Space Force Association: The average American touches space-enabled technology dozens of times before they finish their morning coffee. GPS, weather data, the timing signals that make financial networks run. All of it runs through satellites, satellites operated by fewer than 10,000 uniformed guardians. In February, the most senior enlisted guardian in the Space Force went before the Senate Armed Services Committee and said that number has to double. Doubling the size of the United States Space Force is a national security necessity. But double the Space Force

Bill Woolf: Chief Master Sergeant of the Space Force, Chief Master Sergeant Bentavania, thanks so much for taking time out of your very busy schedule to join SFA and talk about everything going on within the Space Force.

CMSSF Bentivegna: Hey, thanks Bill for the opportunity. As you know, our partnership with SFA is really important. Any chance you want to give me to brag about the Space Force and Guardians, I will take it. So thank you.

Bill Woolf: Absolutely. Chief, you went before the Senate Armed Services Committee in February and said the Space Force needs to double in size. I want to use that as our starting point, not just for the argument, but for the mechanics. Because I think most people heard that headline and assumed it was a budget conversation. It's actually a lot more specific than that. Help our listeners understand, Congress controls how many people each military service can have. There's a specific term for it, and strength.

Space Force Association: is a lot easier to say than it is to explain. Who actually authorizes that growth? Where do the billets come from? How do you build 10,000 world-class operators without diluting the ones you already have? And what does a guardian's life actually look like inside a force that's being built in real time? Today I sat down with Chief Master Sergeant John Bentavania, Chief Master Sergeant of the Space Force, the most senior enlisted guardian in the United States Space Force, to walk through all of it. Not just why the Space Force needs to grow, but how that growth actually happens.

Bill Woolf: and it's authorized in the National Defense Authorization Act every single year. So when you say double the Space Force, that's not just a call to action, that's a legislative ask. Walk us through what actually has to happen in Congress, in the budget, and inside DOD for that number to become reality.

CMSSF Bentivegna: Yes.

Space Force Association: I'm Bill Wolf and this is Space Power.

CMSSF Bentivegna: Yeah, well, thanks for the question. think everything starts with requirements, right? I mean, we talk about being fiscally responsible and making sure we're spending taxpayer dollars in the most efficient way. First, we talk about what is that the nation has asked the Space Force to do? And that ask is getting greater and greater. You need the acknowledgement that space is a war-fighting domain. The acknowledgement that space underpins the lethality of the joint force. The fact that some of our adversaries are really building space capabilities that will enable to track and target our joint forces and the space forces are responsible to make sure that they cannot do that. Those requirements have increased. So the discussion and dialogue we've had within the Pentagon and out to Congress talked about what is the size of the Space Force to do the missions and to provide the national security that is demanded of us. And that's where the conversation starts. And once we are able to articulate the needs, then we say, okay, what is it that the Space Force needs? What is the infrastructure? What's the personnel? What are the systems that we need to be able to counter adversaries, protect the joint force?

Bill Woolf: The Space Force is six years old. It has fewer 11,000 uniform members. It operates satellites that the entire modern world depends on. And the case is being made, credibly, before Congress, that the Force needs to be 20,000 strong. Not because someone wants a bigger organization, but because the mission demands it and the threat is real. ⁓ The mechanics of how that happens, the end strength authorization, pipeline, the quality framework, the generation model,

CMSSF Bentivegna: and project space power and provide the nation really space superiority. So it all starts with the discussion. General Salzman just recently you know rolled out the the future operating environment and the objective force. That's kind of the discussion where it starts with. Where do we think right the nation is going? Where do we think globally space conflict is going? And then how do we design and fund the service required to meet those threats and meet those needs? And that has been

Bill Woolf: That's a story most people never hear. If you want to be part of making sure the Space Force gets the resources, the recognition, and the support it needs, ⁓ go to ussfa.org. what SFA exists to do. look at where our chapters are located. Be involved in those chapters. If you want to learn about standing up a chapter, ⁓ Go check out the chapters page at ussfa.org. Power is produced by TIE Holiday. ⁓ Bill Wolfe and this is Space Power. ⁓

CMSSF Bentivegna: in the dialogue with Congress over the past year and a half, and they've been really receptive. They understand it. mean, the proof is in the pudding, right? I mean, look at the amazing things that the guardians have been doing with Operation Epic Fury, right? The CENCOM commander and the chairman have both talked about how critical space and cyber have been in our success. So that dialogue, when we talk about what are the requirements for the Space Force for Congress, and then we lay out the systems, the organizational structure in the discussions, and we're able to successfully get it into the National Defense Authorization Act allowing us to grow. Now when you talk about the mechanics of that, sure, okay, they authorized the end strength, but then we also have to talk about, you know, how do I go out and scout the talent to come into the service? How do I train them? Where do I house them? Where do we operate and execute all these new weapons systems and capabilities from? So when you say double the size, it's not just about the number of personnel, it's the entire ecosystem across the Space Force that are in the discussion going through the whole mill PF discussion.

