Cyberpoints Two:Measuring the Effectiveness of Military Recruiting in Cyber Careers

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03/03/2010

SLD CWC

By John Wheeler

[email protected]

John is writing a weekly column dedicated to the cyberspace domain: he will continue to provide regular insights into how to shape effective con-ops in the cyber domain and craft a Terms of Reference for facing XXIst Century cyber challenges.

John has a wide range of combat and government experience. He is a West Point graduate with warfighting experience in Vietnam. He has significant private sector experience, as well as holding various positions in government, including being Secretary, US Securities and Exchange Commission. His most recent position as Special Assistant to the Secretary of the Air Force included principal tasks, among which were standing up Cyberspace Forces and placing Precision Strike technology and Real Time Streaming Video targeting links into the hands of groundfighters in combat.

***


John Wheeler
John Wheeler

Welcome to SLD Cyberpoints Weekly Column

George Santayana wrote, “Only the dead have seen the end of war.” In Cyberspace he will certainly be proved right, and in the minds of many who watch the predations going on in Cyberspace upon Corporate, Military and Personal data bases, he has already been proved right.

In ways similar to the evolution of the Undersea Domain in the early 1900’s and the Air Domain in the 1910’s and 20’s, the Cyberspace Domain is being developed and discovered, with the military implications still at a very young stage. There abound policy and technical, training and recruiting, equipping as well as doctrine questions in large number. Huge contracts for Cyber are being let by Government and Industry.

“Cyberpoints” is meant to take a weekly look at an issue or event in light of the larger flow of development of the Cyberspace domain. Input, tips, heads-up, comment and correction are most welcome.

New books, articles, pending legislation, needed legislation, Corporate pronouncements, DHS, State, DoD, VA and other Agency Cyber Matters are all of interest. Cyberwar is not the only thread; Cybersecurity for Corporations and Individuals is a core topic, as is the way each of the tools of diplomacy and war can combine and impinge as to Cyberspace.

For example, when the Secretary of State says that the United States is committed to “Freedom of the Internet”, that means, really, “Freedom of Cyberspace”, invoking the history, heritage and heavy freight of the doctrine of “Freedom of the Seas.” There is plenty of policy work to do and unfold as to “Freedom of Cyberspace.”

***

Cyberpoints No. 2
March 4th, 2010

There are two big topics for this week’s Cyberpoints:

  • Two New Cyber Statements: the first by Admiral McConnell; the second by TRADOC about the Army’s way-ahead for Cyber
  • Recruiting for Cyber Careers in the military: how effective?

***

I. TWO NEW CYBER STATEMENTS

Two noteworthy Cyberspace statements have been made in recent days.

Admiral Mike McConnell (Ret) published as good an articulation of the need to stand up a robust US Cybercommand as has been made.
We can declare Admiral McConnell’s statement to be the high water mark of warnings about the need for robust Cyber standup. The need now is actual progress, and as much public disclosure of US capability in Cyber as is prudent and possible, for potential recruits and their families. Cyberspace is ultimately a Warfighting Domain as well as a Commercial and Intelligence Domain. And in the end, with war as arbiter, it is the US Military Services that will be challenged to preserve Freedom of Cyberspace, just as long ago the US Military Services established Freedom of the Seas. As noted in this space, George Santayana said “Only the dead have seen the end of war”, and the dictum applies in Cyberspace.

pic2-cyberpoints2In addition, the Army has published guidelines for operations in Cyberspace, Tradoc Pamphlet 525-7-8, “Cyberspace Operations Concept Capability Plan 2016-2028“.
Noteworthy is that the taxonomy used by the Army is shifting to the 21st Century “Cyberspace” terminology and away from the 20th Century labels of “Network Operations.” Language can govern and always influences thought and action. Beady-eyed cowhands from Texas now say, using the Army for example, and with a smile, “OK, the Army has the Cyber Hat. Let’s see the Cyber Herd.”

***

II. RECRUITING FOR CYBER CAREERS: MOM LOOKS FOR CYBER CAREER FOR HER DAUGHTER AND SON

Speaking of the matching the Cyber Hat with a Cyber Herd: How is USA Military doing?

  1. Some more clarity and inclusion of Cyber Officer and Enlisted Career lanes on the Service Websites will assist potential recruits and their families.
  2. A quarterly Table of Officer and Enlisted Accessions 2008, 2009 and so far in 2010 in Cyber careers will help track the US Military standup in Cyber. The same is done in other career fields. DoD, with Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine, and, with coordination, US Coast Guard and also US Merchant Marine, can prepare the summary tables. In the Military Lane, in contrast to the Intelligence Lane, this data is traditionally gathered and made public for reasons of transparency to the public and Congress and as deterrence.
CyberPatriot
Air Force JROTC cadets (l-r) Michael Velaquez, Mark Schoeni, and Robert DeWitt work together on Team Doolittle to defend their network (Credit Photo: Dan Higgins, www.airforce-magazine.com, June 2009)

MOM LOOKS FOR CYBER LANES FOR HER SON OR DAUGHTER
A good way to think of the effectiveness of military recruiting messages and websites is to think as a Mom-Looking-to-Help-Her-Teens. That is, imagine a Mom, likely a single Mom, trying to sort out good opportunities for her son or daughter. She is a smart hardworking single mom Out in America who happens to see a military cyber story and thinks, “Hey if my daughter Clarita went into Cyber, she could be a sergeant or an officer and her career would be good, she is so good at math” and then the Mom wanders from recruiting office to recruiting office and finds no joy …
Let’s imagine she has heard of Cyber opportunities in the military and has enough life experience to know that a military tour opens many doors in life and work. So in our Mind’s Eye think of that Mom, with a few spare minutes, trying to find where to send young teen daughter or son to talk about Cyber enlistment or Cyber careers as an officer.
Google will send the Mom to the Military recruiting websites. So the searches below are as a Mom might do. And here is what Mom finds:

(a) Mom Goes to The Military Service Web Sites
Opening the sites and then using the Search box in each does not yield a Cyberspace enlisted and officer Cyber Careers list.

http://www.airforce.com

http://www.navy.com/

http://www.goarmy.com/#/?marquee=officership&channel=careers

http://www.marines.com

http://www.uscg.mil

(b) Mom finds the Mission Statements in Cyber Commands

  • 9th Signal Command: “9th Signal Command (Army) operates, maintains and defends the Network Enterprise to enable information superiority and ensure the operating and generating forces freedom of access to the network in all phases of Joint, Interagency, and Multinational operations.” (http://www.netcom.army.mil/about/docs/NETCOM_Pamphlet.pdf)

NOTE THAT CNO SETS “DOMINANCE” IN CYBERSPACE AS THE OBJECTIVE.
There is a debate afoot as to whether the USA can dominate in Cyberspace, and yet, the Mission of the US Military is to dominate the foe, first with deterrence, and then, with the dominant, “unfair” fight.
The Wynne Doctrine, after SECAF21 Michael W. Wynne: “If you are ever in a fair fight, senior leaders have failed you.”

