White House to Host Interagency Space Tabletop Exercise


US Space Command boss Gen. Jay Raymond delivers a keynote during AFA's 2019 Air, Space & Cyber Conference in National Harbor, Md., near Washington, D.C., on Sept. 16, 2019. Air Force photo by TSgt. Armando Schwier-Morales.

Representatives from across the federal government will convene at the White House in November for a tabletop exercise aimed at improving interagency cooperation in space. The meeting this fall brings together officials at the highest echelons of government and builds on earlier tabletop iterations with the same players.

“The Schriever Wargame is played among combatant commands, services,” US Space Command boss Gen. Jay Raymond told reporters at a Sept. 27 breakfast hosted by AFA’s Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies. “This is at the more strategic level and having those dialogues with the most senior leaders.”

The previous White House tabletop, which took place over the summer, focused on US deterrence as it relates to space, said Raymond, who also serves as the head of Air Force Space Command. That could encompass stopping others from threatening US interests and assets in space, or using space assets to bolster deterrence in the other military domains.

“I don’t think there’s such a thing as space deterrence,” he said. “I think there are activities that you can do in space that feed and amplify the broader deterrence. I’m not going to go into the specifics.”

The upcoming gathering will continue to flesh out a framework to determine what information the Defense Department can share within its own organization and with civilian agencies like the Federal Aviation Administration.

“We’re currently looking at, does our security classification posture impact our ability to deter” Raymond said during the breakfast. “You have to be able to talk about things. So we’re going through the strategy … right now to figure out what that posture should be to make sure that we can adequately deter.”