Bill Woolf: Thank you for that, Chief. And you bring up a couple of great points, which is that future operating environment and the objective force that just rolled out, which provides a pretty clear picture of what the Space Force could be. And it doesn't prescribe what it will be. It says this is what it could be. So it does provide a tremendous opportunity for folks to start having a conversation around that very principle. And in most people's mental picture of the military, the officer is the one running the operation. The non-commission officer executes. But the Space Force is deliberately flipping that model. Enlisted guardians are the primary operators. They're the ones at the console. Officers help to plan and integrate. Two questions. First, what is it about the Space Force mission specifically that makes this the right model? And second, make it concrete for us. What does officers as planners and integrators actually look like? when a guardian is sitting at a console, running a real mission, who's in the room, what are they each doing, and how do each roles interact?

CMSSF Bentivegna: Yeah, you know, this has been an ongoing dialogue. You know, once we try to sit down and say, when you think about the current structure of the service, we're right now about one third officers, one third enlisted, one third civilians. And we're still under 11,000 people right now. So the service is small. And we tried to figure out, with the talent that we have in those three buckets, three categories, if you will, based on the missions that are being assigned to us, what is the most efficient and effective way to develop and utilize that talent that we have? Now, first, you know, what we say is every single guardian, regardless of whether wearing stars or stripes on the uniform or operators, every guardian is an operator. Guardian fundamentals, whether you're an officer getting it at OTC, or you go into one of the enlisted initial skills training, We talk about guardian fundamentals and that is the baseline of what it means to be a space-minded warfighter and an operator. So we're all doing that. But when we looked at the size of the service and the capabilities that space brings to the joint fight, the desire, the need, the demand signal for especially our senior captains and majors across the combatant commands, three letter agencies, the joint staff, our allied partners, they are looking for space minded warfighters, subject matter experts that they can integrate into their operational planning, that they can speak space warfighting. beginning, you know, you and I have been doing this for a long time, Bill, and it was not too long ago where space was seen as something you sprinkled on the plan after it was already, the concept was already done. That has completely changed. So when we looked at, the number of individuals that we have, how do I grow operators that can go off into those organizations where there may be only two or three guardians on a staff somewhere and they have to speak space? So we said those are what we need officers to do, integrators, planners, and the primary leaders of the service. which left the opportunity for the enlisted cadre at the most tactical level in your operation centers to really learn those weapon systems, fight the weapon systems and become those tactical level operators. Now, every combat crew has a combat crew commander. Those are where the kind of young lieutenants and our junior captains, right? That's where they're doing the work that we need them to do. So there's still going to be that integration at the very tactical level, but it's how do we free up some of the majors and senior captains to get out of those tactical level operations, let them go forth and do more integration and planning and represent the service in those other organizations where we need them. So that's where the model of officer training course where now every single officer is a broad minded space-minded warfighter to allow them to have the skills for integration and planning. And on the enlisted side, we still stayed even though they get the Guardian fundamentals baseline. We have an intel school, we have a cyber school, we have a space operation school. So when you bring all that together and you talk about the consistency and depth that the civilian cadre bring to the Space Force, it was the best way to utilize our officers and enlisted and civilians to have the most impactful service right now.

Bill Woolf: Chief, thanks so much for running through that and providing that level of context. For our audience, a lot of them have never been in a space operations center. And so run us through what that could look like or what that does look like for ⁓ senior folks and the junior folks on console, what they're specifically doing and then how that career progression will actually work. I'll pull the thread on it because in ⁓ past it was ⁓ were the space person. Well, it's not just about being a space person. It's about understanding the technological capabilities of the system providing space-based infrared, military satellite communications, ⁓ early warning, GPS navigation and the specific technology needed, and then how do we evolve that technology. So if you could just walk us through from the Ops Center perspective, what's actually happening.

CMSSF Bentivegna: Yeah. So, you know, as an example, if you would go out to Delta One TAC 15, which is the combat Delta that provides forces to the National Space Defense Center, NSDC, right, you'll have an enlisted sensor operator who is monitoring the ground-based sensors, looking to see what the taskings are, looking to see what sensors are maybe in maintenance, which ones are not, right, and kind of managing that sensor network. And let's say that there's a challenge. Something comes up where a system goes down where, maybe we don't need it to or a threat arises that we were not expecting and we have to maybe pull something back out of maintenance or rearrange how we have the sensor ⁓ architecture set up. There's a space battle manager, there's an officer space battle manager so that NCO will talk to the commander space battle manager say okay here's what we're facing here's my recommendation now standing back as a battle manager what is it that you kind of assess and direct us to do? And then that officer will direct the enlisted cadre to do that. And at the same time, you have an enlisted operator who's doing Intel and you may be looking at what Intel is coming in, what is driving the decisions that we're making and then feed that to the space battle manager. And at the same time, there's a third enlisted individual maybe doing cyber protection and they're monitoring the domain. They're looking to see, is a sense of data secure? Is it reliable? Do we see any adversaries trying to ⁓ have any ⁓ malicious activity that's going on in the network. And those enlisted operators are all collecting that information, coming up with recommendations and then feeding that to the officer who would be the space battle manager. That's when you think about when you walk on an ops floor, how do they all work together? Who's making the decision? Who's making the recommendations? Who's down into the details and the data? That's exactly, that's an example of how an operations floor would look like.

