USAF Cyber Command Winnows Base List

This arti­cle first appeared at AviationWeek​.com.

The list of pos­si­ble head­quar­ter bases for the U.S. Air Force Cyber Command will be win­nowed down and eval­u­ated more closely over the next three to four months, accord­ing to Maj. Gen. William Lord, chief of the pro­vi­sional com­mand.

There is fierce com­pe­ti­tion to pro­vide a home for the planned Cyber Command. A list of 56 bases is being reviewed by the Pentagon, Lord told Aerospace DAILY. In March, then-​​USAF Secretary Michael Wynne responded to 18 states’ gov­er­nors inter­ested in host­ing the new com­mand to join in the bas­ing process. Requests for infor­ma­tion were sent out in May and responses were due back by July 1.

Cyber Command has been in sus­pended ani­ma­tion ever since the turnover of top Air Force lead­er­ship this past sum­mer. “My task­ing is to come back with a roadmap that defines [Cyber],” Lord said. Although pri­or­ity is still being given to issues deal­ing with bet­ter man­age­ment of the service’s so-​​called nuclear enter­prise, Lord said a deci­sion was made to stand up the com­mand.

Lord is con­fi­dent that Cyber Command’s des­ig­na­tion as a so-​​called Numbered Air Force (NAF), the 24th under the USAF Space Command, is the best deci­sion. “That’s the way we fight today,” he said. “It’s not impor­tant which major com­mand it falls under because the [capa­bil­ity is avail­able] to all of the Combatant Commanders (COCOMS).” For exam­ple, he said, Air Combat Command orga­nizes, trains and equips air-​​breathing assets, which are used by U.S. units in Europe and the Pacific for the com­man­ders in those regions. “In the case of Cyber, you don’t have hard assets,” Lord said. “Network war­fare is more dis­trib­uted.“

Lord also referred to what he called “cross-​​domain syn­er­gies,” or the abil­ity to use both kinetic and non-​​kinetic weapons “in con­cert, more effi­ciently. The bot­tom line is about chang­ing enemy behav­ior,” which doesn’t nec­es­sar­ily have to result in total destruc­tion. “Now you can have a more grad­ual and per­haps dif­fer­ent kind of war­fare where both a poten­tial bel­liger­ent and another nation are not killing and maim­ing peo­ple” to effect change, Lord said.

Read the rest of this story, check out the JSF’s noise sig­na­ture, see the new Israeli sniper mount and take a look at some WWII crash pics from our Aviation Week friends exclu­sively on Military​.com.

– Christian

October 20th, 2008 | Av Week Extra | 413218 Comments »http://defensetech.org/2008/10/20/usaf-cyber-command-winnows-base-list/USAF+Cyber+Command+Winnows+Base+List2008-10-20+18%3A24%3A36Ward You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.