(c) Then Mom Finds Out

  • USCYBERCOM No Mission Statement yet for USCYBERCOM it seems. From SECDEF Order to Stand Up USCYBERCOM: http://publicintelligence.net/establishment-of-a-subordinate-unified-u-s-cyber-command/
    The Mission implicit in the SECDEF Standup Order for USCYBERCOM is, notionally,“The mission of USCYBERCOM is to guard Freedom of Cyberspace by dominating, deterring and defeating foreign cyber incursion on the United States, her allies, and citizens and by aiding law enforcement, first responders and allies.”

Cyberspace_Entries_on_USAF_

  • At this time, only the Air Force site, http://www.airforce.com , has CyberCareers presented, when “Cyberspace” is entered as a search term in the “search” box of each of the sites of the four Services. Only enlisted Cyber Careers are presented. On www.airforce.com, under Officer Careers, no Cyber Careers are presented. A useful report would be a full apples-to-apples comparison of the services as to cyber personnel. The report has to include cyber-personnel detached and serving NSA and other Black agencies. Course listings and majors from each of the Five Federal Academies on Cyberspace are a basic tool for measuring Service posture on Cyber. As well, from the War Colleges and continuing education schools of each Service. This, above all, is basic, knit-one, purl-two info. Essential. Muscling-up in Cyberspace means muscling-up in accessions and careers and retention. Tracking this data is essential for policymakers and the media.

No Cyberspace Found on Navy

  • As with Navy and Army, no hits on “Cyberspace” in Search in: http://www.marines.com. “CYBERSPACE” No results matched your search. Try again using more general terms, for example, if you searched for “famous battles,” try “battles.”

No Cyberspace Found on Army

More clarity in the recruiting websites for our imagined Mom will make recruiting easier and America’s Moms happier.

NOTE: A wide Google search finds statements by the Services on Cyber that do have information for our “Mom” — but they are not consolidated in the Recruiting Sites above. All this is easy to package and correct for the websites, for the Mom — and Dad — and prospective recruit who wants the full picture on Cyber career opportunities. The info and personnel policies are in place; the task is to package and present in intuitive easy form for Americans to check out, e.g.:

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&source=hp&q=air+force+cyber+recruiting+data&btnG=Google+Search&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&oq=

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=navy+cyber+recruiting+data&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&oq=

http://usarmy.vo.llnwd.net/e1/soldiers/archives/pdfs/mar09all.pdf

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=army+cyber+recruiting+data&btnG=Search&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&oq=

http://www.airforce-magazine.com/MagazineArchive/Pages/2009/June%202009/0609cyberpatriot.aspx

———-

***Posted March 3rd, 2010

Combat Controllers Haiti

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03/01/2010

Credit: 1st Combat Camera Squadron, Port-Au-Prince, Haiti, 25 January 2010

Combat Controllers from the Air Force Special Operations Command, Hurlburt Field, Florida, conducting air traffic control operations in and out of Toussaint L’Ouverture International Airport from their makeshift control center on the airfield.
Combat Controllers were one of the first teams to arrive in Haiti and immediately began air traffic control operations.

———-

***Posted March 1st, 2010

Lieutenant General Dubik on the Iraq Challenge: “It was pretty daunting”

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SLD conducted an interview with Lieutenant General James Dubik in early February 2010. As one of the key implementers of Iraq policy during the surge period which is allowing a transition policy to be conducted in Iraq, General Dubik is one of the most qualified persons to discuss the challenges of ongoing change in Iraq.

LTG James M. Dubik
Lieutenant General James M. Dubik

Lieutenant-General James M. Dubik assumed command Multi National Security Transition Command-Iraq on 10 June 2007 and is now a senior fellow at the Institute for the Study of War, which he joined in 2009 as a senior fellow and where he has authored several notable studies and assessments on Iraq and Afghanistan . Previously, LTG Dubik was the Commanding General of I Corps and Ft. Lewis. He was commissioned a second lieutenant of infantry from Gannon University as a Distinguished Military Graduate in 1971. He retired from the service on September 1, 2008.

There is no better person to discuss the challenges facing the transition in Iraq in 2010 and 2011 than General Dubik. Sldinfo is shaping a series looking at the challenge of defense of Iraq in the post-2010 period and General Dubik’s interview is the lead piece of that effort (See: Second Time Around, an Army piece on a soldier’s second time around in Iraq, which provides a measure of the progress discussed by Lt. General Dubik).

***

SLD: General, before we discuss your Iraq experience, could you tell us about your background and prior experience?

General Dubik: Two aspects of my background were most relevant to Iraq. First, my intellectual background is philosophy, and especially political philosophy. Second, my professional background is in the Army infantry. I am a paratrooper. I’ve been with a Ranger battalion six and half years, with the 82nd Airborne Division for four years. I also have significant command experience with the 10th division and the 25th division and was commander of I-Corps. I have seen operational experience in Haiti, Bosnia, and Iraq. I also was tasked by the Chief of Staff of the Army to stand up the First Stryker Brigade in 1999 and 2000.

All of these things – broad political understanding, wide-ranging operational experience, and shaping innovation in introducing the Stryker – came into play in shaping my approach to my latest Iraq deployment in May 2007.

SLD: How would you characterize your initial entry into the Iraq assignment in 2007?

General Dubik: General Petraeus had just been there and General Odierno was already in command of the Multi National Corps. Ambassador Crocker had just arrived. I was the last of the senior members of the leadership team to arrive. I visited the country prior to taking command and discovered that the situation was as dire as people believed. It was not misreported at all.

We also had a sense that if we didn’t turn it around by the end of that year, quite frankly, by September of 2007 (as General Petraeus testified) if we didn’t have empirical evidence that it was starting to turn around, there was a very real chance that our mission would be “withdrawal under pressure.”

And so we worked really hard as a team:

  • Ray Odierno on the counteroffensive and partnering with the Iraqi Security Forces
  • General Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker on governance and economic improvement at both the national and provincial levels as well as overall policy
  • and myself on accelerating the growth of the Iraq security forces in size, capability, and confidence.

