that number of space force, that kind of rank to be able to do that. So, what has happened is we’ve set up several of the components to the combatant commands already. And the story of INDOPACOM is that Brigadier General Tony Mastalir “Chachi” he’s a good friend of ours, came in about two and a half years ago to stand up the Space Service component to INDOPACOM. And now, Major General Mastalir is leaving and has turned over the guide on to his successor, Brigadier general Brian Denaro, like in this very normal change of command ceremony.

Now we actually had a similar change command ceremony for the equivalent position in EUCOM last [00:32:00] summer. And these are tremendous milestones but why are we making a big to-do out of this? Why do I think this is important? Because it’s the normalization of the Space Force as a military service.

A couple of years from now, this is only gonna be conversation worthy because it’s part of the normal battle rhythm of an organization, not because it’s the first of something. Ironically, it’s the normalizing of this event. That’s the exciting part.

Heather “Lucky” Penney: Yeah. No, I think it’s great because it shows that the Space Force isn’t playing a pickup game anymore.

It’s not ad hoc. It is, as you mentioned, normalizing those operations and just, and you really can’t lubricate and make things work well until that happens.

Jennifer “Boots” Reeves: Absolutely.

Heather “Lucky” Penney: So no very good. But let’s also now talk about other stuff that the Space Force is doing. Like they’re set to test laser links and quantum sensors on the upcoming X 37 B mission.

That’s very sciencey. Talk to us about it.

Jennifer “Boots” Reeves: Heck no. Well, America’s secret space plane is back and really in a [00:33:00] spectacular, like sound bite worthy kind of way, right? My gosh. Quantum sensors and laser communications? So remember that the X 37 B, it’s actually heading next month up into orbit again, and it’s lasers, space lasers. How fun it is to say that! Quantum sensors and I believe a clear message to China, right? It’s gonna be the eighth flight of the X 37 B, which is thrilling. It will launch on a Falcon nine from Florida next month, and what it’s going up to do is to test two very cutting edge experiments.

Laser communications is up and coming, as the new way that we can communicate in space. High bandwidth, very resilient satellite to satellite links, that will enable highly resilient distributed space networks. Plus there will be this interesting, very interesting, quantum inertial sensor that’s designed to [00:34:00] maintain precise navigation even when GPS is denied or degraded.

These are leading technologies that take communications to the next level. And also ensure that one of the greatest, most relied upon inventions ever, which of course is GPS, can be used through contested environments. And that’s very relevant these days, seeing what’s happening with jamming, and spoofing of GPS over in Europe and Asia right now.

So the X 37 B itself, which, oh by the way I think this is very interesting, has logged over 11 and a half years in orbit. It really is-

Heather “Lucky” Penney: That’s really kind of shocking. Phenomenal.

Jennifer “Boots” Reeves: 11 and a half years in orbit, over 4,200 days. It’s crazy. I think it’s a strategic signal to, in our our US China space competition, if you will. They tended to try and one up us. Their space plane is actually a copy of ours, of this one. And I think each of our missions reinforces that US space dominance and our technological agility [00:35:00] showing that we’re not just operating in orbit. It’s not about being in space, it’s about preparing to fight and win if we have to.

Lt. Gen. David Deptula, USAF (Ret.): Okay, there’s two sides to that. 11 years in space equation, and that’s when are we gonna see some modernization of the X 37? When’s the next space plane gonna be put into orbit?

Jennifer “Boots” Reeves: Oh, I think that’s a great question, sir. And frankly, I don’t know the answer because there, it’s probably behind 10 different levels of secrecy so that we can prevent China from copying our blueprints again and going off with their own.

So hopefully that’s happening with the super smart, super secret guys back behind closed doors.

Lt. Gen. David Deptula, USAF (Ret.): Yeah, i’m with you, Jen, but if you can’t talk about it, it doesn’t have any deterrent effect either. So that’s a-

Jennifer “Boots” Reeves: No, that’s totally,

That’s another discussion for another podcast, but I just throw it out there for fun.

Heather “Lucky” Penney: Yeah, the whole reveal, conceal and all that whole competition. What do we got? What do we not got? Keep them on their toes. We definitely need to have a much. Better understanding of how to strategically message to [00:36:00] China as well as, just for our own internal service members and our, and our nation.

