Project Overview
Project Summary: The quest towards a common ground with respect to cyberspace refers to the lack of accepted standards for definitions, data structures, threat assessments, and policies both within and across communities that employ cyber power. Our current national security system was designed in an era when wars were fought with telegraph, landlines, and radios. Today, cyberspace, and the Internet in particular, has become the key enabler of wealth generation, economic revival, human development, and poverty alleviation. As the military, government, and society as a whole become increasingly dependent on cyberspace, they also attract threat actors who exploit technical vulnerabilities for a range of malicious activities. These threats undermine both economic and national security. Building human capacities and partnerships, both within the United States and globally, to address cyber vulnerabilities and threats is the key to creating a sustainable cyber environment for both national security and socioeconomic purposes.
The Air Force Research Institute (AFRI) at Air University is conducting a symposium series to contribute to a better understanding of the structural sources of cybersecurity challenges and to identify a common methodology that will serve as framework for identifying solutions and better-informed policies. Our project considers current and potential ways to strengthen and expand the way we are organizing the unified response to cyber incidents of national significance. The project is designed to stimulate and develop experientially informed, interdisciplinary research on how to improve interagency effectiveness, private sector collaboration, and international partnerships. The result of our long-term efforts will be the sharing of experiences and selected best practices as a viable, near-term basis for transforming interagency cybersecurity cooperation. This project will also frame strategic issues and suggest plausible directions for the Air University’s Cyber Air Corps Tactical School (C-ACTS).
Rationale: Cyber warfare constitutes a significant form of coercive power. Although cybersecurity policies in the United States are well articulated, their implementation has been described as “dysfunctional.” 1 Transformation of cybersecurity cooperation across government and society is required to enable our national security objectives in cyberspace. The need for a whole-of-society approach to resolving the national security issues facing the United States in the twenty-first century was reaffirmed in the 2011 National Security Strategy: “We are improving the integration of skills and capabilities within our military and civilian institutions, so they complement each other and operate seamlessly. . . . However, work remains to foster coordination across departments and agencies. Key steps include more effectively ensuring alignment of resources with our national security strategy, adapting the education and training of national security professionals to equip them to meet modern challenges, reviewing authorities and mechanisms to implement and coordinate assistance programs, and other policies and programs that strengthen coordination.”2 The AFRI project aims to provide inputs for a process that will inform the creation of cultures and mechanisms that enable a whole-of-society approach to coordinate elements of national cyber power and engage our adversaries in cyberspace.
Project Plan: A set of three interactive workshops (Winter 2012–Fall 2012) will bring together cyber policymakers and practitioners along with academic and other governmental and nongovernmental experts. The workshops and a conference will serve as a forum for the exchange of ideas and experiences among cyber professionals from interagency, joint, industry, academic, and international sectors. The conference program will give particular attention to articulating and anticipating needs to foster a common methodology on which to base new-style partnerships among relevant cyber security stakeholders. The project focuses on the following issues:
- Is the U.S. Government generally acting in an ad hoc manner, or is it developing effective strategies to integrate its national security resources in cyberspace?
- How well are the agencies/departments working together to implement these ad hoc or integrated strategies?
- What variables explain the strengths and weaknesses of cyber strategy? To what extent are technical capabilities hampered by policy?
- What is the private sector’s role in national security applications of cyberpower?
- How do private-sector applications of technology differ from national security applications of technology?
- What technology trends and emerging market conditions will shape the future of the Internet?
- What impact do existing or emerging Internet governance institutional structures and norms have on US national security?
- How are cyber threats that emerge from nation-states influenced by local economic, cultural, political, and military factors?
Project Timeline:
- Develop partnerships with interagency partners, private organizations, academia, and international partners to support the Air University’s Cyber Air Corps Tactical School (October 2011 and continuing).
- Hold project planning meetings with partners (January 2012 and continuing).
- First workshop: Cyber Power: National Security & Military Operations, 18–19 April 2012 (TS/SCI).
- Second workshop: Cyber Power: National Security and Collective Action, 29–30 August 2012 (unclassified).
- Report interim findings and obtain feedback at the second annual conference: Cyber Power: The Quest Towards a Common Ground, 10–11 October 2012.
- Issue reports and launch Cyber Air Corps Tactical School virtual community (December 2012).
Project Lead and POC: Dr. Pano Yannakogeorgos, Research Professor of Cyber Policy and Global Affairs, AFRI, Panayotis.Yannakogeorgos@us.af.mil