SLD: What were your expectations in terms of the core tasks that you were facing?

General Dubik: Well, I knew that I would be responsible for training and equipping the Iraq security forces, and continuing to develop the ministries of defense and interior. And I had a very extensive set of conversations with my predecessor, Marty Dempsey; we have been friends for a long time. Our preparatory conversations probably extended for five months. We had video conferences back and forth between the two of us, as well as with his subordinates.

SLD: So it was good hand-off operationally?

General Dubik: It was a very good. In addition, I read probably 20 new books and reread 15-20 old books on insurgencies to get myself intellectually and culturally prepared. But I really didn’t have a sense of the direness of the tactical situation until May of 2007 when I flew around the whole country. I took one month of orientation before the change of command and flew, literally, as far south as Basra, as far north as the Syrian border, and every place in between. I saw how much we had to do and how little time we had to do it. It was a pretty daunting.

SLD: You worked the training hand in hand with the counter-insurgency operations. And the counter-offensive played a key part in shaping the Sunni Awakening and the Sadr cease-fire. In your view, did the counter-offensive provide a necessary but not sufficient condition for shaping a successful training mission?

General Dubik: I had extensive conversations in the period of the counter-offensive with General Babaker, Chief of Staff of the Iraqi Forces, as well as the Defense and Interior Ministers with regard to how to build up their forces. This was a dialogue and a shaping effort to determine what would work. The counter-offensive created the trade-space within which we could shape the new Iraqi forces. “Trade space” in this sense: we knew that we could not just crank out numbers and ignore quality, but we also knew that we could not wait until we got the top quality soldiers, leaders, and units. We’d lose the war either of these ways. So we determine what “sufficient” quality was relative to the enemy and the time. We focused on building a sufficiently large, sufficiently led, and sufficiently competent security force. The success of the counter-offensive helped increase recruiting and retention. It also improved confidence.

There was a clear desire on their part – all three of them – to grow the Iraq military, primarily at this point, in 2007. And to grow the national police much faster than we had originally envisioned.

Brig. Gen. Aamir, commander of the 1st Brigade, 1st National Police Division, Lt. Col. Razzak, the Salman Pak chief of police, Sheiks Ali Hussein and Karin, Sons of Iraq leaders from Salman Pak and Dura'iya, Iraq, respectively, speak to Iraqi media about the importance of the opening of the Salman Pak to al Lej road, prior to cutting the ribbon (Credit: SFC Sean Riley, March 2008, http://iraqpictures.blogspot.com/)
Brig. Gen. Aamir, commander of the 1st Brigade, 1st National Police Division, Lt. Col. Razzak, the Salman Pak chief of police, Sheiks Ali Hussein and Karin, Sons of Iraq leaders from Salman Pak and Dura'iya, Iraq respectively, speak to Iraqi media about the importance of the opening of the Salman Pak to al Lej road, prior to cutting the ribbon (Credit: SFC Sean Riley, March 2008, http://iraqpictures.blogspot.com/)

SLD: What role did the Sons of Iraq play in all of this?

General Dubik: They played a big role. They were one of the consequences of the Sunni Awakening. The Sons of Iraq began to provide security at the local level. At this stage, it was always in conjunction with coalition forces and Iraq forces. Rarely were they operating independent of those. That was part of the partnership that Ray and I had in shaping a joint strategy. He had to oversee these guys on the ground, and most of them joined the police forces. So my role was to help Minister of Interior Jawad Al-Bulani figure out the way to get these guys properly vetted and then hired into the police force. At times it was a torturously slow process, but the Minister got about 10,000 Sons of Iraq into the Iraqi police.

SLD: As you did the ramp up of the new security forces, how did you reach out to the former Army officers during the time of Saddam Hussein?

General Dubik: General Babakar and Defense Minister Abu Qadir had to reach out to former officers and sergeants to bring them back in. They were the prime movers in this effort. Now they did this with proper vetting, and they did this with proper retraining, but they could not have grown their forces without tapping into that former expertise.

Minister of Interior Bolani also developed a program for reaching out to former army officers to bring them in as police officers. Because as he grew the police force to almost 300,000 by the time I left (July 2008), he had to grow an awful lot of police officers, and initially they had only one way to produce them, and that was the three-year Baghdad Police College. He realized that the production rate of a three-year college was not going to be sufficient to get officers for the size of the police force he was building. So he reached out to former police and army officers as well. Again, properly vetted, retrained, and placed. And he expanded the capacity of the Baghdad Police College, increased the ways in which a person could become a police officer – instituting programs for police NCOs to enter the officer ranks, shorter programs for Army officers who wanted to convert into police, and accelerated programs for police recruits who already had an education.

SLD: In effect, you were working with the Iraqis to shape both from a bottom-up and a top-down point of view, a new authority structure?

General Dubik: Yes, and in our discussions with the Iraqi government we focused on the right sizing of the force to be able to provide for internal Iraqi security. In my discussions with the Iraqi Prime Minister, I suggested that he would need a force of around 600 to 650,000 to secure the country. He was initially taken aback and he said: “Do we need a force that big?” And my answer was “Mr. Prime Minister, if you want to secure your own country, this is the force you are going to need. Later, as security improves and the economy grows, you can cut back on the size. Or you can stop at any level if the situation permits.”

SLD: Where did the number you were suggesting come from?

General Dubik: It was based on a conjunction of several inputs. One was done by the Center of Army Analysis. They are here in DC. I asked General Petraeus’s staff to provide the right assumptions, that way it would not appear that I had “cooked the books,” so-to-speak.

So, Center of Army Analysis did one. Then I asked General Odierno’s staff to do a commander’s assessment. Then I asked the Minister of Defense and Interior what their assessment was based on their own analysis of their country.

And then last, I asked my predecessor, Marty Dempsey: “You’ve done this now for almost two years, what’s your assessment?”

All these assessments congealed around somewhere between 600 and 650 thousand. And when you have several different groups come up like that with a virtual consensus on the number, that’s a very powerful argument.

SLD: Presumably this number and approach was being shaped for the transition to a self-defense force, not one just able to do internal security, is that correct?

General Dubik: Yes, for the longer-term you would re-shape or transition the force built to succeed in the counterinsurgency to one that can defend the territorial integrity of Iraq. You’re going to want to reduce the COIN force and separate the military from the police because internal operations of a country should be run by its police, not its military. And then focus the military on external self-defense. That’s not the position we were in at the time, though. To get to that position, you need to build 600-650 thousand security forces as quickly as you can. Secure your own country, and then that’ll set you up to have the possibility of successfully refocusing later on. The good news is that we’re at the transition point now. We got there.