Bill Woolf: Yeah, that makes sense, Chief. I appreciate that. I appreciate you walking us through that. And that space battle manager you're talking about is also receiving inputs from all of the service components around the globe. And so they're pre-planning what those operations are and what the capabilities are that need to support those terrestrial operations around the globe based on what's happening in the space environment. So what you talked about with Epic Fury just makes a tremendous amount of sense.

CMSSF Bentivegna: That's right. You know, we've talked a lot about mission command and the requirement. that at the most junior level, at the tactical level, that the operators, whether they're our senior NCOs or CGOs and FTOs, have to be able to make those decisions at speed, understanding intent, commander's intent, right, be able to accept operational risk at the right echelon and know when they need to communicate up and when they need to make decisions within their own space to get after that. It's the speed of, the nature of speed that the space fight is bringing to us that we have to have. and comfortable individuals executing at those operation centers.

Bill Woolf: Thank you, Chief. So the argument for growth is about numbers, but numbers without quality is just noise. And last year you laid out a framework that I think the answer that answers that tension, the world-class mass assargent initiative. Here's the bridge I want you to help our listeners cross. We're not just adding 10,000 people, we're building 10,000 world-class space operators. Those are two very different things. You said the preponderance of where the war fighting work gets done.

CMSSF Bentivegna: Yeah.

Bill Woolf: is at the massive sergeant level and below. Walk us through what you're actually building toward. What does world-class mean for the Space Force Massive Sergeant and how do you develop it at scale without diluting it?

CMSSF Bentivegna: Yeah, know, as General Saussman, we're talking about our strategy for development within the service. And we talked about the importance of going back to mission command and enabling at the lowest level or individuals about the execute the mission the fact that we have to push down responsibility to lower grades than maybe we were used to in the other services specifically within the Air Force just because of the size and the missions that we're doing that the focus of development really needed to be left so the enlisted career program, to your point, stops at Mass Sergeant for the enlisted framework. Because the discussion was if we focus on retaining the best talent and developing individuals that can become world-class Mass Sergeant, to understand not only their functional area, but mission areas, right? Hey, I'm just not really good at Sivers or GPS, but I understand, right? ⁓ the entire missile warning architecture. I understand the mission area of global space operations. I not only do space domain awareness, but I understand space control and orbital warfare completely. So on the journey, that development journey, world-class mass sergeants are operationally relevant. They understand the integration of all the key functions that we do as a service. They understand the key stakeholders. They're able to give guidance and direction. and when to accept risks. They're perfect as advisors, right, to the officers that they're working with. ⁓ And so how do you grow that and how do you focus on that? And that was kind of the discussion. So that's why on the enlisted framework, you know, a world-class mass sergeant is somebody who can tackle all those challenges, maybe where in other services there were ⁓ and E9s doing that, or maybe, right, even lieutenants that were doing some of these things. But we need world-class mass sergeants to be able to do it. You may not have seen it yet, but last week the Space Force also released its officer career framework. And if you look at that pyramid, it stops at Squadron Commander O5. So General Saussman and both and I had the same discussion that if we focus on and have a cadre of strong E7s and strong, competent O5s and Squadron Commanders, making O6 or E8 and above is cake because the bench is there. Right, we have poured so much into that O5 or E7 and below that when we talk to our most senior grades, we have a very large bench of talent to have a look to to fill those very limited opportunities that the service needs. So that's kind of, you when we talk about world-class mass sergeant, that's kind of where we're going for that. Because we need them to be able to lead at the most tactical and operational level from a master sergeant perspective.

Bill Woolf: Thank you, Chief. Now the practical question. Where did the next 10,000 guardians actually come from? Because I've looked at the recruiting numbers want to be ⁓ honest with our audience about the math. Your FY 2026 goal is 730 new accessions. You've already blown way past that. 125 % of goal in the first five months of the year. That's a great story. But at 730 a year, getting to 20,000 takes a very long time. So help us understand the full pipeline. New recruits from civilian life, crossroads from the Air Force and Guard and Reserve, guardians coming in through Personnel Management Act. Walk us through how those three work together and specifically how we can expect to see that number grow from 10,000 to 20,000.

