Overcoming Boundaries in Cyberspace

When you take a look outside on the parade field of Lackland Air Force Base, you'll see a beautiful array of the Air Force's achievements; aircraft. But before those planes were out on the parade field, they were simply an idea with a requirement. At the luncheon in September, Col. Eric DeLange, USAF, commander, 688th Cyberspace Wing, explained to the chapter that it took some time before a simple idea with a set of requirements produced the intended effects for the nation's warfighters. Foot soldiers traveled 2.5 miles per hour and when tanks hit the field they went 15 miles per hour. Planes travel at 448 miles per hour and intercontinental ballistic missiles went on to travel even faster at 15,000 miles per hour. "You take into account the time it takes plus overcoming barriers of weather or geography and its terrain. All of these things have an impact on the battlefield and change the calculus of what we are trying to achieve." Col. DeLange described how rapidly changing weather such as the recent hurricanes affect the warfighting capability. "Today, as we move into cyberspace and its terrain, you see that the geography is always changing across the board. Things can happen instantaneously in cyberspace and that's the effect." If Col. Delange were to describe the 688th Cyberspace Wing with one word, it would be, "innovation." Their mission is to deliver innovative combat capabilities in defense of the nation, and partnering with industry to deliver these capabilities to the Defense Department will be vital. In the changing cyberspace environment, there's a lot of capabilities that industry is developing to deal with changing effects. Col. DeLange spoke on securing what you have from a network perspective and extending where there wasn't anything before. "It's much like a bare base situation with combat communications." Critical to this mission in cyberspace are cyber protection teams (CPT). CPT's are employed to rapidly improve cyberspace defenses by discovering, detecting, analyzing and mitigating threats and vulnerabilities to critical DOD missions in cyberspace.

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