Longstanding notions of sovereignty fall apart when it comes to cyber operations, Marine Corps Lt. Gen. Robert Schmidle, deputy commander of Cyber Command, said May 10.  

The effects of cyber operations could become worldwide in seconds, Schmidle noted while addressing the AFECA International's 2011 Joint Warfighting Conference in Virginia Beach, Va.

However, warfare itself is organized around the notion of sovereignty, as are Defense Department regional combatant commands.

"If you had an expectation that you could keep those effects in a particular geographic area, then that might sort of portend toward a more traditional command and control structure. But, if you're not sure that you could keep those effects in a particular geographic area, then you might want to be thinking about a different way to do this," Schmidle said.

Among the new possibilities under consideration are organization by type of effect--tactical or strategic--and by timing of effects.

Schmidle also said Cyber Command takes an active defense posture on the .mil domain.

"If you look at the history of warfare, it's just absolutely replete with failures of static defense...You can't have a static defense where you just have sensors out there and wait for things to dome into them," he said.

Cyber Command actively goes after malware before it "gets to the boundary," Schmidle added.

Cyber space differs from other military domains in that it changes according to how you operate in it, he said. "Every time you plug in another unit into that thing, you've changed the characteristics of the domain in which you operate," he said.

"That's a notion that I don't think we've completely gotten our head around," he added.

Related Articles:
DIB active defense cybersecurity pilot near start 
Gen. Alexander: CYBERCOM structure will ensure seamless response to cyber crisis 
White House unveils proposed cybersecurity legislation