CMSSF Bentivegna: Yeah, so that 20,000 number, right, that's gonna be, our goal is to be about 25,000 uniformed guardians by 2031. So we've got a little bit of time to be able to do that. And in fact, the first one you have end strength growth like we're looking to do, we're actually limited the first year on that ramp. So I think it's about 2,800 end strength we're gonna grow in 27 from 26. And that's all officer and enlisted as we go through that. And that also gives us time to build the infrastructure. Right? Because, you know, To build, to train and house that many guardians takes a little bit of time and innovation to be able to grow that infrastructure. Again, this is not just about personnel numbers. This is the entire ecosystem that the service has to build to be able to do this. But where it starts with that first ramp we're going to have in 27, you for the, you you talked about just about, you know, 800 or so enlisted guardians in the fiscal year 26, we've already exceeded that. You know, one of the things that, we're very fortunate is that space is cool, right? People are interested. in space. I understand how space plays a vital role not only in their daily lives but lethality of the joint force. So for the hundreds that we have opportunity for right now there are thousands that are interested. But to your point it's not just chasing numbers. You we've had discussions with you know we don't call them recruiters in the space force we call them talent scouts. So we have a little over a dozen talent scouts right now that are down embedded in the Air Force Recruiting Service, right? That are helping filter, right? Helping communicate when someone, a civilian walks into an Air Force, Space Force recruiting office, brick and mortar somewhere, maybe in Montana. They're going to connect them with a guardian talent scout. They're going to have that discussion. And they'll go through, right, the background checks, everything needs to be required. But those scouts know we're looking for men and women of character, right? Because as one of our foundational values that we have, finding someone of character to get them onto this team, I can teach them organ mechanics. I can teach them how to defend a cyber network. I can teach them the intelligence trade. But really those scouts are out there looking for men and women who have a passion for space, the things that we provide the nation, they're patriots, and they have a foundation of character that we can bring them on this team and they want to stay on this team and contribute to it. So we're very fortunate because as a lot of people are interested. So we're going to increase our effort in the scouting on the listed side. On the officer side for growth, we're still doing about 100 graduates out of the Air Force Academy every year. We're also looking to increase the number of ROTC opportunities for commissioning and also really leveraging officer training school as well. Because you know, we talked about those world-class mass sergeants earlier and as we're building that bench, well not every single of those world-class mass sergeants will be able to become E-8s. We're just congressionally limited on how many E-8s, right, to the 2 % that we can have across the service. So what opportunities can I offer those world-class math sergeants that we've invested in for 12 to 14 years? Hey, if you have your degree and you have an interest, why don't you go to OTS and I can commission you. You still stay on the team, serve in a different capacity, we benefit from those years of experience, but they also get a chance to continue to serve. So we're looking at a variety of ways to able to fill the ranks from author street of sessions, college ROTC, the Academy individuals from graduate college to go through OTS, inter-service transfers. We won't do it at scale like we did in the past, but every service every year there's individuals who do inter-service transfers. The numbers are just really small. They're not the hundreds that we experienced as a growth spike in the beginning of the service, but you pull all those streams of talent into the service and that's how we're going to grow. And but again, this is all we got to make sure with the infrastructure, the bed spaces, the training rooms, right? And then once we get them out of training, the operation centers, the skiff space, all that has to be part of this growth plan as we go up from where we are today up to 25,000 in 2031. We're moving fast. We're moving fast.

Bill Woolf: Chief, I know that the SFA chapter in San Antonio appreciates supporting BMT on a regular basis and that's seeing all those new Space Force recruits going through BMT is exciting to your point and everyone's excited about space.

CMSSF Bentivegna: Yes it is. It's inspiring.

Bill Woolf: It really is. And so we're doing ⁓ our due diligence down there to make sure that they're welcome into the family with open arms. Let's talk about the Personal Management Act. And I know the service is still working through the details of that. But what would be a message to industry that you'd like to get out there just to say, hey, as you're working through it, what can they expect ⁓ to see and how can they support?

