Air Force Suspends Cyber Command Program 166
AFCyber writes "The Air Force on Monday suspended all efforts related to development of a program to become the dominant service in cyberspace, according to knowledgeable sources. Top Air Force officials put a halt to all activities related to the establishment of the Cyber Command, a provisional unit that is currently part of the 8th Air Force at Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana, sources told Nextgov.
An internal Air Force e-mail obtained by Nextgov said, 'Transfers of manpower and resources, including activation and re-assignment of units, shall be halted.' Establishment of the Cyber Command will be delayed until new senior Air Force leaders, including Chief of Staff Norton Schwartz, sworn in today, have time to make a final decision on the scope and mission of the command."
The Air Force is doomed (Score:3, Interesting)
We just don't need them anymore. We have better missiles, and better drones.
The only thing we need actualy piloted aircraft for are close-in ground support, where things are too crowded/messy for computers to do a good job. And even then, remotely-piloted drones are taking over.
Missing out (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Coincidence? (Score:4, Interesting)
What a load of rubbish, the black boxen are ClearCube "Digital Fiber C/Port" thin terminals connected to a workstation somewhere in a cabinet, if you were to swap them around you'd have the computer connected to the top-secret network on the other side of your desk.
It's not like if you did that packets would magically leak out and allow Chinese hackers to read their e-mails...
This is quite a neat setup because everything can be stored away, centrally managed and physically secured from a single location.
What a waste! (Score:1, Interesting)
We're going to have a new Commander in Chief next January. Did they ask any of the five people running for President what their opinion on it was?
Re:The Air Force is doomed (Score:4, Interesting)
Reminds me of an old short story I read in the 80s...
The premise was that two superpowers, in a state of constant war, launch programmed missiles at eachother, since it was decided that manned craft were not necessary, and it was not worth risking pilot lives. However, the defenses for the superpowers were able to adapt quickly, and therefore very few missiles ever got through the defense systems.
Eventually, one of the superpowers decided to make the missiles human pilotable, in order to defeat the defenses; they lost many pilots on their suicide missiosn, but obliterated their opponent and won the war.
The point is, human action is less predictable, and harder to defend against.
Of course, remote piloting and drones provide the capability of human piloting without all the mess of needing to carry meat, but the air force as a separate command is a different issue.
The Air Force will, IMO, always be needed, if only as a balance to the other two major forces. An additional chain of command leadin to the top means that a different insititionally biased way of thinking comes into play, and it is more likely that a dissenting (but not necessarily wrong) opinion will be heard at the highest level.
Reducing the number of branches in the command structure will lead to even more institutionalized thinking, which, IMO, would hamper the ability of the military to come to the best solutions to problems it faces.
Re:I wondered about this (Score:4, Interesting)
Ummm... Wi-Fi and Satellite. Yea it kinda vague. I think the air force had more command experience with high end technology. I much rather be in the air force in a nice chair doing my code then in the army in a tent with a laptop, trying to setup a network connection with the chances there are people who want to shoot me.
Amateurs (Score:3, Interesting)
It's THEM. This is just what they WANT you to believe.
Re:I wondered about this (Score:2, Interesting)
The AF run in an Army mindset? Egad, that would be terrible! The Army and Air Force use very different skills and for lack of a better term, types of people. The Army needs automatons that are essentially brainless, if they get smart they might start making their own decisions. The USAF needs technicians who can figure out things on their own. Autonamoustons? Retention of VERY expensive pilots and techies would be a nightmare. You can turn a kid into a tank driver or infantry goon in a few weeks. USAF training is typically months, sometimes up to a year.
The army *should* have all the helicopters.
Having the USAF run the cyber show is a natural progression, since they already run the satellites and are tech oriented. Or we could establish a cyber corp. Folks would join that just because it would sound cool.
Re:I wondered about this (Score:3, Interesting)
In basic training ('87): We are the button pushers, we have the bomb!
-welcoming speech by TI
A job for Homeland Security? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Coincidence? (Score:2, Interesting)
Doomed? Yes and No (Score:3, Interesting)
We just don't need them anymore. We have better missiles, and better drones.
The only thing we need actually piloted aircraft for are close-in ground support, where things are too crowded/messy for computers to do a good job. And even then, remotely-piloted drones are taking over.
First, we're a long way off from being able to turn airpower completely over to robotic drones.
Second, I think you touched on the real question while missing the larger point... we're always going to need airpower... the military projection of power via aerial weapons. The question is, why do we need an Air Force? Why do we need an individual military branch with an identity based on airpower, when airpower is simply one facet of warfare that all branches need? The Navy has their own aircraft because oceans have skies over them too.
To me, splitting the Air Force from the Army was like establishing a separate military branch just for armor, or establishing an independent infantry branch. Why? What makes it imperitive to seperate airpower from ground power over the land? We did just fine with the Army Air Corps being a part of a larger Army. Ask any soldier, especially career soldier, and they'll likely complain about how USAF puts such a low priority on boring ground support missions... they aren't sexy enough to sell on recruiting posters.
Just as the Marines are tied at the hip to the Navy, the Air Force should more or less be a part of the Army. We don't live in castles in the sky. We live here on the ground, and ultimately, any air force's job is to support objectives on the ground when things are said and done. We have air superiority fighters because we don't want the enemy's aircraft hurting our guys on the ground.
I think our previous model of splitting defense responsibilities via geography between the Army and the Navy was a better model than our current one, with the Air Corps (or Army Air Forces, if you will) and the Marine Corps subordinate to their larger sister services. USAF went independent because of the argument that airpower in and of itself should fight separately, which was an outgrowth of Billy Mitchell's ideas. The problem is that Mitchell was wrong about a lot of things. He thought armies and navies were largely obsolete, and history has proven him wrong on that.
Airpower is just a tool, one that can be used by any branch. It doesn't justify a separate service, with all its associated costs duplication. Should we establish a separate service for submarines just because they're under the water? Of course not. Why establish a separate service just for airplanes?
Re:Coincidence? (Score:1, Interesting)
It does have a lot to do with timing, but not the timing you're thinking about. This is happening because a new Chief of Staff is taking over--specifically, because he is taking over as a direct result of the mismanagement of his predecessor. He's walking in the door asking a lot of hard questions along the lines of, "What, exactly, would we say we do here?" I'm betting that he took a good look at the situation and realized that the Air Force was screwing up its core missions (air superiority, air support, air transport, air- and space-based ISR, strategic deterrence, etc) because it was diverting attention and resources to carving out new territory in places like cyberspace. He's going to put the focus back on doing well at the jobs they already have before pursuing new jobs. I'm also willing to bet that he's smart enough to realize that any U.S. Military cyber-command needs to be fully joint to be effective, possibly as another major command (ala SOCOM).