The Air Force needs to look at different ways to protect, resource, and design its network so that officials can accelerate the process of adding and utilizing new technology, said Lt. Gen. Bill Lord, chief of warfighting integration in the Air Force Secretariat. Speaking last week at AFA’s CyberFutures Conference just outside of Washington, D.C., Lord said he wants to see the service become “device agnostic.” In other words, that means the ability for government-issued Blackberries, iPhones, and other types of devices to work off of the same network without experiencing any compatibility issues. However, he cautioned that 24th Air Force at Lackland AFB, Tex., the Air Force’s cyber operations arm, is a “small crowd and can be quickly overloaded” with the onslaught of new technology. “There is huge pressure to bring devices onto the network, but then we have to be able to manage those devices,” Lord said.
Pentagon Task Force, FAA to Test Counter-Drone Laser
March 7, 2026
The Pentagon’s counter-drone task force announced it would conduct a high-energy laser test with the Federal Aviation Administration less than a month after the use of a military counter-drone laser on the southwest border prompted the FAA to shut down the airspace over El Paso, Texas.