CMSSF Bentivegna: Yeah. Yeah, you know, personal management act is a really, it's really a really important part of the service that we're building, you know, under a single component. Now, you know, today, right, if you're in the guard, the reserve or active duty, this is all, and you know this better than most Bill, that right there are different components and there are some, some red tapes, some bureaucracy, some inefficiencies, I think in that model. So go into a single component under the personal management act of the space force where all guardians are in the one component. You're just either in a full-time status or part-time status and your ability to transition back and forth is much easier You know in that ecosystem is the model that we want to go to and we as we brought in the Air Force Reserve component the 310th Space Wing primarily Into the Space Force in this growth discussion We were very fortunate that we had a couple of hundred individuals who said I want to join the Space Force full-time I was in the Air Force Reserve But now there's an opportunity. I want to come over full time and we brought them into the service and they've been phenomenal. As a matter of fact, the command senior enlisted leader for space sent our service component to send calm. Chief Gracie is a prior reservist and he is down and came over full time and he is killing it with General Benson taking care of those guardians downrange and doing amazing things for the joint force. Right? So that's just an example of the talent we're able to get over. We're also right in the midst or hoping over the next couple the first part timers will come into Space Force Guardian uniforms. I'm really excited about that. So as we grow into this component, you know, what, what I need help with articulating out to industry, right? We have a history of leveraging the talent who may be working on a ⁓ program manager for a space based system, working in industry one day, and then the next week they're in uniform, right? And they're providing lethality and bringing all that, that expertise right into the service. Or maybe they're not working in space industry, but they're leaders in whatever industry they're doing. They're community leaders. teachers, professors, right? They're elected officials, whatever the case is, but they bring that leadership, that maturity, and that perspective into uniform. So that relationship, we want to make sure we have the ability to continue that trend, if you will. It's just a different name. So we're an industry when we talk about, I have a part-time guardian that has an opportunity to come join your team and contribute. Understanding what that means is going to be really important because we're changing the names of some things. There's a couple of things that in legislation and it'll be a little different, but we got to make sure we continue to tap into the partnership or relationship with industry specifically that they provide these part-time guardians opportunities to not only make their industry better, but also strengthen the service as they come back in and roll in all those experiences and insight that they gain. I'm really excited about where this is going, but we're building it. We're not there yet, but hopefully we'll have the first couple of part-timers here in the next couple months.

Bill Woolf: Yeah, I think our audience will appreciate that perspective, Chief. And no domain like the Space Force exists where you have such a translation of capability between commercial, civil, and national security. to your point, having that expertise going across those different sectors and coming in to bring that expertise into national security and supporting the Space Force is going to be critical.

CMSSF Bentivegna: Yeah. Yeah. And you know, we know General Salsman, phenomenal leader, and he has said on public stage several times, right, that space is the ultimate team sport. Whether that's teaming with industry, teaming with our allies and partners, teaming with academia, right, we're all about teaming in the Space Force. And this is just one example, right, of that relationship that we have to make sure we continue to strengthen and take advantage of.

Bill Woolf: Thank you, Chief. Let's talk Guardian Arena for a moment because I think it's important for folks to understand what this is about, what it's designed to do, and how exciting it is for the Guardians who are participating in it.

CMSSF Bentivegna: ⁓ yeah. Yeah. So Guardian Arena. we've had a couple of years and SFA has been a great partner. since you Guardian Arena occurs in December, we do it down in Patrick Space Force Base. Essentially what it's a competition where there's kind of a bracket. pretty soon, deltas across the United States, deltas across the world, right, are going to start having individuals who want to be competitors in Guardian Arena and they're going be doing trials. And based on the trials, they're going to send all their scores in. And when you talk about trials, there's a cognitive portion of it, there's a physical portion of it, and there's a tactical portion. How well do you understand the space domain? How can you critically think the work through problems? How physically fit are you? Can you go through strenuous exercises and events and still work as a team to solve a tactical problem, leverage your strengths and your weaknesses as a team and lead the group through it? So we talk about those three components, individuals of teams of three from across the space force as they go through the brackets and see who the best of the best I think last year we had, I think it was about 160 teams compete. We brought just a little over 100 teams down, invited them down to Patrick. And it's a two-day event. So they get down there and you have these teams of three and the first day of Guardian Arena, it's the cognitive portion where we get them in and there's about 50 questions that talk about their understanding of acquisition, space history, right, where we're going. with orbital mechanics, cyber questions, intelligence, do they understand the threat, all at an unclassed level, but it's testing their cognitive ability and testing their knowledge of the space domain as teams. That's the first portion of Guardian Arena. And we partner with ⁓ NASA and we do it down at the Astronaut Memorial Museum down there. It's phenomenal host, really good time. You get a chance knowing and have that event there, but also engage with the community who are visiting the NASA Center down there. Then the next day we pivot and that's where we start to get into more of the physical and the teamwork challenges, the tactical challenges. Last year they had 14 stations that these teams had to go through. They ran around Patrick Space Force Base about 14 miles. And that's not counting all the distance I had to run completing the challenges that they had to do. They were exhausted. But what I love about it with General Saussman, when we had this vision, and this is all General Saussman's vision, was we talk about character, commitment, courage, connection, the values of the service, what it means to be a space minded war fighter, right? To be physically exhausted, but not give up to critically think through a problem, to rely on your teammates to succeed, understand transitioning where you get to some maybe a challenge where you could lead the team through the challenge and other challenges where maybe it's not your strong suit and you need to be a good follower to get through the challenges. Those are all attributes that are highlighted through Guardian Arena and then we highlight the winners of Guardian Arena of course at Space Power Conference ⁓ two days later down in Orlando. But we're really excited about Guardian Arena because it really brings to bear what we talk about a guardian, space-minded warfighter who's dedicated to the skill All the different attributes that are required to be the Guardian Arena champions. We love it.

