The Air Force would reap great benefits from fully integrating aerospace and cyberspace, said Air Force Space Command boss Gen. John Hyten. Doing that would give airmen “amazing capability,” he said during a Dec. 5 space forum in Washington, D.C., sponsored by AFA’s Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies. Standing in the way of that integration, however, are old mindsets and other mental roadblocks, said Hyten. For starters, AFSPC is “comfortable with the way things are and predisposed against change,” he said. “Sometimes we get lost in our own stovepipes,” he explained. Money isn’t the problem. AFSPC’s budget last year was $9 billion, said Hyten. “For $9 billion, we ought to have the best space and cyber program” in the world, provided the money is applied “in the right places,” he said.
U.S. munitions have been expended at a high rate during Operation Epic Fury against Iran, prompting concerns that the Pentagon is eating into weapons stockpiles it needs to deter threats around the world. Yet the newly released $1.5 trillion defense budget request was developed before the war against Iran and…