U.S. Needs Both Traditional and New Methodologies for Cyberspace

The U.S. military by and large is taking the wrong approach to cyberwarfare by treating it as a separate entity without the innovation that should bring. The country needs to incorporate it with other military activities and turn loose creative leadership for U.S. cyberwar activities to prevail. "What happens in cyberspace doesn't stay in cyberspace; it affects the real world," declared Jim Newman of the Navy Information Operations Command serving with the NSA CSS Hawaii. Speaking at a panel focusing on multinational operations at TechNet Asia Pacific 2009, being held in Honolulu, Hawaii, November 2-5, stated that all of the warfare areas have to be integrated together, and cyber is one of them. Newman added that all cyber actions have a presence and a reality in the physical world in which we live. Accordingly, we need to structure the cyber part in the same way we structure the joint command world. The U.S. military doesn't need a cyber planning tool; it needs an integrated warfare planning tool. Information as a weapon and as a tool to further the commander's capabilities will be much more powerful as a result, he said. And, the nation must be less inhibited when it comes to planning for and waging cyberwarfare. Newman charged that the United States is risk averse when it comes to computer network attack. The country's leaders are too concerned about getting caught, so they don't stick our neck out. China isn't worried about getting caught on the front pages of the Washington Post, but we are, he pointed out.