http://www.dhs.gov/xlibrary/assets/National_Cyberspace_Strategy.pdf
www.skynetdivision.net/
Pentagon plans new cyberspace war command: report
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Pentagon plans to create a new military command for cyberspace, stepping up preparations by the armed forces to conduct both offensive and defensive computer warfare, the New York Times said on Friday.
The military command will complement a civilian effort President Barack Obama plans to announce on Friday that will overhaul the way the United States safeguards its computer networks, the newspaper said on its website.
Citing Obama administration sources, the Times said the president will detail on Friday the creation of a White House office that will coordinate a multi-billion-dollar effort to restrict access to government computers, protect systems that run U.S. stock exchanges, clear global banking transactions and manage the air traffic control system.
The Times said the civilian office would be responsible for coordinating private sector and government defenses against thousands of cyber-attacks mounted every day against the United States, largely by hackers but sometimes by foreign governments.
Administration sources said the president would not discuss the Pentagon plan on Friday. But Obama is expected to sign a classified order in the coming weeks that will create the military cyber-command.
The need for improved U.S. cyber-security was driven home in April when the Wall Street Journal reported that cyber-spies had penetrated the U.S. electrical grid and left behind software programs that could be used to disrupt the system.
The Times said the United States already has a growing number of computer weapons in its arsenal and must prepare strategies for their use as a deterrent or alongside conventional weapons in a wide variety of possible future conflicts.
Reuters has reported that companies in the cyber-security market range from security-software makers Symantec Corp and McAfee Inc, to traditional defense contractors such as Northrop Grumman Corp and Lockheed Martin Corp, to information technology companies such as CACI International.
The Pentagon had been working on a cyberspace strategy for several months. It was completed weeks ago, but was delayed because of ongoing arguments over the authority of the White House office and budgets for the entire effort, the report said.
Pentagon Plans New Arm to Wage Wars in Cyberspace
WASHINGTON — The Pentagon plans to create a new military command for cyberspace, administration officials said Thursday, stepping up preparations by the armed forces to conduct both offensive and defensive computer warfare.
The military command would complement a civilian effort to be announced by President Obama on Friday that would overhaul the way the United States safeguards its computer networks.
Mr. Obama, officials said, will announce the creation of a White House office — reporting to both the National Security Council and the National Economic Council — that will coordinate a multibillion-dollar effort to restrict access to government computers and protect systems that run the stock exchanges, clear global banking transactions and manage the air traffic control system.
White House officials say Mr. Obama has not yet been formally presented with the Pentagon plan. They said he would not discuss it Friday when he announced the creation of a White House office responsible for coordinating private-sector and government defenses against the thousands of cyberattacks mounted against the United States — largely by hackers but sometimes by foreign governments — every day.
But he is expected to sign a classified order in coming weeks that will create the military cybercommand, officials said. It is a recognition that the United States already has a growing number of computer weapons in its arsenal and must prepare strategies for their use — as a deterrent or alongside conventional weapons — in a wide variety of possible future conflicts.
The White House office will be run by a “cyberczar,” but because the position will not have direct access to the president, some experts said it was not high-level enough to end a series of bureaucratic wars that have broken out as billions of dollars have suddenly been allocated to protect against the computer threats.
The main dispute has been over whether the Pentagon or the National Security Agency should take the lead in preparing for and fighting cyberbattles. Under one proposal still being debated, parts of the N.S.A. would be integrated into the military command so they could operate jointly.
Officials said that in addition to the unclassified strategy paper to be released by Mr. Obama on Friday, a classified set of presidential directives is expected to lay out the military’s new responsibilities and how it coordinates its mission with that of the N.S.A., where most of the expertise on digital warfare resides today.
The decision to create a cybercommand is a major step beyond the actions taken by the Bush administration, which authorized several computer-based attacks but never resolved the question of how the government would prepare for a new era of warfare fought over digital networks.
It is still unclear whether the military’s new command or the N.S.A. — or both — will actually conduct this new kind of offensive cyberoperations.
The White House has never said whether Mr. Obama embraces the idea that the United States should use cyberweapons, and the public announcement on Friday is expected to focus solely on defensive steps and the government’s acknowledgment that it needs to be better organized to face the threat from foes attacking military, government and commercial online systems.
Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates has pushed for the Pentagon to become better organized to address the security threat.
Initially at least, the new command would focus on organizing the various components and capabilities now scattered across the four armed services.
Officials declined to describe potential offensive operations, but said they now viewed cyberspace as comparable to more traditional battlefields.
“We are not comfortable discussing the question of offensive cyberoperations, but we consider cyberspace a war-fighting domain,“ said Bryan Whitman, a Pentagon spokesman. “We need to be able to operate within that domain just like on any battlefield, which includes protecting our freedom of movement and preserving our capability to perform in that environment.”
