The new commander of the 16th Air Force, Lt. Gen. Kevin Kennedy, said collaboration and partnerships across the service, joint forces and with industry will be key focuses of his tenure.
Kennedy took the helm of the information warfare organization Thursday after serving two years as the U.S. Cyber Command director of operations. President Biden nominated Kennedy in late May, and he was confirmed by the Senate June 23.
The organization stood up in July 2020 to focus on intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance, cyber, electronic and information operations to target adversaries the government says are interfering with elections, stealing intellectual property or posing other threats.
Much of the work done by the 16th Air Force in cyber warfare has to do with contesting the enemy or denying their capabilities, Kennedy said in a phone interview with reporters Thursday: “Exposing adversary behavior, actually removing their capabilities from the environment, publishing their malware, exposing their [tactics, techniques and procedures] across the environment and with our allies and partners."
To address ongoing problems with securing Air Force weapons from cyberattacks and hackers, Kennedy said the 16th Air Force will need to continue to understand how attackers operate and will need to further develop relationships with Materiel Command and program executive officers to share that information.
“We just continue to build a close-knit relationship with our acquisition community,” Kennedy said. “As we build weapon systems and field them, that we have cybersecurity and ensuring the resilience of those weapon systems and the ability for us to defend them is part of the calculus as we field combat power.”
Industry is leading cybersecurity development in many ways, Kennedy said, making companies valuable collaborators for the military.
Building relationships and understanding across the service, its acquisition teams and with industry will help the 16th Air Force integrate commercial technology with capabilities developed in-house or designed in a “bespoke manner” through the traditional acquisition process, Kennedy said.
“We do not have the corner on good ideas within 16th Air Force,” Kennedy said. “I’m very happy to understand what industry has to offer and really take advantage of the significant research and development budgets that industry puts into developing new capabilities.”
There isn’t a lone solution for cybersecurity problems, Kennedy said. Cybersecurity will need to be “at the forefront” of the conversation for weapons development to effectively address the cyber threats.
“It’s a continuing competition to build in resilience and to ensure that we can maintain that ability to generate combat power,” Kennedy said.
Kennedy succeeds Lt. Gen. Timothy Haugh, whom the Senate confirmed in May to be the next deputy commander of U.S. Cyber Command, C4ISRNET reported at the time.
“I think we’re on a tremendous path right now,” Kennedy said. “I’ll engage with the leadership and see if there’s any tweaks, as there always will be, but we’ll make those changes in the coming weeks and months.”