Does the Pentagon need a cyberwarfare service?

The U.S. is far behind in combating the increasing role of cyberattacks, and it may be time to establish a new military service to deal with that growing threat, according to military officials.

Right now, the Army, Air Force and Navy all deal with cyberthreats separately, and there is no centralized way to handle this new kind of warfare, according to an article in the spring issue of IANewsletter, published by the Defense Information Assurance Technology Analysis Center. The article argues that cyberwarfare is waged differently than war on the ground, in the air or at sea.

"National boundaries in cyberspace are difficult, if not impossible, to define," it noted. "Asymmetries abound, and defenders must block all possible avenues of a cyberattack."

Alan Paller, director of research at the SANS Institute, a nonprofit cybersecurity research group in Bethesda, MD, said the Department of Defense is likely planning a Joint Cyber Command. But the question of the future of warfare and how to define it is long overdue, and it is an issue that the Pentagon will have to confront in addition to the hardware to fight war and the software that direct sit.

For more on the future of warfare:
- check out this nextgov.com article