New Air Force Cyber Command politically savvy
One way to secure the Hill’s backing — and bucks — for any new program is to spread it over as many states and congressional districts as possible; AFCYBER may be a new outfit, but its leaders are perfectly aware of this old political truth
The U.S. Air Force Cyber Command (AFCYBER) is staring down a 1 October deadline to launch the first phase of its stand up. After that AFCYBER plans to announce in September 2009 which state has won the bid to host its headquarters. There are currently at least eighteen states competing for the base, and last month AFCYBER sent out a letter to the governors of these states explaining the basing criteria. GovExec’s Bob Brewin writes that one way to secure the Hill’s backing — and bucks — for any new program is to spread it over as many states and congressional districts as possible. AFCYBER may be a new outfit, but its leaders are perfectly aware of this old political truth — indeed, that have this approach to its ultimate limit: The service plans a cyber unit in every state, according to a briefing given in April by Maj. Gen. William Lord, the Cyber Command chief. The briefing was sent to Brewin by a source who chooses to remain anonymous. The very crowded slide of the fifty states that Lord presented at the Scope Warrior Spring Symposium, a gathering of top Air Force communications and information technology folks, looks like a bit of cyber-rebranding of the service’s existing IT functions. The majority of the sites, which will come under the Cyber Command umbrella, are designated as so-called network operations, which is another way to describe the circuits and connections that already exist to serve those bases. While this is just putting a new name on old operations, it helps to include all fifty states in the count, which then bolsters the sales job.
The real centers of power, in what Lord called in his slides “AF Distributed Cyber Enterprise,” are eight bases located in the East, Midwest, and South:
- Networked Computer Operations: Bolling Air Force Base, Washington
- Theater Operations Integration: Langley Air Force Base, Virginia
- Information Systems: Rome Laboratory, New York
- Cyber Operations Integration: Barksdale Air Force, Louisiana
- Information Operations: Lackland Air Force Base, Texas
- Space Operations Integration: Peterson Air Force Base, Colorado
- Global Operations Integration: Offutt Air Force Base, Nebraska
- Global Networks:Scott Air Force Base, Illinois
Then there is the command’s new headquarters, which has triggered a stiff competition which at least eighteen states have entered.
