The chain of command leads from the President through the Secretary of Defense down to the newest recruits. The United States armed forces are organized through the United States Department of Defense, which oversees a complex structure of joint command and control functions with many units reporting to various commanding officers. The following is an incomplete list of the various major military units, commands, and DOD offices and agencies, including civilian and military chains of command.
ISTAR stands for intelligence, surveillance, target acquisition, and reconnaissance. In its macroscopic sense, ISTAR is a practice that links several battlefield functions together to assist a combat force in employing its sensors and managing the information they gather.
United States Strategic Command (USSTRATCOM) is one of the eleven unified combatant commands in the United States Department of Defense. Headquartered at Offutt Air Force Base, Nebraska, USSTRATCOM is responsible for strategic deterrence, global strike, and operating the Defense Department's Global Information Grid. It also provides a host of capabilities to support the other combatant commands, including integrated missile defense; and global command, control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (C4ISR). This command exists to give national leadership a unified resource for greater understanding of specific threats around the world and the means to respond to those threats rapidly.
The Air Staff is one of the Department of the Air Force's two statutorily designated headquarters staffs: the other staff is the Office of the Secretary of the Air Force, also known as the Secretariat. The Air Staff is headed by the Chief of Staff of the Air Force. The Air Staff is primarily composed of uniformed U.S. Air Force officials who assist the Chief of Staff in carrying out his dual-hatted role: as the principal military advisor to the Secretary of the Air Force, and as a member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
The Air Force Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance Agency was until 29 September 2014 a field operating agency of the United States Air Force headquartered at Lackland Air Force Base, Texas. On that date it was redesignated Twenty-Fifth Air Force and aligned as a numbered air force (NAF) of the Air Combat Command.
Lieutenant General Lincoln D. Faurer was United States Air Force officer who served as director of the National Security Agency and chief of the Central Security Service from 1981 to 1985.
Thomas Samuel Moorman Jr. was a United States Air Force officer who served as Vice Chief of Staff of the United States Air Force from July 1994 to August 1997.
Leslie F. Kenne is a retired lieutenant general in the United States Air Force, a rank she attained in 1999, and the first woman to attain that rank in the Air Force. She is currently on the board of directors of SRI International, Harris Corporation, Oshkosh Corporation and Unisys Corporation. Kenne also serves on the Air Force Studies Board's Development Planning Roundtable, part of the National Academy of Sciences.
The United States Air Force's 497th Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance Group is an intelligence unit located at Joint Base Langley–Eustis, Virginia.
Twenty-Fifth Air Force, also known as Air Force Intelligence, was a numbered air force (NAF) within the United States Air Force (USAF), and served as the Air Force's premier military intelligence organization. 25 AF was established on 29 September 2014 by redesignating the Air Force Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance Agency under Headquarters, United States Air Force, to a numbered air force aligned under Air Combat Command. The USAF also realigned the 9th Reconnaissance Wing and the 55th Wing under the new NAF. It was headquartered at Lackland Air Force Base, Texas.
Steven Alan Schaick is a retired major general in the United States Air Force, and an ordained Presbyterian minister, who last served as the 19th Chief of Chaplains of the United States Air Force. He previously served as the 25th Deputy Chief of Chaplains of the United States Air Force, Headquarters U. S. Air Force, Pentagon, Washington, D.C. As the deputy chief of chaplains, he was a member of the special staff of the Chief of Staff, Schaick assists the Chief of Chaplains of the United States Air Force in establishing guidance on all matters pertaining to the religious and moral welfare of Air Force personnel and their dependents and directing and maintaining a trained, equipped and professional Chaplain Corps of more than 2,200 chaplains and chaplain assistants from the active and Air Reserve components. As a member of the Armed Forces Chaplains Board, he and other members advise the Secretary of Defense and Joint Chiefs of Staff on religious, ethical and quality-of-life concerns.
The United States Space Force (USSF) is the space service branch of the U.S. Armed Forces, one of the eight U.S. uniformed services, and the world's first and currently only independent space force. Along with its sister-branch, the U.S. Air Force, the Space Force is part of the Department of the Air Force, one of the three civilian-led military departments within the Department of Defense. The Space Force, through the Department of the Air Force, is overseen by the secretary of the Air Force, a civilian political appointee who reports to the secretary of defense, and is appointed by the president with Senate confirmation. The military head of the Space Force is the chief of space operations who is the most senior Space Force officer unless a Space Force officer is serving as either the chairman or vice-chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The chief of space operations exercises supervision over the Space Force's units and serves as one of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
Joseph Thomas Guastella Jr. is a lieutenant general in the United States Air Force, who serves as the Deputy Chief of Staff for Operations at the US Air Force Headquarters. He was commissioned upon his graduation from the United States Air Force Academy in 1987.
The structure of the United States Space Force refers to the different types of organizational units in the service: the Space Staff, the field commands, and the space deltas.
While the United States Space Force gained its independence on 20 December 2019, the history of the United States Space Force can be traced back to the beginnings of the military space program following the conclusion of the Second World War in 1945. Early military space development was begun within the United States Army Air Forces by General Henry H. Arnold, who identified space as a crucial military arena decades before the first spaceflight. Gaining its independence from the Army on 18 September 1947, the United States Air Force began development of military space and ballistic missile programs, while also competing with the United States Army and United States Navy for the space mission.
The Deputy Chief of Staff for Intelligence, Surveillance, Reconnaissance, and Cyber Effects Operations of the United States Air Force is a position in the United States Air Force tasked with the development and implementation of policy formulation, planning, evaluation, oversight and leadership of Air Force intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance and cyber effects operations capabilities. Commonly referred to as the A26, it is held by a lieutenant general who also serves as the representative of the Air Force to the intelligence community. The position is one of among the ten same positions in the Headquarters of the U.S. Air Force. As such, the officeholder of this position serves in the Air Staff. The current holder of this position is Lieutenant General Mary F. O'Brien.
Michael L. Downs is a United States Air Force major general who serves as the deputy director, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance operations of the Joint Staff, replacing Brigadier General Julian Cheater. He most recently served as the vice director of intelligence of the Joint Staff until May 14, 2021. Previously, he was the director of intelligence of United States Forces Korea and United Nations Command. In May 2021, he was promoted to major general.
Mark D. Stillwagon is a retired United States Air Force brigadier general who served from 1985 until 2017. He served in various operational and staff assignments at the squadron, wing, center, major command, Combat Support Agency, and joint levels while on active duty and as a member of the Air National Guard and United States Air Force Reserve. Deployments include Venezuela as part of a cooperative Combat Search and Rescue training effort and Incirlik Air Base, Turkey, in support of Operation Northern Watch. In the wake of 9/11, the general was assigned to the Joint Staff to direct targeting and battle damage assessment activities during Operation Enduring Freedom.
Daniel Lawrence Simpson is a United States Air Force major general who serves as the Assistant Deputy Chief of Staff for Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance. Previously, he was the Director of Intelligence of the United States Forces Afghanistan.
Lee Ann T. Bennett is a United States Air Force major general who has served as the mobilization assistant to the Deputy Chief of Staff for Intelligence, Surveillance, Reconnaissance, and Cyber Effects Operations of the United States Air Force since October 2019. Previously, she was the mobilization assistant to the Deputy Chief of Staff, Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance.
Major General 
