September 20, 2018 | International, C4ISR
By: Mark Pomerleau
In its first formal cyber strategy document in three years, the Department of Defense said it would focus its cyber efforts on China and Russia and use the Pentagon's cyber capabilities to collect intelligence as well as to prepare for future conflicts.
According to an unclassified summary and fact sheet released Sept. 18, the documents lay out a vision for addressing cyber threats and addresses the priorities of the department's National Security Strategy and National Defense Strategy, which focused on a new era of strategic great power competition.
“The United States cannot afford inaction,” the summary reads. It notes that China and Russia are conducting persistent campaigns in cyberspace that pose long term risk. The documents also say that China is eroding the U.S. military's ability to overmatch opponents and that Russia is using cyber-enabled information operations to influence the U.S. population and challenge democratic processes.
The DoD's strategy comes on the heels of other major movements in cyberspace from the department. These include the elevation of U.S. Cyber Command to a full unified combatant command — which affords new and exquisite authorities — the full staffing of Cyber Command's cyber teams, an update to DoD's cyber doctrine and new authorities delegating certain responsibilities from the president to DoD to conduct cyber operations abroad.
The summary's lists five objectives for DoD's cyberspace strategy:
- Ensuring the joint force can achieve its missions in a contested cyberspace environment;
- Strengthening the joint force by conducting cyberspace operations that enhance U.S. military advantages;
- Defending U.S. critical infrastructure from malicious cyber activity that alone, or as part of a campaign, could cause a significant cyber incident;
- Securing DoD information and systems against malicious cyber activity, including DoD information on non-DoD-owned networks; and
- Expanding DoD cyber cooperation with interagency, industry, and international partners.
The strategy also describes the need to remain consistently engaged with this persistent adversary and to “defend forward” as a means of disrupting or halting malicious cyber activity at its source, including activity that falls below the level of armed conflict.
While academics have criticized the U.S. response to Russian election interference, the strategy notes that the United States tends to view conflicts through the binary lens of war or peace while competitors such as Russia see themselves constantly engaged in a state of war. U.S. Cyber Command's new leader is taking a different tact.
“We've got to act forward outside of our boundaries, something that we do very, very well at Cyber Command in terms of getting into our adversary's networks. That's this idea of persistent engagement, the idea that the adversary never rests, so why would we ever rest,” Gen. Paul Nakasone said during an August dinner hosted by the Intelligence and National Security Alliance.
Nakasone also has described the notion of defending forward as enabling forces to act outside the boundaries of the U.S. to understand what adversaries are doing in order to better defend against them.
https://www.fifthdomain.com/dod/2018/09/19/department-of-defense-unveils-new-cyber-strategy
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June 12, 2020 | International, Naval
By: David B. Larter and Joe Gould WASHINGTON — Despite howls of criticism from Congress over the Navy's seven-ship budget request earlier this year, the Senate Armed Services Committee's markup of the National Defense Authorization Act stopped short of adding extra ships. Instead, lawmakers are opting to authorize the purchase of long-lead-time materials to keep the industrial base healthy. With submarine builders under strain from the coronavirus pandemic and a dearth of suppliers, Congress had sought to add a second Virginia-class submarine. But now the SASC has used its annual defense policy bill to authorize about $472 million for long-lead procurement “so they can be ready to go, if not this year, than at the next opportunity,” Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I., the committee's ranking member said Thursday. The strategy of authorizing long-lead-time materials, designed to keep steady business to critical suppliers and make canceling a ship that Congress has already spent money on more painful, was one the SASC used in other places as well. The strategy of authorizing long-lead-time materials is designed to maintain steady business for critical suppliers. It also has the benefit of making it difficult to cancel a ship on which Congress has already spent money. Several programs have already benefited from long-lead-time money, and for its part, SASC is looking to authorize money to the Arleigh Burke-class destroyer program, the amphibious assault ship program and the San Antonio-class amphibious transport dock program. On the submarine front, the president's budget requested only one Virginia-class sub for fiscal 2021 ,and staffers said fully funding a second sub would be unwise because the shipyard would be unable to use the money in a single year given the workload. “The other issue too is the shipyards are in the process of not only building the Virginia class, but Columbia class is also coming on,” Reed said. “They have extensive workload, but we have provided ... them with the ability to build that 10th submarine.” The Navy contracted with Electric Boat and Huntington Ingalls Industries to build nine Block V Virginia-class submarines in December. The long-lead-time money is intended to preserve an option to buy a 10th Virginia sub if it can be shoehorned into both companies' workflow without disrupting Columbia. SASC also provided language that approved the Navy's request to buy the first two Columbia-class submarines in tandem. In addition to the long-lead-time materials money for subs, the bill authorizes floating about $260 million for the Arleigh Burke class, which the Navy has talked about truncating; $500 million for the next two San Antonio-class ships; and an additional $250 million toward the ninth amphibious assault ship, LHA-9. Congress previously appropriated $1 billion in funding toward LHA-9, but the Navy did not request additional funds for FY21, according to the Congressional Research Service. The Senate Armed Services Committee approved its initial version of the FY21 NDAA on Wednesday for consideration by the full Senate. From there it is typically reconciled with the House's version, which the House Armed Services Committee will mark up on July 1. https://www.defensenews.com/naval/2020/06/11/senates-defense-bill-looks-to-pump-money-into-shipbuilding-materials/