Q: How about the problem of equipping this force? What was your approach? I cannot imagine this was and is an easy process.

General Dubik: To grow the force as quickly as we did, and accelerate this growth, we decided that the first thing that we had to do was identify what was the minimum combat essential equipment necessary to win the war we were in.

To make sure we got 100-percent of that, the rest of the stuff we could defer, and then we could identify some longer-range things that they would need for external defense later on.

We were not going to slow the growth of the force necessary for internal security at the expense of buying something that wouldn’t be necessary till 2025. Finally, we were going to disintegrate growing the force. That is, we would let each element of the force – for example, intel, maneuver, logistics, aviation, fire support – each grow at the fastest pace it could. That way, we would not slow down one element because of another. An integrated approach is always optimal, but when you’re in a war the sub-optimal is often the best course of action. That was a big decision.

The second decision was what part would the U.S. pay for and what part would the Iraqis pay for? In November 2006, so just a few months before I showed up, there was the crossover point in investment in Iraqi security force. By that I mean, at the end of 2006, Iraq was starting to spend more for their own security forces than Congress had appropriated in the Iraqi Security Force Fund final. My predecessor had set this up.

Then from the end of 2006 to present, the gap between spending just got larger and larger. By the end of 2008, for example, the aggregate of Iraqi Security Force Fund was $22 billion. And the aggregate of what Iraq spent on themselves was $22.8 billion. So, even in the aggregate, by 2008, they were starting to spend more.

SLD: Did oil revenue play a part?

General Dubik: It’s a very big part. And that’s why part of the overall counterinsurgency strategy was to increase the oil production so that they could keep paying for their own stuff. But the Minister of Defense, the Minister of Interior, General Babakar, and I all had to come to an agreement concerning who’s going to pay for what in this acceleration. We used the Iraqi security force funds in those conditions where we had to buy something very quickly, so we could keep the pace of growth. And we used Iraqi funds for much of the support and logistics, some near-term items, and some of the longer-lead items.

Credit: http://www.understandingwar.org/report/building-security-forces-and-ministerial-capacity
Credit: Lieutenant General James M. Dubik (U.S. Army, Ret.), Building Security Forces and Ministerial Capacity: Iraq as a Primer, The Institute for the Study of War, August 2009, page 9.


SLD: How were you able to address the U.S. funding or acquisition side of this in a very fluid situation?

General Dubik: We used Congressional provided Iraq Security Force Funds to buy the stuff we needed quickly. We bought the small arms, individual soldier equipment, some larger equipment, radios, night-vision devices, trucks, some humvees. But things that we knew we could turn over quickly, we bought with Iraqi Security Force Funds.

Things that we would have to take a little bit longer, or the rest of a unit’s equipment – beyond the minimum combat essential list – the Iraqis bought. So for every unit, we had to determine: OK the U.S. is going to spend this, you’re going to spend that. And then we had an agreement and it worked out relatively well for the acceleration plan. Not perfect, but “good enough.”

By identifying minimum combat essential equipment, we were not wasting money or time on equipment that was necessary, but not necessary for the fight immediately. For example, if a unit needed 12 trailers for its full equipment list, but they didn’t need 12 trailers to fight right now. We would say, “Minister, you buy that, and we’ll buy the stuff that we really need for the near-term fight. Because it was in our interest to grow this force as quickly as we did, not just their interest.

SLD: In this period, where were they buying the equipment from?

General Dubik: Mostly the United States, but not exclusively.

FMS
Credit: Lieutenant General James M. Dubik (U.S. Army, Ret.), Building Security Forces and Ministerial Capacity: Iraq as a Primer, The Institute for the Study of War, August 2009, page 20.

SLD: What about the role of Foreign Military Sales or the FMS system in providing equipment in this period?

General Dubik: Well, at the start, while I was probably the loudest complainer of FMS initially, I have to acknowledge that the FMS process, once it was energized by the Secretary of Defense, through the stimulation of Senator Jack Reed and others, once it got energized, it really was amazing.

We went from receiving only $100 million worth of equipment delivered in the early summer of 2007 to I think, $1.4 billion by the time I left. So that’s – that’s a huge improvement.

They went from an average of about 120 days to process paperwork to 60 days to process paperwork. So, you know, again, the FMS process was still way too slow and not agile enough, in my opinion, but it did get better. Under the pressure that the Secretary put on them, they really improved. Not sufficiently enough in my view, but I have to acknowledge the fact that there was significant improvement.

A Second Time Around In Iraq: “Two Different Countries”

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Credit: 3rd Stryker Brigade Combat Team, 2nd Infantry Division, February 5, 2010

2nd-time-around-2-500

Sgt. George Applegate, a fire team leader for 2nd Platoon, Company C, 2nd Battalion, 3rd Infantry Regiment, 3rd Stryker Brigade Combat Team, 2nd Infantry Division, searches a hole in a cinder block for a possible improvised explosive device (IED) during a combined patrol in Muqdadiyah, January 31, 2010. The hole was empty, but on Applegate’s previous deployment to Iraq, it would have more than likely had an IED in it.

“This is way easier than my last deployment,” said Sgt. George Applegate, from Evergreen, Colorado, a fire team leader for 2nd Platoon, Company C, 2nd Battalion, 3rd Infantry Regiment, 3rd Stryker Brigade Combat Team, 2nd Infantry Division, while pulling security beside his Stryker vehicle that was staged next to the headquarters of the Iraqi Police’s 7th Battalion Emergency Reaction Force in Muqdadiyah, Iraq, on the night of January 31.

Applegate, and the rest of 2nd Platoon, conducted a night patrol in Muqdadiyah, searching for possible improvised explosive devices.

A couple years ago, Applegate wouldn’t have been engaged in such a casual conversation while pulling security, because the threat of violence was much more prominent.

“This country differs greatly,” said Sgt. Applegate, who was last deployed to Iraq from August, 2006 to November 2007, with the 4th Battalion, 31st Infantry Regiment, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 10th Mountain Division, and was stationed just south of Baghdad.

On his last deployment, Applegate operated as part of a combat force in a light infantry unit, encountering violence on a regular basis. There were no combined operations back in those days.

“We were basically a quick reaction force for the entire country,” said Applegate. “We were able to be deployed anywhere in a heartbeat.”

Moving around quite a bit, and going out on continuous missions, Applegate found himself living in quarters that are unheard of in today’s Iraq. He has repeatedly slept in storage containers placed at strategic locations or set up camp in empty houses, whose original occupants evacuated to escape sectarian violence.

