The Space Force is developing an international strategy that emphasizes integrating allies and partners from the earliest stages of concept development and planning.

“As part of shaping the future, I am leading the charge for an international partnership strategy that hopefully will hit the streets at some point in the next year,” Air Marshal Paul Godfrey, the assistant chief of space operations for future concepts and partnerships, said at the Center of Strategic and International Studies event last week. “It is an awful lot about writing things down and understanding how we get to repeatable processes. And this is how do we get to the repeatable process, bringing allies and partners.”

The service’s combined space operations center welcomed Godfrey earlier this year — he is the first foreign officer to join the service’s leadership. Godfrey serves as the strategic advisor to Chief of Space Operations Gen. Chance Saltzman on all matters related to space superiority and resiliency through international partnerships.

Earlier this year, the combined space operations center welcomed Godfrey as the first foreign officer to join the service’s leadership. In his role, Godfrey serves as a strategic advisor to Chief of Space Operations Gen. Chance Saltzman, focusing on all things related to space superiority and resiliency through international partnerships.

Godfrey said while he is not directly involved in establishing the nascent Space Force’s Futures Command, he is responsible for ensuring that there are mechanisms in place for international allies and partners to collaborate with the command from the start.

“I am not the individual standing up Futures Command, but what I can do is look and see how Futures Command fits into the organization, where are the touch points with allies and partners, through the concepts technology center, through the [space warfighting analysis center] and through the wargaming areas,” said Godfrey.

“How does that then fit into the [chief strategy and resourcing officer] area, the S5/S8, and how do those conversations then become an architected, integrated force of the future that has allies and partners integrated from the very beginning. It’s not a conversation after the fact.”

Earlier this year, Vice Chief of Space Operations Gen. Michael Guetlein emphasized that as the Space Force is working on this strategy, the goal is to have systems that are “allied by design.”

“Every capability that we design, we’re trying to design the relationships and the interfaces in with our partnerships,” Guetlein said in August. “I can no longer solely rely on the kit that I own and operate. I now have to partner and that is completely changing our culture and that capability now has to integrate into a joint fight.”

The service has long been working to address barriers to working with allies and partners, such as data-sharing processes and classification protocols — overclassification of data has long been hindering information sharing for the Space Force and the Defense Department at large both internally and with allies and partners.

As for the nascent Futures Command, which will bring together the Space Warfighting Analysis Center, the Concepts and Technologies Center and a new Wargaming Center, will play a critical role in shaping the future of military space operations. In September, the service stood up a task force to figure out the structure and function of the new command.

Saltzman said he hope to “establish a command element, a headquarters with a commander, early next year.”

“I told them I was going to task them by the summer — whatever it takes to get up and running so you can start accepting taskings by next summer.”

Copyright © 2025 Federal News Network. All rights reserved. This website is not intended for users located within the European Economic Area.