Air Force takes 2 steps back

Major General William Lord, chief of the still-provisional Cyber Command, gave his new troops a fairly narrow charge: better operation of the Air Force's networks. "It's not about... the defense of the United States. It's not about the entire Department of Defense," he told the crowd. "It's about Air Force's focus on the Air Force's protection and defense of the Air Force's command and control abilities."( SAD SO SAD,G ) Then he talked about how many of the service's network plumbers, electronic warfare specialists, and communications gurus would now be placed under a "cyber career field." He even showed off what badges they would wear.

But on the screen behind Maj. Gen. Lord was a Power Point slide that hinted at far larger goals. It read: "Just as [father of the U.S. Air Force] Billy Mitchell endeavored to prove the potential of air power to a skeptical nation, we must now prove the critical importance of cyberspace as a warfighting domain."

In an interview earlier this year with Wired.com, Lord's boss, 8th Air Force commander Lt. Gen. Robert Elder, took things even further. Convincing people of cyberpsace's centrality was only step one. "Our mission is to control cyberspace both for attacks and defense," he said.

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Lt. Gen. Robert Elder, has the Paradigm, has the troops, understands the mission,
And stands a good chance of dominating/controlling cyber space, if USA doesn't
get a handle on this domain, America faces another Pearl Harbor, cyber version.

Ides of March!

Gerald
Anthropologist

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