NO AIR: Cyber Dependency and the Doctrine Gap

Abstract

Despite concerted efforts to defend them, military cyber networks remain vulnerable to attack. For the U.S. military to maintain operational agility, operational doctrine should expand to include methods designed to ensure unhindered operations in a degraded cyber environment. The need for expansion in cyber doctrine stems from four areas: the nature of the cyberspace domain, the military's growing dependency on it, the threat environment, and doctrinal gaps. At the operational level, shortcomings in doctrine affect training, planning, and the U.S. military's ability to seize and maintain the initiative. Because of current inabilities to protect much of its cyber network from attack, U.S. military dependency on the cyber domain becomes a critical vulnerability for an enemy to exploit. By training like it expects to fight, ensuring operational planning assumptions are accurate, and emphasizing decentralized execution of commander's intent, the U.S. military can better operate in a challenged or austere cyber network environment.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
May 03, 2010
Accession Number
ADA525281

Entities

People

  • David A. Rickards

Organizations

  • Naval War College

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Cyber

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Air Force
  • Command And Control
  • Computer Networks
  • Cyberattacks
  • Cyberspace
  • Cyberspace Operations
  • Doctrine
  • Electronic Warfare
  • Information Operations
  • Information Warfare
  • Military Organizations
  • Military Science
  • National Security
  • Network Centric Warfare
  • Training
  • War Colleges
  • Warfare

Fields of Study

  • Computer science

Readers

  • Cybersecurity.
  • Joint Military Operations and Doctrine.
  • Maritime Combat Support and Expeditionary Logistics.

Technology Areas

  • Cyber