http://www.shreveporttimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071007/NEWS01/710070325/1060/NEWS01 By John Andrew Prime October 7, 2007 WASHINGTON, D.C. What cyberspace and cyberwarfare are might take years for the layman to understand, but Lani Kass painted a stark and clear picture of warfare's future in less than an hour at the Air Force Association Air and Space Conference. Her talk, on the closing day of the international gathering in the nation's capital in late September, could be a signal of the future for the Air Force and Barksdale Air Force Base. Kass, a former major in the Israeli Defense forces who moved to this country in the 1980s and became a citizen, is one of the major voices whispering in the ears of the Air Force chief of staff and, by extension the Joint Chiefs and, possibly, even higher up the chain of command. An instructor at National War College, she taught Military Thought and the Essence of War and served as director of Studies of Warning, Surprise and Deception. As such, she was a mentor to the level of Air Force officers who over the next two decades will be the generals leading branches and commands. But in the years since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, she has become one of the leading minds creating the vision of cyberspace as a war-fighting domain, which could have consequences for Barksdale, which is home to the provisional, or forming, Air Force Cyber Command. The base already is home to 8th Air Force and its mirror entity in the cyber world, Cyber Strike, with Lt. Gen. Robert J. Elder Jr. at its helm. Kass also is a senior mentor to Operation Checkmate, which plans for future war needs and contingencies. Kass, who spoke with a thick accent and cut a dramatic, almost theatrical figure as she strode back and forth across the symposium stage, captured the crowd's attention with blunt talk. "Anybody talks about cyberspace as if it was exclusively computers misses the point," she said. Cyberspace covers almost everything electrical or electromechanical, from the simplest direct-current applications to the slickest, fastest space-age GPS gadgets off to things that haven't been invented. The scale of invention and development over the decades "means the further ... you go on the electromagnetic spectrum ... the energy moves faster and it's greater. ... the higher the scale of effects you can deliver." The history of modern warfare has been one of adding domains in which people can fight and lose, be the controllers or the controlled, she said. For decades, the traditional domains were land and sea. In the 20th century, air and space were added, along with the recognition that if you control air and space, you can dictate to a great degree the control of land and sea. But it has only been in the past few years that cyberspace, the realm that links the four war domains, has been recognized as an area of combat and control in its own right, she said. "We have been using the electromagnetic spectrum longer than we have been using air and space," she said, noting that the telegraph, one of the most bedrock aspects of cyberspace, was developed around the time of the Civil War. What makes cyber different from the other realms, she said, is that it doesn't take a lot to fight in it. You don't have to build or buy expensive ships, airplanes, tanks or spacecraft. All you need is a laptop or a link to the Internet. "For the first time, perhaps ever, we are dealing with a domain where the level of investment is disproportionate to the kind of effects you can deliver," she said. That's important since people half a world away can do things now that can limit or eliminate the control of land, air, sea and space that make protections of modern freedoms possible, she said. "If you don't dominate cyber, you cannot dominate in air, or in space, you cannot dominate on land or at sea," she said. "Quite frankly, if you're a developed country, you cannot conduct your daily way of life. Your life essentially comes to a screeching halt." The afternoon before Kass' talk, Cyber Strike commander Lt. Gen. Robert J. Elder spoke of the efforts already under way at Barksdale to make the cyber vision reality. That involves determining and gathering the people to do the work, determining the new career and training avenues that need to be forged, assessing systems and software for the new missions, establishing command and control procedures and forging alliances with academia and industry, such as the $100 million Cyber Innovation Center being created north of Barksdale. "We are starting to practice our capabilities," Elder said. "We are flying and fighting in cyberspace today." As to the question of where Cyber Command will be headquartered, Kass didn't have a final answer. "This is not something that's bricks and mortar and is going to be all in one place," she told The Times after her talk. "The whole country is going to benefit from it. It's distributed. Think of it like the development of the railroad. It's going to span the United States. The world." Copyright The Times __________________________________________________________________ CSI 2007 is the only conference that delivers a business-focused overview of enterprise security. It will convene 1,500+ delegates, 80 exhibitors and features 100+ sessions/seminars providing a roadmap for integrating policies and procedures with new tools and techniques. Register now for savings on conference fees and/or free exhibits admission. - www.csiannual.com
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