No smoke. No sound. No fire. No warning.
Today’s threats to the homeland are largely invisible. Cyber intrusions, space disruption, and information warfare have reshaped the battlespace into something non-kinetic, fast moving, and multidomain. This blurred environment demands leaders who can integrate technology, intelligence, alliances, and strategy—and do it in real time. For Brig. Gen. Mathew “Astro” Wenthe (MA 1205/1206), this is his daily work.
Wenthe, an Air National Guard general officer with two decades of operational and interagency experience, currently serves at U.S. European Command (EUCOM) as the Deputy Director of Operations (DJ3). He oversees large-scale cyber effects, information operations, space operations, and integrated air and missile defense.
His path to this role began at the U.S. Air Force Academy in 1996. His service spans 30 years: from a Combat Search and Rescue helicopter pilot in the Air Force and Air National Guard, to five combat deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan and a deployment during his Center for Homeland Defense and Security (CHDS) cohort; he spent a year as a director on the National Guard staff, and did the crisis action planning for the Air National Guard’s A3 Operations Directorate during the 2017 hurricane season.
When Wenthe entered the CHDS in 2012, homeland security remained focused on post-9/11 counterterrorism. CHDS pushed him to think differently.
Midway through the program, Wenthe shifted his thesis in an unexpected direction: a mission to North Africa on a Military Education and Training Team (METT) sparked his interest in the region’s music scene, and when Dr. Kathleen Kiernan introduced the cohort to her work on using unconventional partners, like music and entertainment professionals, to address security challenges, something clicked in Wenthe. Instead of completing a conventional, job-aligned thesis, he explored how musical traditions and cultural engagement could help U.S. forces better understand and connect with local communities in northern Africa, especially in counterterrorism settings.
“CHDS gave me tools to analyze problems from an operational or strategic perspective, and taught me how important different points of view and partnerships are,” he said.
“So how do we fuse conventional kinetic warfare with non-kinetic capabilities and effects? That’s the problem we’re solving. It’s similar to post-9/11. We had to connect the dots across agencies. Now we must connect them across domains.”
Brig. Gen. Mathew “Astro” Wenthe, MA1205/1206
These lessons stayed with him. As the Air National Guard’s A3 Operations Directorate during the 2017 hurricane season, Wenthe relied on relationships built at CHDS during this crisis action planning, especially during Hurricane Maria. Even then, he said, the value wasn’t technical expertise—it was “being able to look at the big picture and bring the right people together.”
For the past six months, Wenthe’s EUCOM portfolio has immersed him in space operations, large-scale cyber effects, and information operations—capabilities critical to today’s threat environment. A major focus area for Wenthe and his team is the Joint All Domain Operations (JADO), the Department of War’s vision for integrating cyber, space, information, and kinetic effects into a seamless operational approach.
“So how do we fuse conventional kinetic warfare with non-kinetic capabilities and effects? That’s the problem we’re solving,” he said. “It’s similar to post-9/11. We had to connect the dots across agencies. Now we must connect them across domains.”
Wenthe and his team coordinate daily with U.S. Space Command to integrate space-based capabilities into U.S. and NATO operations, and with U.S. Cyber Command on both network defense and the delivery of cyber effects “at speed and scale.” These activities, once peripheral to operational planning, are now at the forefront.
“Whoever can best manage their information and data at speed and scale to create decision advantage will succeed in future warfare,” he said.
This emphasis aligns directly with the newly released National Defense Strategy (NDS). Wenthe’s mission set touches each of the strategy’s four pillars: defending the homeland; deterring China, particularly in the Indo Pacific; burden sharing with allies; and re-energizing the defense industrial base. EUCOM translates that guidance into three theater priorities:
- Defend the homeland forward from Europe, with Russia as the primary adversary.
- Project power from and within the European theater.
- Enable NATO to lead in Europe through burden-sharing and, when appropriate, burden-shifting.
For Wenthe, this shift reflects the reality the nation now confronts. Modern threats, cyber intrusions, space disruption, information warfare, and the manipulation of data, are no longer on the sidelines. They are central to homeland defense, and integrating them is foundational to credible deterrence.
“The problem sets change, but the way you think—and who you work with—matters just as much now as it did after 9/11,” said Wenthe.