“It’s a much better Iraq now,” Applegate said.

Currently, Applegate is temporarily living at Forward Operating Base Normandy. Instead of travelling around, laying his head wherever he found shelter from attacks, he sleeps in his own room filled with a mini refrigerator and a wall locker covered with photos of his wife and 1-year-old daughter.

Not only is Applegate finding this deployment more comfortable, he has also noticed a significant change in the performance of Iraqi forces.

Second-Time-Around-in-Iraq-
3rd Stryker Brigade Combat Team, 2nd Infantry Division, February 5, 2010

At the tail end of his first trip to Iraq, Applegate started to see the Iraqi army and Iraqi police take form. They weren’t equipped with the best weaponry or tactics, but they were willing to make a difference.

“After the Iraqi Security Forces started taking action, it was like flipping a light switch,” said Applegate. “The violence seemed to immediately stop, shops opened back up, and people started to live normal lives.”

Now, he finds himself as part of an assistance team with 2nd Platoon, conducting joint operations and training with the IP and the IA. The fire team leader is working as a teacher and mentor as opposed to kicking down doors.

“We’re doing a lot of training with these guys, we’re even doing PT [physical training] with them,” Applegate said.

During this deployment, 2nd Platoon has worked a lot with their primary partners in the ERF, conducting training and combined operations with them at least twice a week. When they first started working together, the ERF were inexperienced. After the partnership started, the U.S. Soldiers noticed an instant difference.

“Seeing their improvement in the first two weeks was impressive,” exclaimed Applegate.

Gearing up for this deployment, Applegate was nervous. With the last deployment fresh on his mind, he expected the same for this adventure.

“Everyone that had a previous deployment was pretty uptight,” said Applegate while talking about getting ready to deploy with 2/3 Inf., 3SBCT.

When Applegate and the Soldiers of 2nd Platoon set boots on the ground, they started conducting operations that involved working more with the people of Iraq than he had before.

“We started to get used to the people in the area. The interaction with children and people in the area is much better,” Applegate said with a smile.

Throughout his experience in the Army, Applegate has seen Iraq change so much that he finds it hard to believe it’s the same place. To him, it’s like he has been deployed to two different countries. He left an Iraq that was ravaged with violence, and came back to find a nation finding its feet, with a much more competent infrastructure.

———-

***Posted March 1st, 2010

The Impact of the Georgian War

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Dr. Ron Asmus
Dr. Ronald Asmus

While Dr. Ronald Asmus, Director of the Brussels Office of the German Marshall Fund, and one of the author’s of the Clinton Administration’s NATO Expansion policy, was in Washington DC recently, Sldinfo had a chance to talk with Ron about his new book on the Georgian War. The book is unique in the author’s access to participants in the war and the negotiations process. Although the Russian government refused to let its representatives be interviewed for the book, Dr. Asmus pursued various avenues to discern the Russian behavior and motives in the conflict.

The book is a stern reminder of the reversibility of history, and the continued prospects for conflict in Europe that can affect the boundaries among states.The book is highly recommended: it is entitled A Little War That Shook the World and is published by Palgrave Macmillan.

Robbin Laird: So, Ron, basically you put together a very unique book looking at a crisis that most people would like to forget. This is really the first crisis of the expanded Europe and the new Russia. What’s your sense about why this crisis was so unique, and and what iss your evaluation of its impact?

Ronald Asmus: We had come to believe that war in Europe had become impossible and that we had constructed an elaborate and effective European security system that had locked in a new Cold War piece once and for all. And my thesis here is that that system failed.

That system failed to see the conflict coming. All the conflict prevention mechanisms that were supposed to identify and alert us to looming conflict didn’t work. And above all, we fudamentally underestimated the conflict between Russia and Georgia, which was first and foremost not a conflict over overAbkhazia, but a conflict over the right of a small county to choose its own path and go its own way in foreign policy. Georgia was determined to go West and Russia was determined to stop it; and Russia used those conflicts or manipulated them to provoke a war which in turn gave it the pretext to invade.

I wrote the book in part because I think, you’re right, people would prefer to sweep this under the rug and pretend it never happened, blame it all on the Georgians, which is easy to do.

But I think it raises some profound questions about why the system failed and will the system fail again because this little war not only resolved nothing, but the war aims that Russia had are still very much alive and well. The goal was not to take over Abkhazia. The goal was to break the determination of Georgia to go West and to reestablish a Russian sphere of privilege, interest, and influence on its borders, and all the seeds for another conflict are still there.

Robbin Laird: You have really followed a unique path in trying to get your sourcing for this book and have really I think done an impressive job of looking all the belligerents, all the players in this to try to get some sense of kind of the cacophony of strategic goals involved. It must have been challenging actually to sort out what eventually would shape as the truth and working the very complex sourcing for this book. It’s very impressive.

Ronald Asmus: Well, I think it’s a complicated story, which makes it hard to tell, and writing a book like this is a bit like being a Sherlock Holmes in investigative journalism. But what happens is once you start pulling on the thread of something and once it starts to unravel, then different people open up and different sources open up and I found that quite a few people weren’t willing to talk on the record.

Although, I did speak to many Russians off the record and many independent analysts. But I think it’s like a mosaic and I felt that as you put the pieces of the mosaic in place, the picture that started to emerge became increasingly clear and is different from the dominant narrative in the strategic community at the moment which is that the Georgians provoked this war. The conventional wisdom is that they had plans to re-conquer the territory and they’re to blame.

It’s a much more complicated story and one in which we too look bad. It’s too easy blame the Georgians. And what I want to do is hold up the mirror and also ask Western policymakers to think a bit about what we did wrong and how we inadvertently contributed to this movement toward war.

Robbin Laird: My final question is what is the longer-term significance of this kind of snapshot that you’ve taken of a moment in European security history? What do you think the longer-term consequences might be of the inability to really deal with this issue in a way that fully reinforces western values?

Ronald Asmus: 2010 is the 20th anniversary of the signing of Charter of Paris, and Charter of Paris was signed of course shortly after the Iron Curtain had come down, when there was a sense of a new unified democratic Europe, cooperative security. The Charter of Paris is supposed to establish a new set of rules of the game for how European security was going to function. 20 years later, there’s no longer any agreement on them.

Russia believes that we used those rules to facilitate a geopolitical moves against it. It no longer, I would argue, accepts the fundamental premises of the Charter of Paris, even though it’s signed up to them a dozen if not dozens of times over the last 20 years, and the key question now is: Do we fight for those values?

