Secrets don’t make friends: Space Force making strides on allied info sharing, Canadian general says

AMOS 2024 — While challenges remain, the Space Force has made visible progress in recent months in hurdling classification barriers that traditionally have blocked real-world integration of US and allied operations, according to the senior allied officer embedded with Space Operations Command (SpOC).

Canada’s Brig. Gen. Kyle Paul, who serves as SpOC deputy commander for operations, plans, training and force development (S3/5/7), said on Wednesday that top Space Force leaders are actively pushing for reducing classification levels, and that is showing results.

“I’m now working on my 13th year being integrated with either the [US Air Force] or the Space Force. So, I’ve seen it evolve over time, from when I was a captain all the way now being a general officer. I am optimistic with now we have strategic level leadership that are driving and mandating that we look at this deliberately,” he told Breaking Defense on the margins of the annual Advanced Maui Optical and Space Surveillance Technologies Conference (AMOS).

US officials have publicly warned in recent years that overly onerous classification has delayed or stymied US outreach to allies, preventing the kind of rapid and robust information sharing they say would be critical in the event of a major conflict.

The Defense Department’s Office of Space Policy in January finalized a rewrite of classification policy that, while not opening much new information to the general public, called for a reduction in the use of Special Access Programs (SAPs) that dramatically limit clearances to handful of senior US officials, and a review of current SAPs to establish whether they could be downgraded to Top Secret or Secret. The policy also calls for minimizing other classification levels, such as Not Releasable to Foreign Nationals (NOFORN), that prevents sharing with non-US citizens, whenever and wherever possible.

Paul said that another factor spurring measures to allow more information sharing and better work integration has been an uptick in foreign officers serving with the Space Force.

“I think the fact that we have allied leadership in certain key positions is actually a forcing function to be able to declassify information and ensure that I have what I need to be able to make decisions and advise the commander within headquarters, Space Operations Command,” he added. “I’ve heard from our Five Eyes — so, Three Eyes I guess — [partners] on some of the challenges that they’ve had to be able to integrate their people at the tactical level, and that falls on my shoulders, to be able to push.” (Five Eyes refers to the tight intelligence-sharing relationship between the US, the UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand; Paul is referring here to fellow non-US officers from the UK, Australia and New Zealand.)

For example, Paul explained, one area of low hanging fruit has been simply looking at how physical spaces and “secure areas” are set up so as to encourage the widest areas of co-location for combined operations.

“How do we look at configuration challenges, accesses just within a certain area where not everything is classified NOFORN? And so, what if we were to take those entities that are considered to be US-only and put them in a configuration within a physical space where it can be US-only, and still have access for the larger group to be able to operate and integrate. We can do that that. That doesn’t hurt my head,” he said.

Paul said SpOC already is “taking steps in that direction” at the “strategic level in terms of intent,” and is now trying to adapt the concept at the tactical level — “and actually we’re showing some promise to that over the last three months.”

He further noted that rather than being a problem, technology now is helping the Space Force to find “opportunities” to enable wider information sharing through the ability to “compartmentalize” data within computer systems — rather than having systems and networks that are restricted to foreign or lower-level security level personnel.

“As long as we tag that data, we can pull it appropriately with your credentials that you own, per the individual. And that has been a real step forward that I’ve seen in the technology area,” Paul said. “f I have a different credential, I can log into that system, and I can pull the information that only I’m allowed to see. It’s no longer a barrier.”

That said, Paul acknowledged that there are still challenges with regard to access to US computer networks and data, with regard to federating and expanding networks. For example, he said, one issue is how can the Space Force allow foreign nationals to be able to leverage data from their home stations rather than be forced to travel to the US on temporary duty to do so?

“And I think once we get there — and there is a deliberate effort to do that — it also sends a message of strategic deterrence. Because now we federated that mission, we’ve no longer got a strategic target on each geographical location, right? You can take out any one of them, and we’re still going to operate,” he said.