CHIPS Articles: Interview with Vice Admiral H. Denby Starling II

FLTCYBERCOM/COMTENTHFLT is the U.S. Navy component command to DoD's proposed subunified command, U.S. Cyber Command (USCYBERCOM). Earlier that week, Navy Cyber Forces (CYBERFOR) was established at Joint Expeditionary Base, Little Creek-Fort Story as the dedicated type commander (TYCOM) for cyber, subordinate to Commander, U.S. Fleet Forces Command. Many functions now performed by Fleet Cyber Command/10th Fleet and Navy Cyber Forces were formerly conducted by the Naval Network Warfare Command (NETWARCOM).

Vice Adm. H. Denby Starling II, having served as the NETWARCOM commander since June 2007, played a significant role in reshaping Navy's cyber organization to meet CNO’s vision. He has assumed command of Navy Cyber Forces and retains command of NETWARCOM. CHIPS asked the admiral to discuss the realigned missions of CYBERFOR and NETWARCOM in early February.

CHIPS: Can you discuss the recent changes within the Navy cyber domain and how you prepared for the establishment of CYBERFOR?

Vice Adm. Starling: The CNO had a vision from the start that cyber in the Navy was going to be a real growth area. He spent a lot of time in his first months as the CNO soliciting input both inside and outside the Navy about how to organize it. In the middle of last year, he made his decision and came out with three big pieces of guidance. The combination of N2 and N6 was the first big announcement, but that was in the OPNAV arena.

The CNO also directed the Navy to stand up Fleet Cyber Command at Fort Meade, with a three-star commander. When he made that decision it really moved the operational center of gravity from NETWARCOM to FLTCYBERCOM.

CNO further directed that NETWARCOM would have a more focused mission on network operations and space operations. This meant that NETWARCOM's man, train and equip mission would realign back to U.S. Fleet Forces Command. As we looked at the ways to execute that guidance, we ultimately made the decision to establish a stand-alone global type commander — Navy Cyber Forces.

We prepared by looking at what CNO was trying to accomplish, which was the establishment of a very strong cyber operational presence at Fort Meade, while retaining a very strong man, train and equip function here at Little Creek that would continue to serve, not just the fleet, but the whole Navy.

With that in mind, we looked at all of those things that NETWARCOM did. We took our own mission, functions and tasks, and dissected them. At the same time, we worked with the implementation team in Washington, D.C., to stand up Fleet Cyber Command. We essentially took all those functions and put them into bins for FLTCYBERCOM work, CYBERFOR work, and NETWARCOM work, aligned the people and the resources accordingly, and pressed on from there.

When CNO said he wanted to effect this change, it gave us an opportunity to do something revolutionary. The CNO wanted us to leap ahead aggressively in the things that Navy is doing at Fort Meade. But it is also evolutionary, if you look at the way that NETWARCOM came together in 2002. At the time, it was a revolutionary step as we gathered up all of our computers, C4I, space and cryptology into a single organization. From that perspective, this is another step in the evolution, although I think CNO sees it as moving much faster this time.

CHIPS: Can you talk more specifically about how those functions were divided between the three commands?

Vice Adm. Starling: When I first came to NETWARCOM, we were the 'one-stop shop' for all things cyber. We didn't call it cyber back then, but we were the Navy's primary point of contact for networks and C4I. This past year, as we looked at all the functions NETWARCOM performed in big picture terms, we asked: 'Is it an operational function, a command and control function?' If so, it would belong inside FLTCYBERCOM/COMTENTHFLT or NETWARCOM.

Then we asked, 'Which of these functions are man, train and equip, which ones address the administration of organizations, which ones address the training of our personnel and the training of organizations and the delivery of equipment?' Those functions were pulled into CYBERFOR as the type commander. If you look at the way Navy does this in other warfare areas, you’ll see that what we have actually done is to put cyber in the same sort of alignment as a warfare area that we have in air, surface, subsurface. So, Navy Cyber Forces is now more appropriately aligned with the other Navy TYCOMS: Navy Surface Forces, Naval Air Forces, Navy Submarine Forces and Navy Expeditionary Forces.

Before I came to this job, I was the aviation East Coast type commander (Commander, Naval Air Force Atlantic), responsible for the man, train and equip functions to provide the resources necessary to enable our operators (the Naval aviation workforce) to perform their duties and achieve mission success. The commander of Navy Cyber Forces will do the exact same thing.

CHIPS: Can you talk about CYBERFOR's man, train and equip role?