Because the Charter of Paris said “No spheres of influence, the right of countries to choose their own alliances, equal security for all countries big and small,” and we wrote them because we had concluded that the 20th Century had taught us that spheres of influence were a bag thing. They led to conflict and not to security. We wanted to move beyond them.

But it’s now all coming back. So do we acquiesce to Russian demands to legitimate a sphere of influence? Finlandization has come back as a phrase and a conflict that you hear whispered in quarters across Europe, or do we fight for or do we hold firm in somewhat up come up with a policy that tries to get the Russians to go back to those principles?

And I think that is the key question because today there is no more agreement on the rules of the game in European security. We talk the talk of cooperative security, but we’re sliding back into geopolitical competition. Institutions like NATO and EU are weak. The consensus that drove EU and NATO enlargement in the outreach to Russia is fragmenting. The OSCE is paralyzed because of the lack of agreement on what it’s all about.

So we’ve all moved on, and we’re all focused on the problems beyond Europe – Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran, the Middle East. But I think you’re starting to see the first cracks and fissures in the foundation of European security and stability, and part of my book is a plea to focus on those and to come up with the policies to repair them before they get worse and before Europe really faces a much more serious risk of instability.

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***Posted March 1st, 2010

Evolving Allied Perspectives

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The Obama Administration has provided its view on the evolution of military threats and policies in the recently released QDR.  For a perspective on a core ally, which provides a different take on the future, there is a recently released British Ministry of Defense (MOD) assessment of evolving strategic trends, entitled Strategic Trends Programme: Future Character of Conflict.

This report provides an insight into allied views of the changing strategic environment. This report puts more emphasis on the role of the military professionals in enabling the UK to maintain its ability to operate in a multi-polar world.  At the same time, as our colleague Francis Tusa has underscored the UK like the Obama Administration has narrowed the scope increasingly to focus upon funding Afghanistan or Afghanistan-like contingencies.

Ed Timperlake provides a snapshot of this UK report.

Evolving Allied Perspectives

By Ed Timperlake

Focusing on “High-Caliber People”

The report opens by importantly identifying that in any conflict there is a need for “adaptation and response.” The authors recognized from the very beginning of the report the principle of a reactive enemy.  This sense captures the essence of everything that follows.

The report stresses that evolving “conflict is hybrid in character.” Twenty-first century threats are becoming more asymmetric in nature. They also acknowledge that Britain has limited resources, stating that it is “punching above its weight.”

The authors review many well-known and debated issues before breaking new ground in thinking about war, politics, technology, and people.

They proceed from a core principle: “The UK will retain multiple global interests with inextricable ties to Europe and North America. In this sometimes-uneasy triangular relationship, it will be necessary to maintain a position of balance as the US-Chinese and EU-Russian relationships develop (page 4).”

Their ultimate conclusion, which may be uniquely British, asserts the need for “high-caliber people educated and trained to a new benchmark.”  The U.S. tends to focus its defense thinking in terms of budgets and technology. While American leaders do discuss the troops and the importance of their leaders’ education and training in the art of war, these discussions tend to repeat generally accepted opinions on the matter without digging into the meat of the issue.

American political fights occur over the acquisition of big-ticket items. Unfortunately, in U.S. policy documents, personnel issues are usually boilerplate. War is an unforgiving test and the combat capability of American military men and women should never be in doubt. Quietly evolving from the ashes of Vietnam, U.S. military leaders rebuilt the Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marines over the course of a generation by trusting the men and women in uniform to get it right. The U.S. has been fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq for seven years, creating a fully battle tested military at all ranks.

It is very refreshing to see the UK sum up the entire equation for their defense with a focus on people. The emphasis on “high-caliber people” is boldly stated. If they can listen to those who will fight and perhaps die, then the report is a very serious piece of work.

With resources being committed by smart, dedicated, well-trained, and educated warriors, and a political process that respects and supports their judgment, a country can do no more to protect its future. The MOD report grasps the essential need to “spread the risk” – and smart people know how to do that very well.

In addition to being as ruthless as necessary, the report insightfully talks about the need to understand hard and soft power. Educated warriors with good judgment know the difference and can be trusted to know the best way to fight or not.  Training, tactics, and judgment make all the difference. Intangibles really count and the report captures the human element in conflict very well.

 

From “Situation Awareness” To “Situational Understanding”
A well-trained member of the British military in any conflict may have an advantage in operating successfully inside what is called in the U.S. an OODA loop. The MOD report calls it “Situational Understanding.”

The late USAF fighter pilot Col John Boyd saw a combat principle in action in airborne fighter engagements and called it an OODA loop. Observe, orient, decide, act – this insight has grown beyond a fighter cockpit to hopefully the U.S. National Security Team and 10 Downing Street. The report stresses essentially an OODA loop and they call it “Situational Understanding” in a very important section of the report.

The future character of conflict requires a shift of emphasis from platforms and C2 nodes towards better human understanding especially where target signatures are small or ambiguous. Western conventional dominance is based on the ability to find, fix and strike the enemy force. Future threat actors will seek to operate in congested and cluttered environments in order to avoid Western superiority, which will require us to exploit newer environments such as space, cyberspace, and non-lethal weapons. Situational understanding will also require an in-depth knowledge of the adversaries’ military capabilities and also their culture and decision-making. Our people will need not only to understand the imperatives for campaign success, but also how to work within a highly nuanced context (p.37).

To further illustrate the courage of their convictions, the MOD authors introduce a term not usually found in government publications – “wicked problems” – a phrase they use honestly and directly (it is footnoted to a work by K. Grint, “Wicked Problems and Clumsy Solutions, the Role of Leadership.”)

Moreover the future character of conflict will result in what some have called wicked, unbounded or insoluble problems. Attempts to solve these using a single institutional framework designed for tame, bounded and soluble problems are almost bound to fail. In wicked problems there is no clear relationship between cause and effect and no single institution will be able to control the outcome. The principal skill will be the art of leadership required to persuade necessarily large communities of interest to face up together to those complex problems that defy scientific management approaches; wicked problems beg comprehensive response (p. 38).

Twenty-first Century Britain, like the U.S., is being attacked directly by al-Qaeda and the authors are rightly concerned about all aspects of a WMD attack. Additionally both the UK and U.S. have suffered significant hacking attacks, and consequently the report focuses on all things cyber.

Britain has also suffered a chem-bio attack on their soil with links to Russia. Anthrax attacks in the U.S. are murky as to origin and motivation – so far they are believed to be the work of a deranged scientific ego. The MOD is correct to call problems “wicked” and really focus on all WMD not just a loose nuclear warhead.

