http://www.wired.com/politics/security/news/2008/02/cyber_command
By Marty Graham
Wired.com
02.11.08
BARKSDALE AIR FORCE BASE, Louisiana -- When a reporter enters the Air
Force office of William Lord, a smile comes quickly to the two-star
general's face as he darts from behind his immaculate desk to shake
hands. Then, as an afterthought, he steps back and shuts his laptop as
though holstering a sidearm.
Lord, boyish and enthusiastic, is a new kind of Air Force warrior -- the
provisional chief of the service's first new major command since the
early 1990s, the Cyber Command. With thousands of posts and enough
bandwidth to choke a horse, the Cyber Command is dedicated to the
proposition that the next war will be fought in the electromagnetic
spectrum, and that computers are military weapons. In a windowless
building across the base, Lord's cyber warriors are already perched 24
hours a day before banks of monitors, scanning Air Force networks for
signs of hostile incursion.
"We have to change the way we think about warriors of the future," Lord
enthuses, raising his jaw while a B-52 traces the sky outside his
windows. "So if they can't run three miles with a pack on their backs
but they can shut down a SCADA system, we need to have a culture where
they fit in."
But before Lord and his geek warriors can settle in for the wars of the
future, the general has to survive a battle of a decidedly different
nature: a political and cultural tug of war over where the Cyber Command
will set up its permanent headquarters. And that, for Lord and the Air
Force, is where things get trickier than a Chinese Trojan horse.
With billions of dollars in contracts and millions in local spending on
the line, 15 military towns from Hampton, Virginia, to Yuba City,
California, are vying to win the Cyber Command, throwing in offers of
land, academic and research tie-ins, and, in one case, an $11 million
building with a moat. At a time when Cold War-era commands laden with
aging aircraft are shriveling, the nascent Cyber Command is universally
seen as a future-proof bet for expansion, in an era etched with portents
of cyberwar.
Russian Hackers and Chinese Cyberspies
The news is everywhere. When Russian hackers were blamed for a wave of
denial-of-service attacks against Estonian websites last spring,
President Bush voiced concern that the United States would face the same
risk. The national intelligence director, Michael McConnell, recently
claimed a computer attack against a single U.S. bank could cause more
economic harm than 9/11, and called for more National Security Agency
surveillance of the internet. A CIA official followed up with a tale
about cyber attackers causing multi-city power failures overseas. Some
in the military believe Chinese cyberspies have already penetrated
unclassified Pentagon computers.
Where buzz flows, money follows, and the investment in info-war comes as
the Air Force cuts back personnel elsewhere to fund new aircraft: The
service just finished phasing out 20,000 enlisted men and women, with
plans to dump 20,000 more by 2011. The effect of military cutbacks on
the surrounding communities can be devastating. "If you gain or lose a
unit in a place where the military is already a major employer, it has a
huge impact," says Chris Erickson, a New Mexico State University
professor.
Unofficial estimates say 10,000 military and ancillary jobs could clump
around the 500 posts at the Cyber Command's permanent headquarters. The
governors of California, New Mexico and Louisiana are pitching their
locales directly to the secretary of the Air Force. In December,
Louisiana governor Bobby Jindal took advantage of a meeting with
President Bush on Katrina recovery to lobby for the Cyber Command. A
dozen congressional delegations have weighed in as well. Lord is feeling
the heat.
"Oh Lord," the general sighs, "there's congressional pressure."
[...]
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