Although Pentagon civilian officials and military officers said the new command was expected to initially be a subordinate headquarters under the military’s Strategic Command, which controls nuclear operations as well as cyberdefenses, it could eventually become an independent command.
“No decision has been made,” said Lt. Col. Eric Butterbaugh, a Pentagon spokesman. “Just as the White House has completed its 60-day review of cyberspace policy, likewise, we are looking at how the department can best organize itself to fill our role in implementing the administration’s cyberpolicy.”
The creation of the cyberczar’s office inside the White House appears to be part of a significant expansion of the role of the national security apparatus there. A separate group overseeing domestic security, created by President George W. Bush after the Sept. 11 attacks, now resides within the National Security Council. A senior White House official responsible for countering the proliferation of nuclear and unconventional weapons has been given broader authority. Now, cybersecurity will also rank as one of the key threats that Mr. Obama is seeking to coordinate from the White House.
The strategy review Mr. Obama will discuss on Friday was completed weeks ago, but delayed because of continuing arguments over the authority of the White House office, and the budgets for the entire effort.
It was kept separate from the military debate over whether the Pentagon or the N.S.A. is best equipped to engage in offensive operations. Part of that debate hinges on the question of how much control should be given to American spy agencies, since they are prohibited from acting on American soil.
“It’s the domestic spying problem writ large,” one senior intelligence official said recently. “These attacks start in other countries, but they know no borders. So how do you fight them if you can’t act both inside and outside the United States?”Obama Integrates Security Councils, Adds New Offices
Computer, Pandemic Threats Addressed
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, May 27, 2009
President Obama announced yesterday that he will merge the staffs of the Homeland Security Council and the National Security Council to speed up and unify security policymaking inside the White House.
The combined national security staff, about 240 people, will report to national security adviser James L. Jones.
The White House also will add new offices for cybersecurity, for terrorism involving weapons of mass destruction, and for "resilience" -- a national security directorate aimed at preparedness and response for a domestic WMD attack, pandemic or natural catastrophe, officials said.
"The challenges of the 21st century are increasingly unconventional and transnational, and therefore demand a response that effectively integrates all aspects of American power," Obama said in a statement.
Obama's changes to the national security structure, to be implemented over six weeks, address concerns that President George W. Bush created an overlapping White House bureaucracy by establishing the Homeland Security Council after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. The 9/11 Commission, among others, recommended merging it into the NSC.
Instead, Obama will preserve the Homeland Security Council's role as the main forum for government policymaking on issues such as terrorism, weapons of mass destruction, natural disasters and pandemic influenza. Doing so will improve state and local officials' access to the White House and does not require an act of Congress, aides said.
"The idea that somehow counterterrorism is a homeland security issue doesn't make sense when you recognize the fact that terror around the world doesn't recognize borders," Jones told reporters in a briefing. "There is no right-hand, left-hand anymore."
John O. Brennan, Obama's assistant for homeland security and counterterrorism, will continue to report to Jones as a deputy and maintain direct access to the president.
"There's no diminishment at all of the effort on" counterterrorism, Brennan said.
Jones and Brennan, whom Obama tapped Feb. 23 to lead a 60-day organizational review, said the changes will strengthen the White House security staff, which includes aides detailed from other departments.
Among other things, Obama is establishing a new global engagement directorate to coordinate U.S. communications with other countries and to streamline U.S. diplomatic, aid, environment and energy policies in support of security objectives, officials said.
Jones said the biggest pitfall for the new structure will be if he and Brennan "don't achieve this degree of collegiality that we've achieved," adding: "If we don't do this well . . . that will contribute to instability."
Senior lawmakers in Congress and former Bush aides generally praised the moves.
Kenneth Wainstein, Brennan's immediate predecessor, praised the administration's "inclusive" approach and said it allayed fears that changes "might diminish the perceived importance of homeland security issues."
"It doesn't bury the homeland equities," said Frank J. Cilluffo, director of George Washington University's Homeland Security Policy Institute, who served as assistant to the president for homeland security in 2003.
However, Frances Fragos Townsend, who served in Brennan's role from 2005 to 2008, cautioned in an e-mail that he "will no longer have direct control of the resources required to the job."
"John Brennan and Gen. Jim Jones are experienced, competent professionals and they will bear the burden of ensuring the necessary resource allocations across the broad spectrum of threats against the United States," Townsend wrote.
Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), the top Republican on the Senate homeland security committee, said she remained "concerned" that changes may dilute the focus of Brennan and homeland security staffers.