But you know, so I wanted to actually get back to one thing, Jen, that you said about GPS versus the quantum sensing that they’ll be testing on the X 37 B. The quantum inertial navigation system, that’s an alternative, right? That doesn’t make GPS more robust. That’s an alternative to ensure that we can still have positional awareness even if and when GPS is jammed or knocked out.

Jennifer “Boots” Reeves: Yeah, I think you’re correct about that because right now we’ve become so reliant on GPS that having other methods of navigation is what it is we need, so that we have sort of, I mean, it’s layered capabilities, for when we lose one or another.

Heather “Lucky” Penney: Yeah. So I love what you’ve been talking about ’cause it really is showing that the Space Force is sharpening their teeth. They’re getting their blood hot because they want to win in warfare. So, the Space Force just conducted orbital warfare and what they build as the largest ever training event of its kind.

What is that? What does that mean for the [00:37:00] guardians and how should we understand what was going on there?

Jennifer “Boots” Reeves: Oh, that’s awesome. 700 guardians just trained for orbital warfare exactly like you’re talking about. And I think that is really,

Heather “Lucky” Penney: what is that? What does that mean?

Jennifer “Boots” Reeves: Well, so the Space Force conducted what they have called Resolute Space 2025.

So far it’s their largest space war fighting exercise ever involving more than 700 guardians operating from Hawaii, Colorado, and other overseas locations. It’s actually part of INDOPACOM’s major theater month long exercise called REFORPAC 25, and what it’s doing is it’s pushing guardians to train for different types of space warfare, orbital warfare, electromagnetic warfare, space domain awareness, navigation warfare.

And what it did, which is interesting, is it’s combining live satellite operations with very sophisticated virtual and synthetic environments. So it’s really upping the game, if you will, of how guardians are getting to see [00:38:00] these inputs and react to these inputs. It’s also interweaved, if you will, with INDOPACOM’s major theater exercise.

So all of those inputs will have been, correlated with what is happening in other domains for this larger thing, and I think the message is clear that the Space Force is preparing to fight and win in space. Like I said, it’s not just about being in space, it’s about being dominant in space. And it validated this exercise, validated that guardians can operate and contested, degraded and operationally limited environments where adversaries may try and jam things like GPS or blind satellites or disrupt communications. How do we live without that or with those things disrupted, right? We’re so used to having those assured space capabilities and so this is how to train.

Heather “Lucky” Penney: How do we fight through.

Jennifer “Boots” Reeves: Yes, exactly shoulder to shoulder with joint and allied partners. So that speaks to how we are going to be operating in the future, which [00:39:00] is great news. I mean, they’re really sharpening their war fighter instincts, right? They’re building resilience and again, proving the Space Force’s role, as a cornerstone of joint operations.

Heather “Lucky” Penney: I think it’s fascinating ’cause one of the things that I didn’t really sort of realize is that when a guardian sits down at a console, there’s, the first thing they begin to do is on the job training, right? The the, there originally was not a whole lot of simulation and training exercises. They would just immediately begin to operate live satellites.

And so the simulation,

Jennifer “Boots” Reeves: Yeah I did all of my training on live systems.

Heather “Lucky” Penney: Yeah crazy, and very different than what we do in the air where we take a real airplane, but then we go train in a scenario. And that’s not something that Guardians had the opportunity for. So this is also a very big paradigm shift, integrating both the simulation and the virtual constructed environment as well as the lively pieces, because that’s how they’re gonna then integrate with the other aircraft and other players, terrestrially and in the air with the rest of REFORPAC. [00:40:00] So the integration of Space Force and the Guardian capabilities with REFORPAC is really something that is notable.

Jennifer “Boots” Reeves: Yeah.

Heather “Lucky” Penney: General Deptula, I’d like to get your perspective on, Resolute Force Pacific. What did you think was significant there?

Lt. Gen. David Deptula, USAF (Ret.): Well, first it’s important to recognize that, that exercise is still ongoing and, won’t wrap up until about eight August. It’s a landmark readiness test for our forces, you know, obviously centered on the Indo-Pacific. It involves over 12,000 personnel and 400 aircraft across more than 50 locations, so that makes it the largest Pacific Air Forces exercise of its kind.

So why does it matter? First it’s not just a training event. It’s testing our ability to rapidly surge air and space power across vast distances and operate under threat. It’s exactly the kind of environment that we might expect in a conflict [00:41:00] with, China.

