December 10, 2007: The U.S. Air Force is in the
process of training 40,000 Cyber Warriors. In addition, all air force recruits
will now receive some basic Cyber War training as part of boot camp. Many of
the new training courses, are existing ones that have been renamed, or slightly
modified. The air force has been deeply involved with electronic warfare for
over sixty years, and Internet based operations for over a decade. The new training
courses will take from six to 15 months, and it will take over seven years to
get the full complement of people trained, and experienced enough, to do what
needs to be done.
All these new people will staff the 8th Air Force,
also known as the Air Force Cyberspace Command (AFCYBER). The newly established
Internet operations organizations will be combined with some of the older
electronic warfare ones, which will get the new operation up to speed more
quickly.
The air force already has several Internet
monitoring and Cyber War operations, which contain a lot of high priced
civilian contractors (many of them former air force personnel who went looking
for more money and opportunities in the civilian world.) The air force found
that the rapidly expanding adoption of the Internet not only caused a lot of
their Internet specialists to go over to the commercial side, but forced the
air force to pay much more money to get some of these hot shots back.
Thousands of existing air force electronic warfare
specialists will be assigned, or offered, jobs in AFCYBER. This will include
units operating U2 strategic reconnaissance aircraft, EC-135
electronic-eavesdropping aircraft, EC-130E Commando Solo radio/TV broadcasting
aircraft, and the EC-130H Compass Call radio-jamming aircraft. AFCYBER will
have over 20,000 personnel, and the air force is recruiting officers and airmen
from all over the air force for careers in Cyber War jobs. Not all of the
people trained as Cyber Warriors will be in the 8th Air Force. Many will be
assigned throughout the air force, to take care of Cyber War needs of their
units.