Bill Woolf: And Chief, that really extends throughout the, and helps build the culture and extends that culture throughout the entire service. And that's really what it's about is creating an opportunity for guardians to understand what the culture is and to then bring that back to all the units. So I suspect this year you're going to have a lot more guardian teams signing up for Guardian Arena.

CMSSF Bentivegna: Yes. ⁓ yeah. Yeah, we're excited about 26 each year. It's gotten bigger and better. You know, of course with with help and partnerships with organizations like SFA just make it a world class event and we're really proud of it. And like I said, I think it really is a great example of what a guardian is, who we are and what it means to be a space minded warfighter. You know, to the point, know, you've been to the Pentagon several times and we have the space hallway on the fourth floor. We're in the process right now updating one of the displays to purely just focus on Garden Arena and some highlights and some photographs and talk about Garden Arena in the space hallway because that's how proud of it we are.

Bill Woolf: That is phenomenal, Chief, and I don't think people realize how active you are, specifically on the bike. And that's why I've got my bike sitting over here right now, but I'm one of the folks on Strava that follow you, I like, or I give you kudos every time you get done with a ride, and I don't think people understand. You're riding almost every single day, so you're still making time for physical fitness, even though you're the Chief Mass Sergeant of the Space Force.

CMSSF Bentivegna: Yeah Yeah, I appreciate that. You as leaders, right, we talk about, ⁓ you don't have a full cup, you can't point to others, And the years that you've been leading yourself, you know that if you're not in the right state of mind, how effective of a leader can you be? So I do try to take the time out of the day. The team is really good about carving out my schedule to let me get some me time to stay in shape. I do some thinking, meditation as I'm kind of doing my thing. ⁓ And at first, sure, it's an obligation. I have a responsibility as a war fighter to maintain my physical fitness, right? That's expected of me. The Secretary of War has made that absolutely clear. But beyond that, beyond the sense of responsibility I have... for the be the leader that to be the chief master of space force that guardians deserve. I gotta be able to be on when I need to be on and be at my top peak performance when I have to. for me cycling and other cardio stuff that I do and muscle strength training is what allows me to kind of continue day to day when I'm out traveling long days and long nights, but to be the chief that the guardians deserve. So I really do love my time when I get a chance to exercise.

Bill Woolf: Now, Chief, what you bring up is extremely important, and that is scheduling and finding time on the schedule to take care of what you know needs to be taken care of. And I remember talking to, at the time, Colonel Saltzman, when he was developing for then Air Force Space Command, this model called the Force Generation Model.

CMSSF Bentivegna: Yeah.

Bill Woolf: So let's talk about the SPA-4 gen today or the Space Force Generation Model, because I think it's the piece of the four sizing argument that gets the least air time. And it's actually one of the most important. My understanding of it is this, units rotate through three phases, prepare, ready, commit. So you always have a trained combat capable force available. But the reason you need a rotation at all is that you can't train for high intensity conflict while simultaneously running daily operations at full tempo. There's a real tension there that I want you to explain for our listeners because it's not obvious. And then here's the question I think most people miss. Does spa 4GEN change how many guardians you actually need? Because if part of your force is always in preparation phase, that has implications for the head count math.

CMSSF Bentivegna: Yeah, you know, thanks for that. You know, it's important. It's important to think about where we came from historically, right? As Air Force Space Command, and I've been a space operator for many years, Bill, as you have. And when space was considered a benign environment. when we didn't refer to space as a warfighting domain and we were not necessarily have a pacing threat that was trying to take away our ability to leverage space capabilities for the joint warfighter. It was okay for if you were, for example, assigned to ⁓ two SOPs, which is now the second navigation warfare squadron providing GPS, is that you were constantly always kind of presented to the combatant command, whether years ago a STRATCOM or as you a space command, right? Because you were just constantly working at certified on a position and you were constantly in that presentation to the combatant command, if you will. And it was a whole squadron, the entire constellation of satellites, everything was presented because it was more of an engineering challenge than it was a war fighting footing that we were in. The fact that space is a war fighting domain, the fact that as a service, right, our obligation is to provide space superiority for the nation, drove us to change how we look about look at force presentation and resiliency of the force that we have. So with SPOT4Gen, that process, General Saussman said, look, I need to be able to initially train operators at that first level of training, that they can go onto the combat crew, they can present and operate GPS, for example. But now because we have a high end threat, now because we're more in dynamic environment, that initial training in and of itself is not sufficient. We have to have advanced training so that guardians are always honing their skills, understanding the advancement of the threat and the ever changing dynamic that they're working in. And you can't do that if I'm always working. So how do you carve out time so the guardians can get that advanced training? They can do upgrade training. They can understand what is change with the threat. They can hone those skills, right? We can meet the requirements of the combatant commanders better, right? So that just drove a force generation, force presentation model. We just happened to call it SPOT4GEN. But every service, every single service has a model by which they present forces to the combatant commands. But for the and they all have they all understand this model. We have reconstitution and training. We just necessarily weren't there initially, but through General Salsman's vision, we have really driven at and be able to carve that time out and normalize as a service how we present forces to the combatant command. Now going back to my GPS example. Sure, all these years there was a backup facility that we have for GPS if we had to. If there was a software upgrade on one ops floor, we can convert and send guardians someplace else to kind of keep the constellation going to do that. But what we really need, right, is we need resilient infrastructure, right? Think about on the Navy side, have several different carrier strike groups. Some of them are presented, some of them are reconstitution. You know, I kind of think the blue and gold team, if you will. So how is it that we grow out in a force presentation model and you said, what's the need to grow in size? We've got to get to the point where, say for example, we have an operation center in one state that's managing, say, space-based AMTI. And then there's a complete other operation center and another state across somewhere in the United States far removed and isolated. And there might be in the prepare and ready phase where one crew is in a commit phase and then they swap. But we have to be able to have resiliency within the service because of the threat and because of importance of what we do as a service. That's going to take infrastructure and people to be able to do that. And the time that allows and gives guardians allows them to stay right on top of the threat, right on top of the environment. And when the combatant commands needs that lethality, guardians are able to provide and present it. We were just not initially set up to do that, but we're getting there now. And it's impressive to see. through combat forces command. That's one of the reasons that they changed the name to combat forces command because they understand their primary role in that prepare and ready phase is to generate those forces to be employed through the service components to the combatant command. And that's just a normal model all the other services do. It's just taken us a little bit to get there. But it also goes into that messaging to Congress when we started out with, how do you articulate the need of the service to grow both personally infrastructure, able to normalize and do these things that as a service is expected to do.

