Creating Cyber Warriors
By Vice Admiral Nancy Brown (Retired), Captain Danelle Barrett, and Lieutenant Commander Jesse Castillo, U.S. Navy
The Navy should train highly skilled cyber-warfare officers from multiple communities who can dominate in a rapidly changing battle space.
In his 1 March 2012 opening remarks to the House of Committee on Appropriations, Defense Subcommittee, Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Jonathan W. Greenert addressed the tenets that have guided his decisions as a naval officer. In particular, “Warfighting First means the Navy must be ready to fight and win today, while building the ability to win tomorrow.” In 2009 the Navy took the very bold and forward-looking move to create the Information Dominance Corps (IDC), bringing together experts from the Navy’s key information-related fields. This initiative realigned the intelligence, information-warfare (IW), meteorology/oceanography, information professional (IP), and cyber-warfare engineers into one restricted-line cadre of officers. After three years, it is time to ask ourselves if this construct has accomplished its stated purpose and whether it provides the properly skilled individuals to achieve the CNO’s tenet of being able to win tomorrow. We believe this was an important first step, but the transformation must continue if we are to build and sustain a credible cyber capability.
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