Driving towards Success in the Air Force Cyber Mission:
Leveraging Our Heritage to Shape Our Future
Just a few decades ago, we viewed airpower primarily as rated aircrews operating combat aircraft and dropping bombs on targets. Today, it means so much more. For example, 16 of the 18 Airmen whose heroic accomplishments are highlighted in the latest edition of the Air Force chief of staff’s Portraits in Courage are not flyers, and 15 are enlisted personnel. All of them, however, delivered airpower on the front lines of combat, whether driving convoys, disposing of explosive ordnance, providing security outside the wire, serving as instructors to Afghan and Iraqi forces, or calling in precision strikes from aircraft flying above. In fact, the most recent version of our capstone doctrine document, AFDD 1, Air Force Basic Doctrine, Organization, and Command, recognizes this changing nature of airpower by defining it as “the ability to project military power or influence through the control and exploitation of air, space, and cyberspace to achieve strategic, operational, or tactical objectives.”