Developing a Combat-Credible Force: STARCOM at the 40th Space Symposium

Published April 15, 2025
By Ethan Johnson
Space Training and Readiness Command Public Affairs

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (AFNS) -- At this week's 40th Space Symposium, leaders from Space Training and Readiness Command made it clear: the U.S. Space Force isn’t just refining how it trains Guardians – it’s leveraging the development of Guardians—officer, enlisted and civilian—to further the service’s combat credibility.

Brig. Gen. Matthew Cantore, STARCOM deputy commander, joined a panel on the evolution of the space cadre alongside leaders from the Royal Air Force, U.S. Army and U.S. Navy. The Space Force is realizing a vision from decades ago, when space expertise was scattered across the military and lacked a dedicated focus.

“If you go back a number of years, we had a variety of space experts across the U.S. military, and within the United States Air Force, we had a subset – a major command – that was focused on space,” Cantore said. “But it certainly was just one of a variety of specialties the larger Air Force had.”

He referenced the early 2000s Rumsfeld Commission report, which called for greater focus on space as a warfighting domain. That report helped lay the foundation for the creation of the Space Force and the deliberate structure STARCOM is building today, bringing officers, enlisted and civilian Guardians together to achieve a common purpose: to secure our nation’s interests in, from and to space.

“Our officers are our primary joint planners… our enlisted are the service’s primary warfighters… and our civilians give us opportunities for longevity [and] increased technical specification where needed,” Cantore said.

Maj. Gen. Timothy Sejba, STARCOM commander, echoed that structure during a separate panel focused on workforce development. He emphasized how Chief of Space Operations Gen. Chance Saltzman’s guidance on specific Guardian roles became a foundation for the service’s new direction. “That was actually very foundational in all of our minds,” Sejba said. “Because for many years, in some cases, we used some of our workforce probably interchangeably – and probably not as efficiently as we should have.”

With just 15,000 members, Sejba said, deliberate development is not optional. “There’s not a lot of room for overlap,” he said. “You have to make sure you’re hiring the right talent and developing them to perform those roles for the service.”

That development starts early. Sejba highlighted the Space Force’s year-long Officer Training Course at Peterson Space Force Base, which began in September 2024. Every new officer cycles through four months each of space operations, intelligence and cyber. The first cohort is currently wrapping up the intelligence block and preparing to begin cyber.

“They're going to understand the threat – not just for space, but for cyber as well,” Sejba said. “They're going to understand how that threat materializes… both against the space segment from a space operations standpoint, but also from a cyber operations standpoint and against the ground infrastructure.”

Cantore, speaking on enlisted development, pointed to the Vosler Academy Fellowships as a complete rework of traditional leadership courses. “They are completely rebuilt, retooled, giving a unique experience for our NCOs and specialists… and the results thus far have been fantastic,” he said.

Sejba noted that enlisted Guardians are being trained with more technical depth than ever. “They’re going to perform roles on an ops floor that maybe in the past would have been done by an officer,” he said. The same intentionality extends to civilian Guardians. Sejba described recent pilot courses in Los Angeles and Colorado Springs designed to give new civilian hires a clear understanding of the service and their place in it. “It was an overwhelming success,” he said. A third iteration is scheduled for the National Capital Region later this month.

“We need to make sure Guardians have the opportunity to interface with leaders at various levels… so they can make this not just a short-term experience, but a long-term career dedicated to supporting our nation,” Cantore said. “And we will.”

Innovation and foresight are also embedded into how STARCOM prepares for future conflict. “My Delta 10 team at Patrick Space Force Base is responsible for doing a lot of that high-end wargaming – understanding what the situation could be in the five- to fifteen-year range from now,” Sejba said.

He pointed to Schriever Wargame, the CSO’s Title 10 wargame, as one of the Space Force’s key tools to avoid operational surprise. “We have that [SW25] this coming August,” he said. “Just like in the past, we'll have almost 500 participants… almost 200 of those from our allied partners with at least 10 nations.”

Sejba also underscored how industry is reshaping innovation. “There is innovation happening everywhere you turn,” he said. “Ten years ago, we probably would have had a couple dozen companies that we would have turned to fairly regularly. Now… we are going to hundreds of companies every time that we need a new proposal.”

That focus extends to advanced education. STARCOM’s Intermediate Level Education and Senior Level Education programs support field grade officers in deepening their strategic expertise. “Our ILE/SLE program that we have for our majors and our lieutenant colonels… that Johns Hopkins University model is what I think we need to scale,” Sejba said. Through a partnership with the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, STARCOM offers Guardians a graduate-level alternative to traditional military education, combining joint warfighting concepts with deeper exposure to global strategy and security policy. “I was just talking to a colonel yesterday who, on the Air Force side, there are folks fighting to get into that school because of how unique it is,” he said.

He pointed to academic institutions that have historically supported the nation’s space enterprise, especially those located near major launch and research hubs, as examples of the kind of infrastructure the Space Force can leverage to grow technically proficient Guardians.

“We’re not going to do all the education ourselves – and I don’t think we need to,” Sejba added.

Both panels emphasized that STARCOM isn’t just refining training, but reshaping how the Space Force prepares for the realities of competition and conflict in space.