Second REFORPAC integrates Air and Space Forces, as Jen was just talking about in a single campaign scenario. It links directly with Resolute Space 25 showing how air dominance and space superiority have got to work hand in hand in modern warfare.

Third is demonstrating real interoperability with our allies validating agile combat employment concepts in dispersed and contested settings, which is especially important as China increases its own exercises in the region.

Bottom line REFORPAC is more than a readiness drill. It’s also strategic signaling. It shows how we can deploy, integrate, and fight as a coalition across air and space when it counts. So, and that’s the kind of credible deterrence that we need in today’s Indo-Pacific region. So, hats off to the, [00:42:00] Air Force and Space Force leadership in, putting this together and, pulling it off.

Jennifer “Boots” Reeves: And if I could add one additional thing to this, you know, I have a lot of exercise experience from when I was a young officer active duty going to these major theater exercises and bringing space capabilities to them. And at those times, 20 years ago, they were lesser known.

And what was happening at the time that was so interesting is that there would be simulators brought in to simulate the space capabilities and they were perfect. Everything was perfect. Everything that was provided-

Heather “Lucky” Penney: Always worked all the time.

Jennifer “Boots” Reeves: It was perfect. And I remember rolling in going, it will never happen like this real world.

And then once the 2007 ASAT happened by China and we started to realize, hey, it’s not necessarily safe up there. Then people started to listen to say, you know what, maybe we’re not gonna have perfect space support [00:43:00] during a contested period of time. And so what a great thing that not just do the space guys realize that it won’t be perfect and in the realm of other domains, they know they’ve gotta fight through things.

But now crossing the domains, we’re having the conversation that it’s not gonna be perfect in any place and we’re gonna have to work through all of it. So let’s practice that way. I’m super excited about this.

Heather “Lucky” Penney: And it’s another reason why it’s really important that it’s all integrated is if you don’t practice together, you’re not gonna be able to fight together.

And if you don’t practice together and reveal some of the capabilities that you have, we won’t be prepared to be able to integrate them and employ them when war actually comes. So a lot of the space stuff has been super secret for a really long time. Bringing that out from behind the green door so you can actually employ that and practice that during the course of these exercises is crucial to ensure that it gets fully integrated into the planning, fully integrated into the resourcing and the posturing, and then fully integrated into the operations and execution.

Jennifer “Boots” Reeves: Absolutely. And expectation management. Let’s make it as real as possible. [00:44:00]

Heather “Lucky” Penney: Yep. So wrapping this up, laser, we’re gonna take it back to the hill. What are your predictions for the next few months and the next major events to watch?

Anthony “Lazer” Lazarski: So I threw out that other crystal ball I had, I’m trying this new one out.

And I’m also thinking, listening to boots, maybe we should have a modeling and simulation exercise up on the Hill. We’ll see how that may the win losers see how we go forward. But, first thing I’ll just start with nominations. 147 civilian noms are sitting on the congressional calendar, waiting to get confirmed.

Sounds like a lot, but when you start looking at DOD, there’s 17 DOD noms that have been sitting there waiting to get confirmed so we can get ’em into the building to get stuff done. That’s why the Senate is gonna be staying through part of the weekend, they’re trying to get an agreement to get a large, number of those done.

So that’s where a major focus is right now. And then I just kinda hit. The SASC just reported out General Anderson to be the AFRICOM commander and General Bratton to be the Vice [00:45:00] Chief of Space Ops. So they will go down to the floor. I don’t think they’re gonna get, well, it depends on how long they stay. They may be able to get them confirmed on the Senate floor before they recess. Well, they’ve got enough time, and typically they like to leave it down there for about a week, but they may try to expedite them, but the good news is they’re out committee. So, the next step after we work all these nominations is gonna be the National Defense Authorization Bill.

So the House and the Senate are both gonna be going to the floor in September. The Senate will go first, and that’ll be the first week back on the second September. And then the following week, the house will go to the floor and debate their bill. Over the August recess, they will be informally conferencing trying to work out some of the differences between the two authorization bills, but they’ll really get it in earnest after they’re done with both bills on the floor.

And then the plan is they’ll get it all [00:46:00] finished, they’ll button it up and then typically they hold it till December and they use it a bit as a Christmas tree. So all the must pass bills get added on there: coast Guard, reauth, Intel, those bills get added on. I do not see any problem with the defense authorization bill going through.

