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In his June interview with SIGNAL Magazine, Gen. Keith B. Alexander advocated bringing together the signal community, signals intelligence and the cyber community. In that interview, he said, “We need to think of ourselves not as signals, not as intelligence, not as cyber, but instead as a team that puts us all together.” Yet, that goal raises several questions. How can these concepts be achieved? How can a combination of more than 15,000 system enclaves from the U.S. Army, Navy, Marine Corps and Air Force become interoperable? What technologies are needed in the next five years while insufficient budgets make consolidations difficult?

The U.S. Army must move quicker toward a massive cultural change to streamline cybersecurity processes—from training to all-out operations—if leaders hope to maintain the momentum toward innovation. 

Cybersecurity can no longer be viewed as a technology-only problem and segmented into stovepipes where the U.S. Defense Department carries out one set of tasks; the civilian government another; and industry does its own thing, said Adm. Michael Rogers, USN, director of the NSA and commander of U.S. Cyber Command. “It must be viewed more broadly and must be tackled from a national security perspective,” Adm. Rogers said during a morning West 2017 presentation Thursday with Adm. James Stavridis, USN (Ret.), former NATO commander.

The United States will continue to develop a bilateral relationship with China regarding cybersecurity issues.