Military Review English Edition May-June 2016 | Page 116

cyberspace effort. Though USCYBERCOM is working
discernment of expertise and better management of
to establish common standards for all armed services’
human capital.
cyberspace training, the armed services’ interpretaOperating within cyberspace. The primary adtions will diverge, if only slightly. Professors at each of
vantage of establishing an independent Cyber Force is
these centers will deliver unequal results. For example,
the ability to develop the most capable force. However,
the Army may hire the best computer code trainer,
operating within cyberspace will also become less risky
while the Marine Corps may hire the best network
and more efficient. In the physical domains, it is relatrainer. Despite common training standards, divergent
tively easy to divide the battlefield by physical location:
interpretations
the Army operates
and varying skills
inland, the Navy
of instructors will
operates at sea, the
produce cyberwarMarines operate in
riors of suboptimal
the littorals, and the
quality. Conversely,
Air Force in the sky.
the Cyber Force
However, no such
could consolidate
obvious boundaries
the best professors
exist in cyberspace,
into a single cyand all four armed
berspace training
services operate
center and better
throughout it. The
oversee the impleopportunity for one
mentation of stanservice to infringe
dards. Additionally,
on, or inadvertently
because students
sabotage, another’s
would be consolicyberspace operation
(Image courtesy of CERDEC)
dated, the brightest
is much greater than
The boundaries between traditional cyber threats and traditional electronic
would interact with
in the separate physwarfare threats have blurred. The U.S. Army Materiel Command’s Communicaeach other, and
ical domains. The
tions-Electronics Research, Development, and Engineering Center (CERDEC)
Integrated
Cyber
and
Electronic
Warfare
program
employs
both
cyber
and
the faculty would
command-and-conelectronic warfare capabilities as an integrated system to increase the comfacilitate improved
trol burden and the
mander’s situational awareness.
cyberspace research.
risk of cyberspace
Development continues beyond training.
fratricide increase with the number of cyberwarriors
Assignments and practice pick up where training
from four different services operating independently
leaves off. As an independent service, the Cyber Force in the domain. Another consequence of four discrete
could skillfully tailor the career development of its
cyberspace efforts is the potential for unintended reduncyberwarriors. Appropriate fields might be established dancy (i.e., two services may commit resources to solving
(e.g., coding, networking, virus protection, or intruthe same problem or developing the same capability).
sion management), and career pathways might also be A joint oversight effort might reduce some redundandesigned, including assignments in cyberspace units,
cy, but more bureaucracy adds time and money to an
in capability development agencies, and on joint staffs, already time-consuming capability development process.
where they can integrate cyberspace effects with oper- Removing the four armed services from the battle for cyations in the physical domains. Currently, cyberwarberspace reduces the risk of their stepping on each other
riors are beholden to their services’ human resources
and wasting resources.
needs, and they often are seen as interchangeable with
Advantages for the armed services. In Good to
communications personnel. While there is certainGreat, Jim Collins modernizes some of Adam Smith’s
ly overlap between the fields of communications
thoughts and notes successful businesses stick to their
and cyberwarfare, a cyber force would enable better
core concepts, foreswearing distractions. Collins offers
114

May-June 2016  MILITARY REVIEW