Bill Woolf: Thank you, Chief. Now walk us through what that schedule looks like for folks who may not understand. Is it ⁓ several months on, several months off, just so our audience can get just a better understanding of what that does actually look like.

CMSSF Bentivegna: Yeah. Yeah, so like everything we've done in the Space Force, know, one of the things that we're very proud of is our ability to shift to the need, our ability to do lessons, learn, not be afraid to evolve, to be comfortable, being uncomfortable, right? General Salsman always says, you know, there is no change fatigue in the Space Force, right? We're ever evolving. So the few presentations or sequences of SPA for Gen has changed every single time. Because as we enter it and we do lessons learned, we'll talk to the operator. to say did you feel you had enough preparation in the prepare and ready phase to set you up for your commit phase. We go back to the service components and combat commands. Hey, where are our operators on point? Did they understand the threat that you needed them to counter? Did they understand the domain and your requirements as a combatant command? So that feedback and that constant analysis has allowed us to evolve Spaw4Gen. So what it was as far as maybe four months in commit phase, a month and prepare a month and ready, maybe what we started with, we are not there now. So General Gagnon and Chief Rosnik from CFC, Combat Forces Command, are constantly doing that evaluation and it's constantly evolving. So what it is today is probably not what it's going to be tomorrow. But primarily, prepare phase, you come off of your commit phase, your prepare phase, hey, take some leave, do some stuff with the family. Maybe you have some PME that you need to do. some requirements for the service, maybe some upgrade training, that's usually in a prepare phase. Then in a ready phase, that's really where the crew comes together, right? And they're going through the motions to make sure that they can work as a team, right? They're understanding exactly what the threats are. And that's where they're really focused and getting ready, right? They're building readiness to be presented to the combatant commander. And at the very end of that ready phase, there's a, there's a crew certification that happens where leaders within the organization, First Generation Squadron will say, yes, through your prepare and ready phase, I do certify you as combat credible and now I'm ready to present you through First Generation into the commit phase. And you'll do the commit phase and you will just keep doing that circle over and over again to continue to build readiness.

Bill Woolf: Now, I want to close and you talked about this and we talked about this throughout the discussion, which is the threat. So let's talk about why the reason all of this is so urgent. Because the end strength argument, the quality framework, the pipeline, none of it exists in a vacuum. It's driven by a very specific threat. And you've been pretty direct about naming it. China has been on a trajectory in space since 2015. that has no precedent in modern military competition. The launch cadence, the on orbit assets, the counter space toolkit. You've talked about this publicly and you know the numbers. I want you to walk our audience through the cause and effect, specifically the chain. China builds X capability, the Space Force has to respond with Y, and that response requires Z guardians. Make that chain explicit and then tell me, what does space superiority actually look like in an environment where China has more than a thousand satellites and tools designed to degrade ours?

