Over the past week, the Washington Examiner reported that Air Force Secretary Troy Meink confirmed the existence of on-orbit space-control weapons. A day later, the outlet reported Gen. Dan Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, telling service members to prepare to fight, endure, and win in contested environments stretching from the seabed to cislunar space. Those developments make attribution under degraded conditions more consequential.

That problem is arriving as the Department of the Air Force pushes artificial intelligence deeper into command and control. On Sept. 8, its latest Decision Advantage Sprint for Human-Machine Teaming experiment used AI and Space Force personnel to accelerate command-and-control decisions. Four days later, the United States and 10 international partners expanded the Wideband Global SATCOM partnership to strengthen secure and resilient communications. Faster decisions and more connected redundancy can improve military performance. They also create a specific test requirement: what happens when several services degrade for the same natural reason?