We’ve had it for 64 years. This will be the 65th year. And if you look at the way they passed, it was a bipartisan vote both out of committee. So we should be good to go. For appropriations, there’s gonna be a lot of changes. The house has passed more bills out of committee than the Senate, but they’ve all been partisan in nature.

So those bills have no chance of actually getting passed in the Senate. When you see what’s come out of the Senate appropriations, and they’ve only done six bills so far, they’ll get two more this week, but they have been a bipartisan group of bills. So if you are looking forward and looking toward the end of the year, take a look at what’s coming [00:47:00] out of the Senate because you need 60 votes in the Senate, which means you need Republican and Democrats to get this done. So ultimately when they start putting these two bills together, which again, I’m gonna be hopeful and have it done by the end of the calendar year, it’s probably gonna look more like the Senate bills than it is gonna look like the house bills. We will be on a CR in September, so when they come back with the authorization bills and probe so forth, they’ll pass the CR. We’re not hearing about a shutdown in September, but that will take us into late November, early December, and that’s when we may start hearing talk about a shutdown. You’ll probably hear it in September too, but that’s where we’re gonna probably have issues. And it all depends on what’s gonna go on with Congress and whether or not they can work out their differences and try to get 60 votes and get bipartisan appropriations bills done. And I’ll stay positive, as we go through and then add in there the other craziness of other [00:48:00] legislation they’re trying to do on immigration, data, and cryptocurrency and other reauthorization bills. So it’s gonna be a real busy at the end of the year, but I will stay positive. And then looking into, and then when do we get the budget? I mean, let’s look to next year. So when will the president will we get it the first Monday of February?

That would be nice.

Heather “Lucky” Penney: Yeah. No, it’d be good to get back to regular order. Well folks, thank you so much for joining us. It’s been a great conversation. Appreciate you being here.

Lt. Gen. David Deptula, USAF (Ret.): Hey, thanks Heather. Have a, great Air and Space Power kind of Day.

Anthony “Lazer” Lazarski: Everybody have a great summer.

Heather “Lucky” Penney: Yeah, you too. Boots, it’s great to see you as always.

Jennifer “Boots” Reeves: It was awesome, thanks.

Heather “Lucky” Penney: And with that, I’d like to extend a big thank you to our guests for joining in today’s conversation. I’d also like to extend a big thank you to you, our listeners, for your continued support and for tuning into today’s show. If you like what you heard today, don’t forget to hit that like button or follow or subscribe to the Aerospace Advantage.

You can also leave a comment to let us know what you think about our show or areas that you would like us to [00:49:00] explore further. As always, you can join in on the conversation by following the Mitchell Institute on X, Instagram, Facebook, or LinkedIn, and you can always find us at mitchellaerospacepower.org.

Thanks again for joining us and have a great aerospace power kind of day. See you next time. Awesome.

Anthony “Lazer” Lazarski: So the only question I have is, can we change the Space Force song?

Lt. Gen. David Deptula, USAF (Ret.): Oh my God. Yeah, somebody needs, they need to have a contest for coming up with something.

Heather “Lucky” Penney: He’s a little bit more rah rah. Get some John Susan Phillips submissions for Space Force.

Jennifer “Boots” Reeves: No, no. We need them to be upbeat. Go! It’s amazing.

Lt. Gen. David Deptula, USAF (Ret.): And something that you can remember.

Anthony “Lazer” Lazarski: Yes.

Lt. Gen. David Deptula, USAF (Ret.): I mean, I can’t remember that thing.

Anthony “Lazer” Lazarski: It’s worst I’ve ever heard. I was gonna say it during our recording, but then everybody get pissed off.

Lt. Gen. David Deptula, USAF (Ret.): Yeah, yeah, I know. Can’t say anything.

Anthony “Lazer” Lazarski: No.

Heather “Lucky” Penney: People getting their feelings hurt.

Anthony “Lazer” Lazarski: I know.

Heather “Lucky” Penney: Filing a hurt feelings report.

Lt. Gen. David Deptula, USAF (Ret.): All right.

Heather “Lucky” Penney: Cool.

Lt. Gen. David Deptula, USAF (Ret.): See you guys.

Heather “Lucky” Penney: Thanks folks.

Anthony “Lazer” Lazarski: Take care.

Lt. Gen. David Deptula, USAF (Ret.): Bye.

Jennifer “Boots” Reeves: Bye everybody!