Vice Adm. Starling: When I came to NETWARCOM almost three years ago, I really felt that we needed to build a stronger type commander function, just like the platform side had — an organization that looked at the basics, and an organization that paid close attention to the readiness of our fleet to do its business in the information domain. The organization was doing that, but not in a focused fashion.

When it came time to split out the man, train and equip function, I thought it made great sense, and I believe Adm. Harvey, commander of Fleet Forces, saw that it made great sense. CNO agreed to stand up this function as a type commander. If we want to be preeminent in the information domain, just as we want to be preeminent in submarine warfare, air warfare and surface warfare, the fundamental building blocks are forces that are properly manned, trained and equipped. As the type commander for Cyber Forces, I'll support CNO’s vision of information dominance by providing Vice Adm. McCullough, as well as the remainder of our fleet, with the most ready systems, the strongest networks, and the best trained people that we possibly can.

CHIPS: Why was it necessary to stand up 10th Fleet, wasn’t the establishment of FLTCYBERCOM sufficient to sustain the cyber mission?

Vice Adm. Starling: Back in World War II, 10th Fleet was established to combat German U-boats. They were causing us tremendous problems in the Battle of the Atlantic. It was much like cyber is today — a new warfighting area with a lot of disagreement on the direction we should go. Tenth Fleet was stood up in the early years of World War II to combat that threat, and by the end of World War II, we were dominant in the Atlantic, and we were dominant in ASW.

Much like Fleet Cyber Command, when 10th Fleet was first stood up, it didn't have regularly assigned ships. It wasn't a hardware organization; it was an organization dependent upon intelligence and tactics and the development of new ways of doing business in this new warfare arena. Interestingly, at the end of World War II, 10th Fleet was disestablished.

As the Navy was looking for what we wanted to do with this new cyber fleet, it seemed most appropriate now that we have arguably a new warfare domain, and one that has many of the same characteristics that the submarine threat had in 1942, to reactivate 10th Fleet.

In regard to why we have Fleet Cyber Command and 10th Fleet, it's a Navy model. It's just like in 5th Fleet where there is the commander, U.S. Naval Forces Central Command, as well as the commander, U.S. 5th Fleet. One is a component commander designation, and one is a warfighting designation.

CHIPS: What will be NETWARCOM's mission?

Vice Adm. Starling: NETWARCOM, as of the 26th of January, became an organization wholly focused on network operations and space operations in support of 10th Fleet. In the past, NETWARCOM had a tremendously broad range of functions — all of the operations that we just talked about, as well as all of the man, train and equip functions.

The NETWARCOM that exists today, and that will move into the future, will be smaller, more operationally agile, and totally focused on network and space operations as directed by the commander of 10th Fleet.

CHIPS: What does the NETWARCOM workforce look like now?

Vice Adm. Starling: The workforce looks very much like what we had in the 'Ops Department' in what I would call the 'old NETWARCOM.' We carved out our operational function, which largely existed under the directorship of Rear Adm. 'Peg' Klein as the Global Operations Officer. We beefed it up a little bit with some pieces that were done in other parts of the organization, for instance, adding CARS (Cyber Asset Reduction and Security), and ODAA (Operational Designated Approving Authority) Directorates. But if you were to walk onto the NETWARCOM watch floor today, it would look very much like the watch floor did two weeks ago or two months ago.

We took functions, such as network operations, network defense, in our operational dealings with our subordinates — the Navy Information Operations Commands and NCTAMS LANT and PAC (Naval Computer and Telecommunications Area Master Stations, Atlantic and Pacific) — and we have aligned functions operationally, so instead of going through NETWARCOM to U.S. Fleet Forces, now these functions report to Commander, 10th Fleet. So those things that we used to report operationally to Adm. Harvey, we now report to Adm. McCullough and his staff. By the same token, those things we did for man, train and equip under the old NETWARCOM hat — enlisted training, career management to some extent, fleet readiness, requirements generation, budgeting and administrative functions — the same people who did those things here are largely still doing them. They are just doing them now with a name tag that says CYBERFOR instead of NETWARCOM.

What we have really done is to create an organizational structure that better supports the business of cyber inside the Navy. With FLTCYBERCOM at Echelon II, there is a direct line to the CNO and a direct line to the joint side. NETWARCOM will be able to focus better on operations. CYBERFOR, an Echelon III command focused on administrative functions and reporting to U.S. Fleet Forces, will have a commander whose job it is to focus wholly on man, train and equip.

