This is CBS Island World. I'm John Bachelor. The Space Force, an announcement by the

Assistant Secretary for Space Policy, John Plumb.

It involves a term of art, special access programs,

no longer to be routinely part of the conversation at the Space Force. What does it mean?

It's positive. So I welcome Henry Sikalski, the executive director of the Non-Proliferation

Policy Education Center.

Eventually, this speaks to the contest in low-Earth orbit and

geosynchronous orbit, the confrontation with the People's Republic of China and its Russian and North Korean and Iranian allies,

and the future of missile targeting against surface warfare, against the first island chain, against the United States of America.

All this speaks to part of the success of space special access programs being demoted to being merely top secret.

Henry, you've written at great length about overclassification,

recommending the challenge ahead for the DoD, administration to administration.

According to this release, the Deputy Secretary of Defense, Kathleen Hicks, has signed off on a new policy for classification.

Does this announcement by space policy satisfy the extensive paper you have published at

NPEC about over classification before we get to the missile war good

evening to you Henry Henry. Good evening.

Well, it's a step in the right direction.

In that report that we put out in March of last year,

there were chapters focused on the management nightmare that special access program

classifications presented particularly in the space sector because they have 1,700 of these things,

but they still do over at Space Force. They have to manage 1,700 special access products.

Now here's the problem.

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