The Department of the Air Force is restructuring its headquarters staff elements in charge of intelligence and cyber operations yet again as part of its “sweeping” force structure changes announced in February.

The service merged the offices of its deputy chief of staff for Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (A2) with its deputy chief of staff for Information Dominance (A6) back in 2019 to streamline oversight, policy and guidance of those functions and appointed a three-star to lead the A2/6 directorate. 

Now, the service is looking to elevate cyber by splitting A2 and A6 and appoint a three-star to focus solely on cyber issues.

“The Secretary of the Air Force and the Chief of Staff gave us direction about a year ago now, but it didn’t come into fruition until it was part of the great power competition efforts,” Lt. Gen. Leah G. Lauderback, who has been the A2/6 deputy chief of staff for the last two years, said during the Department of the Air Force Information Technology and Cyberpower event last week.

“The Chief of Staff of the Air Force needs a senior cyber officer to be his advisor. He can’t have a senior intelligence officer be that advisor right now. We’re general officers, and so we’re not specialized officers.  We can learn things, of course, but truly, I want this community to stand on its own, and I want this community to have that three-star at the Air Staff who is advising the Secretary of the Air Force, who’s advising the chief, who is partnered with the [principal cyber advisor], partnered with the [chief information officer], and we are well on our way to making that happen.”

The A6 had long been in charge of all aspects of communication systems within the Air Force, from budget and resources to policy and planning. At some point, the A6 also served as the service’s CIO until former Air Force Secretary Heather Wilson separated the A6 position from the CIO role.

Lauderback said she hopes the Senate will confirm a three-star by spring to lead the newly established A6, and A2, which has historically been in charge of intelligence-related functions, will be able to return to its traditional role of focusing its efforts on intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance.

“I was hopeful that we would have a stand up here in an October time frame. But this is what happens when we have elections. The bottom line is that we will wait for someone to be confirmed as that three-star, and that will happen, hopefully, fingers crossed in the spring,” said Lauderback.

“The A2 then will go back to the A2 and we’ll be able to concentrate more on all of our portfolios that we have within the A2 and in the A6.” 

Elevating AFCYBER

Splitting up A2/6 to elevate cyber functions also aligns with one of Secretary Frank Kendall’s efforts to elevate Air Forces Cyber from under Air Combat Command to being a standalone service component command. Air Force Cyber has gone through multiple organizational shifts, and its potential elevation to the status of a service component command has raised a lot of questions, including concerns about the future of the 16th Air Force, which currently encompasses AFCYBER.

“This goes along the same theme. As the Secretary said when he thought that he needed an A6, the theme is, I need to elevate the 6 community, the cyber community,” said Lauderback.

“It needs to be elevated so that it is on par with air superiority, with mobility superiority, with electromagnetic superiority. All of the other mission sets that we have in the service. I think that this elevation of both the 6 and then of AFCYBER is going to put this at the forefront of all of the senior leadership within the Department of the Air Force so that they understand you can’t work without comms and you can’t work without cyber operations, attacking the enemy and defending from the enemy.”

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