Air Force Suspends Cyber Command Program

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."

Comments

Sadness for Shreveport/Bossier

[dragonxtc]

This is sad for the North-Western part of Louisiana, which is where I live and where Cyber Space Command was supposed to be put into place at Barksdale. I know many of the local universities have been pushing hard to put toghether cyber security circulums etc to give those in the local community a chance to work at this place once it was constructed. While I am sure it is not all for naught I do imagine a lot of time and money will have been wasted in the community by people other than the air force that were counting on this as a new job market especially with the layoffs we are having at our local GM plant and many other factories ( Not that the same people would work at these places )

Re:The Air Force is doomed

[Dun Malg]

Reducing the number of branches in the command structure will lead to even more institutionalized thinking

More or fewer branches has little effect on the amount of institutionalized thinking, it just varies the amount of parochialism. The Air Force was formed in 1948 on the premise that the US Army shouldn't be in the business of strategic bombing and air superiority. Unfortunately, the agreement that split the AF off from the Army also forbade the Army to operate aircraft. As a result the Army still has trouble getting the AF to provide adequate close air support. Under consideration at the same time was a proposal to attach the Marine Corps to the Army (where it more logically belongs) and transfer naval aviation assets to Air Force control; but Navy Secretary Forrestal had spent WW2 building up the Navy into his own little self-sufficient kingdom with its own air and ground assets. It's a completely asinine duplication of effort, but he had enough pull to kill the consolidation proposal. As a result of this sort of bureaucratic feudalism, we have:
4 1/2 air forces
Air Force, Naval aviation, USMC aviation, Coast Guard aviation, and Army helicopter aviation

1 1/2 armies
the real Army, and the Navy's light infantry, the USMC

2 1/2 navies
the Navy, the Coast Guard, and all the small watercraft operated by the AF and Army to fill the gaps the Navy won't cover.

So you see, while splitting up the services seems like it should promote efficiency by allowing each service to specialize, what you end up with is services narrowing their focus to the stuff that's completely "theirs", while neglecting the "overlap" areas where other services need their support. As it turns out, the Army is inevitably the biggest loser in all of this. They are the backbone of any sizable conflict, but can't get decent close air support or timely theater airlift support from the Air Force, and are forbidden by law to provide it for themselves. Likewise they can't get theater level waterborne transport from the Navy. Meanwhile, naval aviators whine about the Air Force getting to drop all the bombs in Iraq, when the justification for having them flying over Iraq is already weak at best. Then there's the USMC lobbying to be given sole operational responsibility over Afghanistan because they want to get out of Iraq, as their tactics there have only resulted in a greater casualty rate, rather than "upstaging" the Army as is their normal goal.

The root of the problem is that all the branches are run by politicians. They may wear uniforms full of ribbons and stars, but they're no different than your typical pork-barrel politician. They're always looking for some way to expand their power base so they can justify a bigger bite of the defense "pie". This silly Air Force "Cyber Command" is just more of the same. The Air Force hasn't a single justification in its charter for claiming "cyberspace" as their own, but they hope to get it by virtue of being the only service with applicable combat assets in-theater when the time comes to decide whose responsibility it is. Frankly, I think the military is ill suited to the job. I reckon the NSA is the better tool for the job. I wouldn't be surprised if at some point the Air Force was told "your Cyber Command is a needless duplication of assets already fielded by the NSA--- kill it". Heck, they may have been told that already...