Wicked problems require a shift in thinking and emphasis on both how to defend against death loving fanatics and also the need to go on the offensive to carry the fight to isolate or kill those individuals. The MOD, in recognizing “wicked problems,” discusses a solution and along the way gives a significant complement to the ability of the U.S. to mount a successful air campaign.

“In 2014 our adversaries – state and non-state – will know that to confront the US and its allies in a conventional, force-on-force fight will be to lose; as Professor Colin Gray has said,  ‘If an enemy chooses, or has no practical alternative other than to wage warfare in a regular conventional way, US air power will defeat it long before US ground power comes into contact.’”

This process of enemy adaptation is already well underway, and so is the US response. Adversaries will avoid engagements that play to Western strengths; for instance, they will seek to deny us access to theatre, using all the political and military levers that they can deploy. They will also seek to disperse into an increasingly complex battlespace, including amongst the people and below ground, where we will struggle to dominate. The human terrain, and its associated linguistic, ideological, tribal, sectarian and ethnic features, will remain highly complex. These differences will require us to think in a new way about UK capabilities; things that have been regarded as supporting or enabling functions such as deep cultural understanding (which includes fluency in languages), Human Intelligence or Civil-Military Cooperation will, in this environment, be battle-defining. It will be increasingly difficult to distinguish groups of adversaries from one another, either by their appearance or through the equipment and tactics that they use. Adversaries may also look to make conflict expeditionary and our approach to homeland security will need to develop accordingly (page 16).

Finally, one of the most important observations on emerging worldwide battlefield tactics is that the MOD has an entire section on Extremist Non-State Actors. The authors of the report understand the ominous merging of state-sponsored terrorism with state-sponsored gangsters.  They do make a mistake with the header to the section because they call it “Extremist Non-State Actors” but actually their writing demonstrates that they do understand the devils brew of merging state protections and the sponsorship of criminal elements.[1]

Non-state criminal syndicates, merging with terrorists, and working in conjunction with a country’s espionage agents is a deadly intersection between counterintelligence and counter-terrorism. This report yanks that shadow war into sunshine and puts it front and center where it belongs.

Extremist non-state actors will range from state proxies through to single-issue interest groups or trans-national criminal gangs. The merging of state proxies, extremist ideologies and criminal interests into a toxic cocktail, along with the effects of globalization, such as more porous borders, will make some non-state actors harder to counteract. They could employ a wide spectrum of military capabilities, albeit some at a limited scale, but they will nevertheless be capable of innovative tactics that exploit inherent UK vulnerabilities. For example, the 2008 Mumbai attacks involved more than 10 coordinated shooting and bombing incidents; at least 173 people were killed and some 300 more wounded, overwhelming the civil authorities. Social networks will become an important feature of future conflict, and conflict in one area may more easily ignite conflict in another, in effect creating a ‘Global Joint Operational Area’. Extremist non-state actors are likely to remain a significant threat to the UK. Thus the role of the military in homeland security and consequence management should be reviewed (page 22).Moving Away From RMA
Nonetheless, the report does have its anomalies and shortfalls.

The report is not complementary with regard to the staying power of the Revolution in Military Affairs (RMA). The authors of the report are proud for moving beyond RMA. RMA as describe in three paragraphs by Andrew Marshall, Director Net Assessment Office of the Secretary of Defense is “information war” now called “cyber war” and the evolution of “precision guided munitions (PGM) WITH remote sensors.” The authors do not realize that an IED that is activated electronically or with a cell phone by a fanatic with “eyes on” is a perfect poor man’s PGM – it is guided (i.e. placed where it would be effective) and activated with a remote sensor. It would be good to understand that the RMA is proliferating, not ending.

An additional concern is watching the political witch-hunt with regard to former Prime Minister Blair and the Iraq War decision. The current Prime Minister has allowed inquiries into UK involvement in Iraq to become highly politicized. Essentially, former Prime Minister Blair, and by inference the MOD, has been, in my opinion, very unfairly accused of lying and deception. That type of political posturing can undo all the emphasis on attracting “high-caliber” people because those minds are usually intellectually honest to a fault.

So the MOD words describing their vision have important meaning but also their political leaders actions can speak louder than words – this is an issue to consider, but fortunately for the U.S. it doesn’t take away from important content.

 

[1] In the nineteen nineties the Royal Canadian Mounted Police actually deserves credit along with the U.S. Department of Justice for observing that Chinese Triad criminal syndicates were being used by the Peoples Republic of China (see Year of The Rat, Timperlake, Triplett  998 and also Red Dragon Rising ).

As Director Technology Assessment, International Technology Security OSD spending almost six years working with the FBI to identify criminal syndicates moving conventional weapons around the globe (especially in the oil-for food scam) and trying to protect US DOD Critical National Assets from espionage I can state the MOD has made visible a very important and increasing threat.

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***Posted March 1st, 2010

Why The Great Firewall of China is Crumbling? Tunneling The Great Escape!

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By D.K. MATAI

China Widens Net Censorship (credit: Www.wired.com)s
see: David Kravets, China Widens Net Censorship; Google Exile Looms, February 24th, 2010 (credit: www.wired.com)

Powerful social media sites like Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube remain blocked in China.  China will have to concede defeat much sooner than it realizes in its war against the free access to global information.

The more zealous Beijing becomes about censoring the internet, the more it risks turning the public against its policies. Millions of people within China, including expatriates, human rights activists, and dissidents are already using tunneling software applications to engineer their daily “Great Escape” from China’s stringent security systems.

This casts doubt on whether China can really maintain control of which sites its 380 million internet users visit each day. Far from being just a cyber squabble, Chinese leaders will learn that they may no longer be able to repel an overwhelming tide of free – and unfiltered – global information.

Virtual Tunnels

A growing number of companies are taking advantage of the exploding market to circumvent internet censorship by providing tunneling networks, such as virtual private networks (VPNs), proxy servers, and onion routing.

These methods give web surfers a secure way to log-on and safely access the internet in such public places as hotels, bars, and coffee shops by letting users “tunnel” through to a server in a country that does not share China’s internet restrictions. Then the tunneling network encrypts information under an anonymous computer address to prevent monitoring by policing authorities. The use of such networks is greatest amongst expatriates.

Non-Chinese citizens living in China are accustomed to unrestricted and unencumbered access to their favorite websites and, as a result, are not prepared to tolerate a watered-down internet. The expatriates use the VPNs as their lifeline connection to family and friends back home.

