WASHINGTON, Oct. 17 (UPI) -- Recent pronouncements by U.S. Air Force officials about their view of cyberspace as a war-fighting domain have attracted little attention. But the questions they raise for U.S. military policy and doctrine are profound.

“Cyber(space) is important to the nation,” said Gen. Robert Elder, the military officer in charge of the U.S. Air Force’s day-to-day cyberspace operations, acknowledging the dependence of U.S. commerce and banking on the Internet, “But to the Air Force, it’s really important.”

He told a recent briefing organized by the Air Force Association that cyberspace was vital because it was the key to the U.S. military’s fabled cross-domain dominance.

“When we talk about the speed range and flexibility of air power” -- to deliver satellite-guided strikes to effect the outcome of a battle on the ground for example -- “the thing that enables this for us is the fact of our cyber-dominance,” the ability to move data and control signals through cyberspace -- which as the Air Force defines it is the entire electromagnetic spectrum.

The Air Force is in the process of standing up a fully fledged Cyberspace Command, alongside its Space and Air Commands, but Elder, like other senior officials, denied that the move was a turf grab.