Officials at the Department of the Air Force are creating an implementation plan to elevate Air Forces Cyber into a standalone component command, DefenseScoop reported Friday.
Established in 2019, AFCYBER is part of the 16th Air Force, which is under Air Combat Command, and covers cyber, intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance, electromagnetic spectrum operations, information operations and weather, among other capabilities.
According to the service branch’s former cyber officials, AFCYBER could be placed under the supervision of the chief of staff and the secretary like a major command or MAJCOM.
Bill Marion, managing director at Accenture Federal Services, cited the challenge of being under a MAJCOM.
“Being underneath one MAJCOM, frankly, historically has been challenging. Not because they haven’t wanted to support cyber, but it gets into, Air Combat Command flies jets and fighters and Space Command flies satellites. It always was a budgetary challenge,” Marion told DefenseScoop.
According to the report, AFCYBER elevation could increase the profile of non-kinetic and cyber capabilities.
“The writing’s on the wall. Globally, cyber is truly a warfighting capability, it’s truly transcending all the mission areas,” Marion remarked.
“The biggest thing is this much larger aperture of cyber as a warfighting mission in totality, not underneath kinetic effects, but in concert with kinetic effects. Because it is a reality we live in. I mean, you look at the Ukrainian war and as an example, I mean, it’s as much cyber as it is kinetic. We see the bombs drop and you don’t see the non-kinetic but, it’s on par, it’s not above,” the Air Force’s former deputy chief information officer added.
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