They, alongside millions of angry Chinese citizens, are doing anything it takes to make sure that they use emerging technology to tunnel through The Great Firewall of China or to “Fanqiang”, i.e., scale the wall.

Law of Diminishing Returns

The best censorship is the kind citizens do not know about. Some 60 countries currently censor the internet – up from 37 in 2008. Iran began blocking the popular social networking site Twitter last year in the aftermath of its controversial presidential election because the prolific use of social media by ordinary citizens helped them carry out their in situ live broadcasts of atrocities.

All the recent troubles in China have made the government’s cencorship more public. Public knowledge undermines the goal of censorship becuase it encourages more and more people to seek ways to circumvent it. A very public conflict with Google is one of the last things China’s central government could wish for.

If China hopes to be viewed as a world-class international player, it is going to have to think about waving the white flag in its war against the free access to global information and the internet. Otherwise, Beijing will simply prove that it doesn’t understand what its people values: the free flow of information.

encadre

Internet Freedom for Humanity

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has recently underscored the importance of the freedom of the internet.  Worldwide information is now reaching many more global citizens at a faster rate than ever before. Innovations like broadband networks, wireless access, and smart-phones are intensifying these accelerating trends. As emerging markets gain muscle, and as wages grow, the world shrinks for most of humanity.

A growing population in China and other countries with censorship policies – including the Islamic world – are likely to demand full internet access. The Great Escape has begun and sovereign nation-states will not be able to stop it.

While nations can control what they give to their citizens, they cannot control what their citizens seek!

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***Posted March 1st, 2010

Cyberpoints Weekly Column: A Slow Start for US Cybercom

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02/25/2010

SLD CWC

By John Wheeler

[email protected]

John is starting this week a new weekly column dedicated to the cyberspace domain: he will  continue to provide regular insights into how to shape effective con-ops in the cyber domain and craft a Terms of Reference for facing XXIst Century cyber challenges.

John has a wide range of combat and government experience.  He is a West Point graduate with warfighting experience in Vietnam.  He has significant private sector experience, as well as holding various positions in government, including being Secretary, US Securities and Exchange Commission.  His most recent position as Special Assistant to the Secretary of the Air Force included principal tasks, among which were standing up Cyberspace Forces and placing Precision Strike technology and Real Time Streaming Video targeting links into the hands of groundfighters in combat.

***


John Wheeler
John Wheeler

Welcome to SLD Cyberpoints Weekly Column

“Only the dead have seen the end of war”

George Santayana wrote, “Only the dead have seen the end of war.”  In Cyberspace he will certainly be proved right, and in the minds of many who watch the predations going on in Cyberspace upon Corporate, Military and Personal data bases, he has already been proved right.

In ways similar to the evolution of the Undersea Domain in the early 1900’s and the Air Domain in the 1910’s and 20’s,  the Cyberspace Domain is being developed and discovered, with the military implications still at a very young stage. There abound policy and technical, training and recruiting, equipping as well as doctrine questions in large number. Huge contracts for Cyber are being let by Government and Industry.

“Cyberpoints” is meant to take a weekly look, on Thursdays, at an issue or event in light of the larger flow of development of the Cyberspace domain.  Input, tips, heads-up, comment and correction are most welcome.

New books, articles, pending legislation, needed legislation, Corporate pronouncements, DHS, State, DoD, VA and other Agency Cyber Matters are all of interest.  Cyberwar is not the only thread; Cybersecurity for Corporations and Individuals is a core topic, as is the way each of the tools of diplomacy and war can combine and impinge as to Cyberspace.

For example, when the Secretary of State says that the United States is committed to “Freedom of the Internet”, that means, really, “Freedom of Cyberspace”, invoking the history, heritage and heavy freight of the doctrine of “Freedom of the Seas.”  There is plenty of policy work to do and unfold as to “Freedom of Cyberspace.”

***


Cyberpoints No. 1
February 25, 2010

THE DELAY IN STANDUP OF US CYBERCOM

For this first Cyberpoints, the topic of concern is USCYBERCOM and the delay in meeting the October 31, 2009 deadline set by the Secretary of Defense. Going into March, as far as public announcement is concerned, and confirmation of the Commander, LTG Keith Alexander,  there is a missed deadline of four months.

As commander, General Alexander brings both a Warfighter point of view and an Intelligence point of view, a strong combination. He is a 1974 graduate of West Point, a classmate of General David Petraeus, steeped in the Principles of War and the scholarship on the History of the Military Art, and the Infantry and Combined Arms Training in the Cadet curriculum.

It appears, from information that is known or suspected among Congressional Cyber staffers, that two issues are holding up the confirmation:


  • One is contracting matters, perhaps related to past contracts let in the past.
  • The other issue, it is thought, is the “color of money” to pay for USCYBERCOM, Title 10 US Code (Warfighting) or Title 50 (Intelligence).

This is however group speculation, and is only a guess. The study called for by SECDEF may simply also take longer than first thought, as the complexities of Cyberspace become developed and known.

Is there a cost to this delay?  Probably not a great cost. The Army, Navy and Air Force are progressing in their own Cyber lanes, to be arms of USCYBERCOM in due course, and it naturally takes time for the various interests involved to awaken to the array of issues posed by Cyberspace and its evolution.

That Title 10 versus Title 50 seems to be a discussion is a good sign. In due course, Congress will almost certainly have to incorporate Cyberspace into Title 10, as a matter of giving complete guidance to Advise and Consent appointees in Defense. Space, Air, Sea and Land are in Title 10; Cyberspace so far is not.

The group speculation in the Pentagon and on Capitol Hill also includes a guess that the larger issues of Privacy and an edginess toward an Intelligence presence in the Cyberworld of corporations and citizens is troubling.  In that connection, generally, there is more trust of the Military in corporate and citizen defense, since the nation and culture are used to the Military as defender in the Land, Space, Air and Sea domains.

As war domains have evolved, in time and after the pain of battle, war, victory and defeat, the Military has found itself the most heavily involved government agency in the domain. So it will probably be in Cyberspace, as the decades come and go.

Finally, it may be that at the highest policy levels, in the National Security Council, the delay meets larger policy needs as seen by the President.  Speculation abounds.



IN TERMS OF ACTION:

  • One thought bandied about in DC lanes is to bifurcate the Commander Confirmation from the Standup Itself,  so that the USCYBERCOM can get underway.
  • An announcement regarding the status of the standup and the delay, as to progress and causes for the holdup, would be valuable and help unify effort and public understanding.

Beijing, Moscow, others watch with interest.

***

More to Follow…

Comments Welcome ([email protected])

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***Posted February 25th, 2010