NATIONAL HARBOR, Md.–Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Mark Welsh is “a little hesitant” to commit major resources to cyber warfare due to the lack of direction from joint forces, including U.S. Cyber Command (CYBERCOM).
“Until we’re all on board, and we’re all under the same direction, I’m a little hesitant to commit wholeheartedly for major resource expenditure in an area I really don’t completely understand,” Welsh said yesterday during a press conference after his state of the Air Force speech here at the Air Force Association’s 2012 Air and Space Exposition.
“I don’t know of a clearly stated requirement from the joint world, U.S. Cyber Command in particular, as to exactly what kind of expertise they need us to train in, and what numbers to support them, and to support combatant commanders in the cyber arena,” Welsh said.
Welsh said he thought about 90 percent of airmen who would be categorized as cyber were really computer “infrastructure and architecture” type of people who build, operate, manage, administrate and defend networks, he said.
“They aren’t what you would say a cyber warrior, for example, and I think that is confusing to the rest of the Air Force because the rest of the Air Force doesn’t understand. They don’t really know what we’re doing,” Welsh said.
Welsh said there is still a lot of work to be done delegating authorities and capabilities among the services and combatant commands as to how cyber warfare should be handled.
“I understand, I think, what cyber is. The problem is that it’s a really fuzzy area for a lot of people, not just the Air Force,” Welsh said. “There are lots of discussions in the cyber arena about what capabilities people have, what capabilities they don’t, who has what authorities…It tends to blend over into discussions about organizational structure and training and building career fields, and things like that.”
Welsh said in his state of the Air Force speech it is important for both him and the Air Force to get up to speed on cyber.
“We have to understand because this is essential, this is the future,” Welsh said. “It’s an air, space and cyber future, there’s no doubt about that and everything we do can be affected either by or through this in either a good or bad way.”
Welsh warned the audience the service would be slow developing cyber capabilities until the Air Force gets up to speed.
“I’m a believer, I’m just not sure we know exactly what we’re doing in it yet,” Welsh said. “You just need to know I’m going to be going a little slow on the operational side of cyber until I really understand what we’re doing.”