Chief Information Officer Lt. Gen. Michael Basla said the service is redefining the idea of information dominance in order to increase competency for the Air Force’s core missions and provide cybersecurity for systems. The new working definition for information dominance is “the operational advantage gained from the ability to collect, control, exploit, and defend information to optimize decision-making and maximizing war fighting effectiveness,” he told an audience of industry and military officials last week. Applied to air and space superiority, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance, global mobility, global strike, and command and control, the new working definition should allow the Air Force to not only deliver increased capabilities, but share information in a safe, secure manner. The new alignment is designed to help streamline costs and allow for increased innovation in the Air Force. Basla said the service recognizes “it cannot deliver the kinds of capabilities with the cybersecurity required by themselves anymore,” he said. Basla said there is a “tremendous need to share information for asymmetrical advantages,” but acknowledged USAF doesn’t “have the dollars that they had in the past to independently deploy their individual functional systems.”
Anduril and General Atomics will develop their Collaborative Combat Aircraft for the Air Force, beating out Boeing, Lockheed Martin, and Northrop Grumman, the service announced on April 24. But any of the non-selected companies can compete to actually manufacture the eventual design, the Air Force said.