To clear up confusion, I believe that the Homeland Security Council is or was a non-statutory, internal White House office established by Executive Order. The President may reorganize internal White House offices such as the HSC without legislation. See Executive Order No. 13228, "Establishing the Office of Homeland Security and the Homeland Security Council."For the text of the order, see: http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/FR-2001-10-10/pdf/01-25677.pdf
Executive Order 13228 has been amended. See below from http://www.archives.gov/federal-register/executive-orders/2001-wbush.html:
* Signed: October 8, 2001
* Federal Register page and and date: 66 FR 51812, October 10, 2001
* Amends: EO 12656, November 18, 1988
* Amended by: EO 13284, January 23, 2003; EO 13286, February 28, 2003
* See: EO 13231, October 16, 2001; EO 13257, February 13, 2002
The First War In Cyberspace
By Ed TimperlakeWith a real world combat engagement in Georgia and Estonia, the Russians have shown skill. Make no mistake; in certain arenas the Russians are smart and capable, and as the invasion of Georgia shows, ruthless. They have world class scientists and engineers. It is well known they are excellent Cyber Warfighters who have now also apparently harnessed their criminal hackers to augment their worldwide reach. This melding of Russian conventional military might with reported state sponsored criminal cyber syndicates is ominous and powerful.
The Peoples Republic of China's attacks in United States Cyberspace are well known to even casual-mail and Google users, where viruses linked by the media to Chinese sources circle and wait for openings. If the dollar value of the troves of information reported by media to be carted off by the Chinese were toted up, the number could be many billions, if not a trillion. If George Washington and Thomas Jefferson could visit America in 2009 they would call the Chinese attacks Acts Of War.
America is awakened. The Pentagon is standing up a new Department of Defense major combat command This new Cyber Command will be headed by Lieutenant General Keith Alexander, who currently commands the National Security Agency (nickname "no such agency"). He will be promoted to four stars and be the first Commanding General of the Cyber Command to be Headquartered at Ft Meade, Maryland.
General Alexander, a warrior trained at West Point, has a well earned reputation as a visionary in 21st Century Warfare and the reach and power of technology. As Director of Technology Assessment, International Technology Security in the Office of the Secretary of Defense I visited and worked with the Army's Intelligence and Security Command then headed by Major General Alexander. It was clear that MG Alexander knew how to maneuver in cyberspace in cutting-edge ways.
If confirmed to his new position General Alexander will be standing on the shoulders of a giant -- his visionary fellow West Pointer Mike Wynne. Secretary of the Air Force Wynne launched the USAF Cyber Command, which created the template and many components of the new DOD Cyber Command. Secretary Wynne pronounced with clarity that Cyberspace is a war fighting domain like Air, Sea, Land, and Space, where Intelligence operations, like training, supply, and Medical operations are one component at work in the Domain
The fundamental principle of American Cyber Doctrine must emerge with focuses on Law Enforcement and war fighting, returning the Intelligence Community, which in the last century
extended into the Internet, to their primary role of cyber intelligence gathering and some cyber operations. This return to basics by the IC will be beneficial, since they completely missed the impending collapse of the old Soviet Empire and gave no apparent warning of the Russian attack on Georgia.
The two overall functions in Cyberspace are Law Enforcement and Investigation, the mission assigned to the Department of Homeland Security and the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and War Fighting, assigned to Cyber Command. Euphemistically, it can be said the first two are engaged in Dot.Gov and Dot.Com Cyberspace and DOD warriors fighting and defending our country from foreign attack are engaged in Dot.Mil Cyberspace.
The Wall Street Journal in a headline written on August 12 2008 perfectly captures the 21st Century warfare that the Russians have apparently employed in their invasion of Georgia: "Georgia States Computers hit by Cyber attacks. " The world has seen an opening chapter on how Russian cyber war capabilities are combined with Russian conventional forces. This chapter of war is being written in blood.
In our 1999 book "Red Dragon Rising" co-author William C. Triplett II and I postulated an electronic "Pearl Harbor" with The PRC attacking Taiwan. Using all their military capabilities, for example airborne and seaborne infantry, tactical air, naval armada, other elements of the attack could include: Surprise attack, Internet attack ("Cyber Attack was not in the lexicon then), Psychological Operations, and all tools of attack. That scenario now is at the center of US war planning.
America will ultimately win any Cyber engagement if we keep our focus and dedicate sufficient resources. Mike Wynne knew this: It can take a while for the American military to get it right, but once warriors are recruited trained and focused we have the best military the world has ever seen.
Air Force Cyber Doctrine had an extremely attractive feature, and the new DOD Cyber Command can build on it: the US Cyber Command is a military fighting force that would interest 18-year-old men and women some who are already the most computer savvy individuals in the world. These young American men and women, who really enjoy Wired Magazine, have reached adulthood with an instinctive know how on how to use computers -- for good or ill. They are perfect warriors in this brave new world.
A great American General, later President, Andrew "Andy" Jackson in the War of 1812 understood the power of innovative American battle tactics. General Jackson augmented his regulars at the Battle of New Orleans with frontier sharpshooters and pirates. The poor Red Coats did not know what hit them.
A US Cyber Command can attract our best Cyberspace sharpshooters along with swashbuckling Cyber Buccaneers. Russia, the Peoples Republic of China, Iran and others will soon have a cold dose of reality that in awaking the American sleeping giant Cyber attacks can run two ways.
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