The Air Force has a problem within the nation’s intelligence community, Gen. Michael V. Hayden today told AFA’s Air Warfare Symposium. Hayden, deputy director of national intelligence and the nation’s highest-ranking uniformed intelligence official, said that there are currently no Air Force officers serving as J-2s—intelligence directors—in any of the Defense Department’s nine unified commands. This is not just a career opportunity problem, he suggested, but a roles and missions issue, because the absence of Air Force officers colors the way combatant commands look at the problems they face. This lack of an Air Force intelligence viewpoint “tends to have an influence” on the way America fights its wars, he cautioned. If DOD’s intelligence views don’t mesh with Air Force views, whose fault is that?, Hayden asked.
Senior U.S. lawmakers expressed frustration that they are being cut out of some of the Trump administration’s most central decisions on military policy and spending. Their concerns, which are shared on both sides of the aisle, concern the budget reconciliation process as well as Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s plans to slash…