Cyberspace continues to grab headlines, and regardless of what some senior leaders believe, the Navy and the Department of Defense (DoD) are not structured for the cyber fight. Wars in cyberspace will not be won by a latter day Achilles fighting a modern Ajax. Wars will be won or lost by organizations, and U.S. organizational problems start with the most basic: No one understands of the command-and-control of cyberspace forces.
For example, if the Commander, U.S. Central Command, wants to take an action in cyberspace, where does he turn? The annoying truth is, it depends. For offensive actions he should turn to Joint Force Headquarters-Cyber (JFHQ-C)(Army). For defensive actions, he should turn to JFHQ-DoD Information Network (DoDIN), although he could turn to JFHQ-C (Army) and have them try to answer using their “Regional Coordinating Authority for Cyberspace Operations” hat. If that same defensive action needs to be taken on supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) systems for a pipeline on a Navy base, Commander, Navy Installations Command owns it, the Defense Logistics Agency runs it, and Fleet Cyber Command will defend it.
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