As NATO considers its approach to space, the top U.S. Space Force general in Europe says he’s waiting for the alliance to finalize its approach to the domain. In the meantime, the U.S. is working with its allies to help build up their space capabilities and, in turn, make countries stronger together.
The goal, Brig. Gen. Jacob Middleton said July 22 at AFA’s Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies, is a “resilient architecture” of space assets that the U.S. and its allies can leverage.
“When I’m out visiting one of our partners and allies, the very first thing I start with is their national sovereign concerns,” said Middleton, who heads U.S. Space Forces Europe and Africa. “And then we walk that back into regional concerns, and then, in the case of NATO, the alliance concerns. Obviously within that are U.S. objectives and U.S. security concerns.
“But it’s a federated approach, where you start with solving concerns, and then you come together where there’s common ground, and it builds a more resilient architecture, because it allows each sovereign nation to go after their sovereign concerns on their own, but it allows us to work as a team, also with interoperability.”
While the head of U.S. Air Forces in Europe also serves as the head of NATO Allied Air Command, Middleton noted that he has no NATO authorities.
“NATO is currently working through what they want their space infrastructure to look like in the end,” Middleton said. “They have an ops center, and they are putting this structure in place, but there hasn’t been a vote on how that’s going to look.”
NATO first declared space an operational domain in 2019, then established a Space Center within Allied Air Command in 2020. By 2024, the alliance had established the Combined Force Space Component Command and the NATO Space Operations Center, both of which are still located at Allied Air Command.
During that time, the alliance has also embarked on its first ever space program, a “virtual constellation” that will pool and distribute intelligence and surveillance data culled from both national and commercial satellites. And last year, the first U.S. Space Force general officer assigned to NATO, Maj. Gen. Devin R. Pepper, suggested the alliance may one day procure and operate space assets of its own, much as it owns aircraft like the E-3 AWACS and RQ-4 drone.
Amid all these changes and potential moves, “we still have a job to do in bringing space capabilities, and so we are still working to educate, train, and exercise with partners and allies, to include U.S. Space Command in that,” Middleton said.
The intragovernmental coordination with Space Command is significant, given that allies like Germany and France have grown interested in defending their satellites, and “on-orbit defense” is a SPACECOM mission, Middleton said.
“I am more focused on the theater, down to the tactical level, which is more electronic warfare-type stuff,” Middleton said. “But we work together with Space Command to make sure we bring the totality of capability that space has to offer.”
That cooperation is poised to deepen.
“We’re working towards, us and Space Command, an ops center that covers both of our needs,” Middleton said. “Not sure how that’s going to look. It may be one for Space Command, one for us. That may be combined, where we bring in allies.”
While those plans move forward, Middleton said his team remains ready to coordinate with NATO too.
“Whenever NATO votes and they decide how this is going to look, the important part of this is that what we’re doing needs to be able to plug into whatever NATO as an alliance wants this to look like. But we’ll be prepared, regardless of what that decision is.”
The end goal is what Space Force officials have described as an “allied by design” space infrastructure, where countries contribute different capabilities based on their own needs and resources and seek to minimize duplication. And while the U.S. remains the dominant space player within the NATO alliance, Middleton said allies can contribute too.
“I am not familiar with a situation where we’re giving and they’re not providing. Every country is important, and everybody brings something to the table that’s beneficial, and we leverage all of that for a common operating picture,” he said.