Lieutenant General John Shaw
Deputy Commander, U.S. Space Force
John Edwin Shaw was born in March 1968 in Boston, Massachusetts. He earned an undergraduate degree in aeronautical engineering with a minor in Russian from the U.S. Air Force Academy. He earned an M.S. in aeronautics and astronautics from the University of Washington. He went on to receive two more master’s degrees from George Washington University and from the Air Command and Staff College, and another M.S. degree from the National War College. He was a senior executive fellow of the Harvard Kennedy School.
Shaw served in the United States Air Force in the Space Operations Squadron. He deployed to Germany and was active during the Kosovo War. He was an executive officer for the director of aerospace operations of the U.S. Air Force Europe. He has held many other space-related positions with the Air Force and was reassigned to the Space Force Command.
He officially retired from active duty in October 2023. He is married to Tonia.
In the News…
In August, the Pentagon released the Joint Publication 3-14 Joint Space Operations, according to then-SPACECOM Deputy Commander, Lieutenant General John Shaw, one of the most far-reaching operations doctrines ever issued.
General Shaw, who has just retired, said “I’m pretty proud of the latest 3-dash-14. I’ve seen a lot of versions of it over the years, right? This is the most different I think from all those.”
The new doctrine sets out the foundational principles that guide military forces as they work together in each domain, land, sea, air, and space. The new doctrine introduces the term “astrographic” to describe SPACECOM’s area of responsibility, outlining mission capabilities, both direct and enabling. It also very carefully lays out the differences between offensive and defensive missions in space’s physical arena.
General Shaw said they now have a “proper threshold that allows us to now have freedom of maneuver in the domain and in the terrestrial domains.”