I am fortunate to command both of these organizations, but I think it is unlikely that this will be the case in the future. Navy Cyber Forces and NETWARCOM are two separate commands, and as this organizational construct continues to mature, it will become more evident what each of these commands is designed to do. I recognize that to many today, it may not be completely clear, but that’s because we are looking not only at new organizations, but at new ways of doing business — which is exactly what CNO wanted us to do.

CHIPS: Do you have a new vision for NETWARCOM?

Vice Adm. Starling: I'd say it's not so much a new vision, but a re-focused one. The vision is that NETWARCOM will be the most operationally agile network and space organization in the world. Without the man, train and equip overhead, it will make NETWARCOM a better organization. By that same token, the focus for Navy Cyber Forces will be to develop and deliver the best cyber readiness capabilities to the fleet and Navy.

CHIPS: Will NETWARCOM continue to manage the space cadre?

Vice Adm. Starling: Part of CNO's guidance writ large was the establishment of the Information Dominance Corps. The center of gravity for management of the Information Dominance Corps was realigned to the DCNO for Information Dominance, N2/N6. We still will do some of the bean counting functions for the space cadre for billets and where people are, but the management, policy and community management piece for the space cadre will reside in N2/N6.

CHIPS: Many security experts have said that the Defense Department has lagged behind in cyberwarfare concentrating on defending networks instead of using an offensive approach. Will Navy strategies for protecting cyber assets change now?

Vice Adm. Starling: The alignment that CNO has put into place — the establishment of N2/N6, the way CNO looks at resources, the way he wants to position Navy to move both on the offense and defense with the establishment of Fleet Cyber Command close to the center of the action, as well as having Navy Cyber Forces to keep a solid focus on the fundamentals and the equipment — all of this best positions Navy to respond to any demand that comes from DoD.

There are lots of opinions on how to do cyber, but what I have learned in my three years at NETWARCOM is that there has to be a balance between the offense and the defense. There just has to be. I’m an aviator by training. The old adage that the best defense is a good offense is probably a very good one to use when you are talking about force-on-force confrontation — which is how we have always looked at warfare. I line up my forces on one side; you line your forces up on the other side, and we see who comes out on top. But cyber doesn't work like that. You have to defend everywhere, and there is no equivalent of the force-on-force approach for cyber that exists on the kinetic side of warfare.

If you listen to the greater discussion beyond cyber with regard to where the Secretary of Defense is trying to take DoD, and much of the discussion with regard to how to fight terrorism, and in the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, some would argue strongly that our offensive mindset has to change. Many of our deep thinkers, both in and out of uniform, recognize that these threats require a different type of warfare. Cyber also requires a different way to think.

You have to defend everywhere, just like in the homeland defense of the country, we have to defend everywhere. We have to have strong networks, we have to have good defense, and we have to be able to defend the command and control systems on which we rely so heavily.

Navy is a netcentric organization. Crucial to everything we do is our ability to keep our networks functioning, and to do that we have to have a strong defense. I have great confidence that we have outstanding offensive capabilities. I think I’ll just leave it at that. One of the difficulties of talking about capabilities is that we immediately get into a classified area.

CHIPS: Do you think information dominance globally is achievable?

Vice Adm. Starling: I think it is a goal that we need to keep working toward. The ability to turn inside the enemy's decision cycle, which is really what information dominance is all about, is critical to any fight that we are in. Can we achieve information dominance 24/7 worldwide? … Probably not. But what we need to do is to better understand those areas where it is critical that we be able to achieve information dominance over those that we think pose the greatest threat to us.

The term information dominance has only been around a few years, and it has gone from theory to the practice stage. I can tell you that Navy is better aligned to achieve information dominance now than it has ever been.

We've made a lot of big changes in the Navy in the last four to five months in the cyber world. I believe there will be a lot [of people] out there who don't deal in this world day-to-day, and who are either unaware or see the name changes and don't understand what has occurred, so I appreciate the opportunity to clarify some of the changes.

Editor's Note: The CNO announced prospective commanders for CYBERFOR and NETWARCOM March 31. Rear Adm. Thomas P. Meek will be assigned as the commander of Navy Cyber Forces, and Rear Adm. Edward H. Deets III will take the helm of Naval Network Warfare Command at a Change of Command ceremony May 14 at Joint Expeditionary Base Little Creek-Fort Story. CYBERFOR/NETWARCOM Commander Vice Adm. H. Denby Starling II will retire at the ceremony at the conclusion of 36 years of Naval service. For more information about Navy Cyber Forces, visit the command's Navy News site at www.navy.mil/local/ncf.