The Air and Space Forces unite under the Department of the Air Force and are inextricably linked in
defense of the crucial high ground, integral to the stability of the global security landscape. Under civilian leadership, the Department’s nearly 700,000 Airmen and Guardians provide independent and integrated options to national leaders while defending democracy, an ideal that President Biden said, “holds the key to freedom, prosperity, peace, and dignity.” The Department of the Air Force enhances the peaceful instruments of diplomacy, sustains instruments of deterrence that check the spread of conflict, and ensures credible consequences for aggression.