CMSSF Bentivegna: Yeah, so it's all based, except everything that we do is based on the threat and the need for national security. And when you talk about space priority, what does it mean? Right? That's the reason the service was established really was for space priority. It's to allow the nation freedom of maneuver to take advantage of space capabilities at will at our own timing and tempo when we need it. But at the same time, denying an adversary from doing the same. So in the case of China, right, and we talk about what they're building to counter, take away our space capabilities. They're building ground-based jammers. They're building ground-based lasers. They have on-orbit capabilities. They've proven that they've shown their ability to do on-orbit inspection and repair satellites. They've proven where they had one of their satellites back in 2025, I think it was, or 2024, literally latched on to a defunct old Beidou satellite, which is one of their navigation timing satellites. and pulled it out and put it into a graveyard orbit. Now, so think about the capabilities that China is putting on orbit. The number of ISR assets they have, right, especially, you know, over their region, right, in the South China Sea, and their ability to constant revision rate so they understand they can see everything that's happening. So not only are they building capabilities to try and take away the US's ability to take advantage of space, but they're also building their infrastructure for space-based, over-the-horizon tracking and targeting. Right? So they are putting joint forces at risk with the architecture that they are building and the space, their space architectural layer is underpinning that. So we move from a space force perspective. When we look at that, how do we counter their ability to make sure that they don't take away our ability to provide precision navigation and timing overhead ISR space based, ⁓ AMTI space based missile warning, strategic communication. Right? We got to make sure that we can defend. our capabilities will be able to do that. but also looking at the officials that they're building, how do we deny them, right, that over the horizon targeting, especially when you talk about, you know, Admiral Poparo in Indo-Pacom, he talks all the time about the importance of space to protect his forces, right, to deny China or any other adversary the ability to do that tracking and targeting of our forces going over that large body of water. So as a space force, as we look at these threats, what we have to be able to build to protect and be able to provide and build to deny the adversary to do that, to give space superiority, does drive the requirements and the size of the force to be able to do that. So remember in the beginning of this whole discussion, Bill, it was about our growth in size all starts with the requirements. What are the needs of the service we'll do on behalf of the nation? And the threat drives that. That's exactly what it is. So we're looking to see who's building what, how many, and that will actually drive what we have to do. you know, you said, know, General Saussman says all the time when you talk about the Space Force troops, right? Hey, you know, the Space Force, space capabilities is not just a collection of capabilities that provide a service, right? It's a space, it's a war fighting domain in space. And we have to be able to have both offensive and defensive capabilities to be able to not only protect, but defend against what adversaries China rebuilding.

Bill Woolf: Chief, this is extremely important because we just conducted an interview with ⁓ U.S.-China Economic and Security Commission was stood up by Congress to look this specific problem set. ⁓ And what was interesting about that conversation and is being echoed here is that we established the service. The Space Force was established in 2019, but we didn't quite understand and fully understand how critical the service is and is going to be based on the emerging threat environment and the implications to the global economy.

CMSSF Bentivegna: Yeah.

Bill Woolf: And so I think this is a very pertinent conversation and very timely conversation so that members of Congress can understand just how critical this service is and how it underpins not just everything we do with our day-to-day lives, but also the global economy.

CMSSF Bentivegna: Yeah. Yeah, you know, I spent a lot of the discussion today, Bill, talking to you about our lethality and kind of what we provide to the joint force as a military organization. But I also really, especially when I'm audiences at Nestle, you know, when I'm trying to inspire the next generation to get into STEM and to get into space, you know, one of the I talk about as a guardian, you know, aside from my my pride in being a lethal warfighter is the ability to provide freedom of access, right, to space. that. Industry right they can invest in space take advantage of all the opportunities are there so the dreamers can dream inventors can invent investors can invest I mean think about where we're from from we have space tourism, right? We're looking at space cargo. We're gonna go back to the moon like all everything that space underpins in transportation agricultural finance all those things are so vitally important to the everyday lives of Americans and it's it's I'm very proud that you know, I play a role in that, you know the analogy that I use is, know, if any of you or, you I have, Bill, maybe you have gone on a cruise ship and gone out into international waters on a cruise ship. Now I'm sure you're on the ship and you're enjoying yourself at the buffet, maybe sitting by the pool having a cold drink, but you're not sitting on the side with a of binoculars looking for pirates because you know that the waterways of the world are protected by the Navy's led by the United States Navy, right? They provide freedom of access right, in those sea lanes of transit. It's going to be the same for space. As we're traveling and taking advantage of the space domain, it's going to be the guardians of United States Space Force that people are looking to to secure freedom unfettered access to that domain. And so I'm really excited about the role that we play in that and I use that analogy quite often.

Bill Woolf: And it's honor to spend time with you today, Chief, and congratulations on all of your successes and all the leadership that you're providing to the service. I really do appreciate your time.

CMSSF Bentivegna: Thank you. Thanks Billy. Again, you know, the relationship between the Space Force and SFA, right, is vitally important. We're both growing together, which is great. And I always appreciate your advocacy and support, and especially when you get a chance to provide forums like this where, again, I'll never pass an opportunity to brag about our guardians and the things that we do in the Space Force. So thank you very much. Sepra Supra.

Bill Woolf: Thank you, Chief Semper Supra.