CYBER COMMAND
Cyber-security and the Air Force
On Nov. 2, 2006, then-Secretary of the Air Force Michael Wynne laid
the foundation for his service’s move to develop its status as the
leader in network warfare operations at the U.S. Department of Defense
by announcing the formation of Cyber Command, a new element of the
United States Air Force (USAF) intended to conduct military operations
in cyberspace. With the Air Force providing the significant
contributions to the War on Terror in aerial surveillance, the
traditional areas of endeavor for the 61-year-old service have
diminished in importance. Finding new missions for the service is
important in the struggle for part of a Pentagon budgetary pie that is
likely to shrink with the arrival of a new administration in January.
As a maneuver of inside-the-Beltway bureaucratic process, the move into
cyberspace is pragmatic and shrewd, but politics threaten to impede the
construction of a military organization capable of meeting its
mandate.
