17 août 2020 | International, Naval

The new strategy from Navy’s cyber command

The Navy's primary cyber outfit released its strategic plan for the next five years, a document that calls for using the service's networks as a warfighting platform.

The document, released by 10th Fleet/Fleet Cyber Command in late July, covers the range of responsibility of the command, which is the only fleet with a global footprint in all the military domains, to include cyberspace operations, signals intelligence and recently, the Navy's component to U.S. Space Command.

Much has changed since the last strategic plan was published in 2015, namely, the rampant activity of adversaries on a daily basis below the threshold of armed conflict to strategically harm the United States.

“The long term competition we face today is between democracies and authoritarian regimes, freedom of navigation, and access to shared world markets. Our long-term strategic competitors are executing strategic cyber activities to alter the international order. This will not let up,” the document read.

It added that adversaries learned the military's game but now the military must learn the adversary's game and play it on their terms.

“Historically, to undermine a state's power required territorially-focused, overt armed attacks or physical invasion. While that is and will always remain a possibility, technology has provided our adversaries with the ability to achieve their objectives without traditional military force,” the document read. “Currently, our adversaries are engaging us in cyberspace and the costs are cumulative – each intrusion, hack or leak may not be strategically consequential on its own, but the compounding effects are tantamount to what would have been considered an act of war.”

The Navy, and military by extension, must be prepared to contest this activity.

“I am certain the opening rounds of a 21st century great power conflict, particularly one impacting the maritime domain, will be launched in the electromagnetic, space, or cyber domains. If the Navy is to fight and win, Navy networks must be able to survive those hits and ‘fight hurt,'” Vice Adm. Timothy White, who rarely speaks publicly, said in the forward to the strategy. “Our people must be trained and exercised to fight through those hits. This contest spans the continuum of competition and conflict. We must win this contest during the day-to-day competition of ‘peacetime operations,' where our networks are already in close contact, under constant probing and attack. If we do not, we will be at a severe disadvantage during crisis and lethal combat.”

The plan, which continues to nest within the Navy's overarching vision of Distributed Maritime Operations, features a three pronged vision; acting first in full spectrum information warfare, fighting and winning in a fully contested battlespace and promoting modernization and innovation.

Moreover, the plan tweaks the five goals outlined in the previous strategic plan 2015-2020. They include:

  • Operating the network as a warfighting platform: Following several high profile network breaches, the Navy must tighten the screws on its IT. Fleet Cyber is responsible for operating, maintaining and defending the network and as part of that, service leaders recognize they must “fight hurt” when networks are strained. They are also working ton establish greater cyber situational awareness across the service and reduce the intrusion attack surface.
  • Conducting fleet cryptologic warfare: Fleet Cyber published its cryptologic cyber warfare vision in 2019. As part of the new strategy, command officials said they will seek to expand and enhance capabilities in distributed signals intelligence as part of its contribution to Distributed Maritime Operations.
  • Delivering warfighting capabilities and effects: Fleet Cyber wants to expand how it delivers effects on the battlefield to include accelerating and synchronizing information warfare capabilities across Maritime Operations Centers, advancing integration of cyber effects into Navy and Marine Corps concepts and creating tactical cyber teams along with a maritime fires cell to provide expertise across the fleet for delivering cyber effects.
  • Accelerate Navy's cyber forces: Fleet Cyber needs to develop a plan to meet increased demand, both for its joint force requirements through U.S. Cyber Command and Navy specific requirements. Leaders are also looking to mature organizational structures and command and control relationships between various cyber entities that control forces across the globe such as Joint Forces Headquarters–DoDIN, Joint Force Headquarters–Cyber and Cyber Operations–Integrated Planning Elements. Moreover, with the additional importance of the space domain, Fleet Cyber will look to exploit the increasing convergence between space, cyberspace and electromagnetic spectrum.
  • Establish and Mature Navy Space Command: The document states that Fleet Cyber's goal is to “maintain maritime superiority from the sea floor to space with a core emphasis on lethality, readiness and capacity,” and so officials must re-focus to provide the best space integration possible as the service component to Space Command.

The strategy also articulates Fleet Cyber's role in enabling Distributed Maritime Operations, which is underpinned by assured command and control, battlespace awareness and integrated fires. All of those require robust networks, information and completion of the kill chain.

https://www.c4isrnet.com/cyber/2020/08/13/the-new-strategy-from-navys-cyber-command/

Sur le même sujet

  • Spear unveils submarine-launched Ninox 103 drone

    17 juin 2022 | International, Naval

    Spear unveils submarine-launched Ninox 103 drone

    Israeli company Spear has unveiled a new drone that launches from a submarine and loiters for nearly an hour, providing surveillance while the launch platform remains submerged.

