JOINT BASE SAN ANTONIO-LACKLAND, Texas –
Sixteenth Air Force (Air Forces Cyber) leaders gathered with cyber, intelligence, and industry professionals to exchange insights on current developments in cyberspace, future challenges in transforming to multi-domain operations strategically, and military cyber and Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance operations battlespace in the future at the AFCEA Alamo Chapter Event in San Antonio Nov. 15-18.
Lt. Gen. Timothy Haugh, Sixteenth Air Force commander, provided insights on the Numbered Air Force’s operations, missions, capabilities, and what the move to a problem-centric enterprise means, as well as how taking analytic capacity and applying it to the problem sets of air components and combatant commanders provides opportunity.
“That problem-centric approach is an enormous change in how we use our talented Airmen,” Haugh said. “It allows us to be able to create synergy between a geographic air component, a global strike command, Air Forces Cyber, and how we think about the same problem through a different lens; and how we offer very different alternatives and options back to policymakers, depending on where we are in the counseling team.”
Tech. Sgt. Rick Shelly, a cyber operations planner, understands the significance of what he and his team do in support of the mission.
“We are working problem sets enabling combatant commanders to do what they need to do. It may appear monotone and meticulous at the time, but we enable our warfighters to complete their mission,” Shelly said.
Sixteenth Air Force Airmen serve across nine wings and one center delivering outcomes in support of the nation’s security strategy. Each day Airmen develop intelligence products, conduct defensive activities in cyberspace, operate the network infrastructure, invent new capabilities, maintain the aircraft fleet, and conduct weather operations.
“If there is an intelligence product that was produced for an air component today, I bet pretty high marks that the bulk of the intelligence was produced by Sixteenth Air Force Airmen,” Haugh said. “Every day, our weather Airmen show up to work and know that what they give as product will drive the operations that happen for the Army, the Air Force, and the Space Force every single day.
Haugh reiterated the faith he has in Sixteenth Air Force Airmen to generate insights, compete now, and prepare for escalation.
“Those Airmen are empowered, and we [Sixteenth Air Force leadership] are proud of the fact that they understand that they deliver outcomes for the nation. Those outcomes have meant they have gravity.”
Sixteenth Air Force, headquartered at Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland, Texas, is the first-of-its-kind Numbered Air Force. Also known as the Air Force’s Information Warfare Numbered Air Force, the Sixteenth Air Force integrates multisource intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance, cyber warfare, electronic warfare, and information operations capabilities across the conflict continuum to ensure that our Air Force is fast, lethal and fully integrated in both competition and in war. The NAF provides mission integration of information warfare at operational and tactical levels, recognizing the role of information in creating dilemmas for adversaries in competition and, if necessary, future conflicts.