It's Time for a Cyber+Space Force

This past week, President Biden signed the most sweeping executive orders on Cyber Security in perhaps a decade. While some of those reforms may have already been in the works, the timing of last night's order coincided with the massive impact being felt across the Eastern US as a result of the Colonial Pipeline Ransomware attack. This latest Cyber attack on the nation's infrastructure probably represents the most tangible example for ordinary Americans of the potential threat of malicious hacking in the past 25 years or so since it became an ever-present theme in popular culture and current affairs. The mechanics of the attack are less important than the fact that it has affected millions of people who are still having a hard time finding gasoline to fill up their tanks (even though the Pipeline was restarted last night, it will take up to a week for the Supply Chain to stabilize).

When all is said and done, it's likely that this relatively minor Cyber attack will have had a multi-billion dollar impact on the nation's economy and certainly more than the additional $650 million included in the American Rescue Act for Cyber Security. The Colonial Pipeline hack is not an anomaly however, there has been a steady increase in Ransomware attacks - at least 400 last year alone and probably more as many may not be reported. This, on top last year's SolarWinds hack which has impacted as many as 18,000 companies and organizations, including many within the US Government signals a surge in offensive Cyber operations against the United States and its Allies. What's even more incredible is that all of this is occurring in an environment where somewhere close to $125 billion per year is being spent on Cyber Security. It almost seems as though the more we spend on trying to defend against Cyber attacks, the less effective that defense becomes. In other words, Cyber Security is now the most active "threat space" both in terms of military and commercial entities on the planet and this level of activity and disruption is increasing at an accelerated pace. And the current responses to this growing threat have been proven inadequate over and over again. 

All of that is occurring in what we consider to be "Cyberspace," which put simply is the Digital (partially virtual) infrastructure upon which most of society is now dependent upon for any type of operational or mission support. What about actual Space, the "final frontier" - that expanse which exists beyond 100 kilometers (62 miles) above the Earth's surface - is it an active threat space?" Well, let's look - Ballistic missiles travel well beyond the 100 kilometer atmospheric cut off (typically 2,000 kilometers). Hypersonic missiles, which operate using scramjets, actually must travel well below the Space boundary cut off (100,000 feet or lower). Also operating above the atmospheric cutoff are all Satellites and orbiting Space Stations. So, there are military threats that come from Space, but has any of that changed over the past decade or two? Not really. The biggest change relates to the operational introduction of Hypersonic missiles into the nuclear deterrent (first by Russia even though the US pioneered the technology), but those operate in the upper atmosphere (which is why they're harder to detect) and not Space.

Yet, despite the lack of any real change in the activity associated with military Space-related operations or threats, in 2018, the United States ordered that the US Space Force be created from existing commands (such as the AF Space Major Command). Beginning in 2019, the first operational elements of the new Space Force were in place. The US Space Force is a service in its own right, but still reports to the Secretary of the US Air Force (as it had when it was Space Command within the Air Force). It's also not the first time something like this existed in the US military - from 1985 to 2002 there was a US Space Command, it was one of a number "Unified Combatant Commands." That Space Command was discontinued due to a lack of military activity associated with Space (as compared with other domains), and the function devolved to the US Air Force Space (Major) Command.  

So, here we are in 2021 - we've got a new branch of the military - The Space Force, that essentially has very little to do (that wasn't already being covered). What's even more inexplicable is that this Space force doesn't encompass the primary active threat from Space - Ballistic Missiles. Those are still managed by the Air Force, Navy and the Missile Defense Agency (MDA). Perhaps over time, this confusion over mission ownership may get sorted out and of course there would be much benefit to doing that. However, right now the US Space Force is a military branch in search of a truly meaningful mission.

It just so happens, as evidenced by the topics mentioned at the beginning of this article, we've got a critical, ready-made mission for the US Space Force - one that's not being satisfied by the existing military structure. Cyberspace is today's highest "Space-related" threat domain and it makes a lot of sense to take the current Space Force and add a more relevant mission to it - making it in effect the "US Cyber+Space Force."

This actually makes a lot more sense than it appears at first glance; here's just a sampling of why:

• The US Air Force Space Command, which is where most of the US Space Force has come from, used to be combined with the Air Force Cyber Command.
• Right now, the current Space Force includes multiple Cybersecurity related organizations built in and they are even at this moment looking to better integrate them with the larger Cyber Command framework.
• The current Cybersecurity organizational context within the US government is spread across as many as a dozen different groups with little ability to coordinate across them and no central representative to report directly to the President through the National Security Council. While there is a Unified Combatant Command for Cyber, it isn't a separate force or branch and doesn't report directly to the White House. While there is a National Cyber Director role, it is not of course associated with a dedicated military branch or service.
• The primary focus of the current US Space Force is almost entirely centered around Space communications which means it is already a de facto merged Cyber+Space entity. 

Any such combination of missions and organizations would be a complex undertaking, but there a several immediate advantages to following this course of action right now:

1. If it were combined with a reporting change - in other words the Secretary of the Space Force would report directly to the President as one of the Joint Chiefs - then for the first time, the United States would have a single representative to manage Cyber Warfare activity.
2. This change could made immediately through executive order - which gives the US an opportunity to organize and respond this year to the growing Cyber threat.
3. There would be immediate opportunities to tackle organizational redundancies and interagency data sharing challenges (opportunities that would likely never occur without this type of organizational consolidation).  

We received a very rude wake up call last week when a handful of Ransomware criminals managed to impact a huge chunk of the US economy and our national defense posture at the same time through a single, simple hack. This attack has a exposed a level of vulnerability that experts had already defined, but that most Americans had only viewed in abstract terms - until now. But the threat is and always was real and it's found us unprepared, once again. The Cyber Security Executive Order signed by President Biden is an excellent first step towards addressing this threat, but unfortunately, without additional organizational adjustments, carrying out much of what's in that order may prove difficult if not impossible. The quickest way to help solve that organizational challenge is to repurpose the US Space Force immediately - making it the Cyber+Space Force; taking it instantly from the least relevant military command to the most important one. This US Cyber+Space Force can at first coordinate Cyber Operations on a national level (both offensive and defensive), reporting directly to the White House and then eventually consolidate them as more Cyber organizations are merged into it. There are seldom opportunities this simple and this promising available to tackle issues as complex and worrisome as the mounting Cyber assault on the United States. Expanding the mission from Space to Cyber+Space is a proactive step that will change our ability to safeguard the United States throughout the remainder of the 21st century.   

Copyright 2021, Stephen Lahanas (Semantech Inc.)