  • Final hypersonic missile contract awards imminent as US Army preps to shoot one in FY21

    9 août 2019 | International, Aérospatial, Naval, Terrestre

    Final hypersonic missile contract awards imminent as US Army preps to shoot one in FY21

    HUNTSVILLE, Ala. — The U.S. Army is just weeks away from awarding the final contracts related to the development of its mobile, ground-launched hypersonic missile. The Army will award a contract within the next three weeks to a company to develop a launching system for the hypersonic missile in co-development across the services, Lt. Gen. L. Neil Thurgood, the service's Rapid Capabilities and Critical Technologies Office director, said Aug. 7 at the Space and Missile Defense Symposium. RCCTO's job is to serve as a bridge between the science and technology community and the program executive offices, helping bring technology out of development and into soldiers' hands, first on a small scale and then a larger scale when passed off to program offices. The office is primarily focused on hypersonics and directed energy. While the missile is under joint development, the Army needs a special launcher to make the missile road-mobile. The contract will encompass the design and integration of a vertical launcher onto a trailer, Thurgood said. Additionally, the RCCTO is preparing to award a contract, also in the next three weeks, to a vendor to produce the glide body for the hypersonic missile, Thurgood said. The Navy will own the design of the glide body, but the Army will own its production, he said. “We have a company that we are in the final process of negotiating an [other transaction authority contract],” Thurgood said. An OTA is a contract that allows for rapid prototyping by bypassing the usual red tape associated with acquisition. “What is interesting about the glide body technology is we also have to create an industrial base to do this. There is no industrial base in the United States for glide bodies,” Thurgood said. The technology is owned by the government labs, he noted, “so we are transitioning that out of the labs into the commercial marketplace. That is a really hard thing to do, but there's a lot of energy and a lot of momentum behind that outcome.” Unlike other programs, Thurgood said, there is not a single company that can produce a hypersonic missile and its equipment alone. “It actually takes a collaborative effort amongst the industry partners,” he added. The first contract will be awarded to one company, but there will be follow-on contracts for other vendors to learn how to make the glide body at the federally funded lab where it was developed. The methodology energizes the supply chain from the prime contractors all the way to sub-contractors should the service decide to make a large number of the weapons, Thurgood told Defense News in an interview at the symposium. Thurgood noted that in order to bring industry closer to the RCCTO's endeavors, the office established an industry board in addition to its board of directors to promote “horizontal communication.” The Army plans to field a hypersonic missile and launcher to a unit in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2021. The unit will train for an entire year without live rounds, Thurgood said, adding that the canisters the unit will use will be cement-filled to match the weight. The first live-round test will take place in FY22 and will be conducted by a battery led by a captain. Thurgood was tasked Feb. 14 to come up with a plan for hypersonic development, and given 30 days to do so. Now, almost six months later, the RCCTO is about to award all associated contracts to move forward in building prototypes that will be in soldiers' hands in just a couple of years, Thurgood said. https://www.defensenews.com/digital-show-dailies/smd/2019/08/07/final-hypersonic-missile-contract-awards-imminent-as-army-preps-to-shoot-one-in-fy21/

  • Croatia backtracks on decision to buy Israeli jets. What went wrong?

    15 janvier 2019 | International, Aérospatial

    Croatia backtracks on decision to buy Israeli jets. What went wrong?

    By: Jaroslaw Adamowski WARSAW, Poland — The Croatian government has canceled its decision to purchase used F-16C/D Barak fighters from Israel, the Defence Ministry said in a Jan. 14 statement. The move follows a recommendation by the Croatian Defence Council that authorities relaunch the procurement step of its fighter jet acquisition program, set up to replace the country's outdated Mikoyan MiG-21 fighters. The council is comprised of President Kolinda Grabar-Kitarovic, Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic, and a number of senior government, parliamentary and military officials. After a thorough analysis of the canceled procurement, Plenkovic's cabinet will “define a new model” of acquiring fighter jets for the Croatian Air Force, the prime minister said. Prior to the cancellation, Croatian Defence Minister Damir Krstičević said in a statement that “Israel has ... unfortunately officially informed the Ministry of Defence that it is unable to receive the adequate [third-party transfer] approval for the delivery of Israeli F-16 Barak aircraft to the Republic of Croatia.” Earlier this month, the Croatian government said it had given “Israel a deadline on its capability to deliver the aircraft offered at the international tender” and that Israel was “responsible for obtaining the approval from the United States for the supply of the aircraft.” Croatian officials have told local media the U.S. government accused its Israeli counterpart of unfair competition in the tender, in which the U.S. had offered Croatia secondhand F-16s. Other bidders included Greece, which offered used F-16s, and Sweden, which offered JAS 39 Gripen fighters. https://www.defensenews.com/air/2019/01/14/croatia-backtracks-on-decision-to-buy-israeli-jets-what-went-wrong

Toutes les nouvelles