Transcript
A MARTÍNEZ, HOST:
A few years back, the Space Force became the nation's first new military branch in nearly 80 years. Now, Congress is already thinking about starting another one. Jay Price reports for the American Homefront Project, an NPR station partnership that covers U.S. military personnel and veterans.
JAY PRICE: Here's a hint...
(SOUNDBITE OF KEYS CLICKING)
PRICE: ...A keyboard. That's what a new cyberforce would sound like in battle in the digital world, where so much of life has shifted in recent decades. There's been talk of creating a cyberforce for years. The annual defense policy bills being considered by the Senate and House call for a study into the idea. All ready the existing service branches have thousands of cyber operators like the one at this keyboard.
ISAAC MARSHALL: This is the security tool that they'll actually be doing the training on.
PRICE: Specialist Isaac Marshall is a soldier and cyberanalyst with the North Carolina National Guard Cybersecurity Response Force. On a recent day, he was preparing a training event to help government IT workers learn to recognize and respond to attacks. The military's current structure for cyber is complicated. Each service branch has its own cyber units while the Pentagon's overarching U.S. cyber command relies on teams of troops on loan from the branches.
EMILY HARDING: Every other domain has a force tailored to its needs.
PRICE: Emily Harding is with the Center For Strategic and International Studies.
HARDING: There's an Air Force that really understands how to operate in the air and how to bring that to the table. There's now a Space Force that understands how space operates as a separate domain. There is no force directly directed at cyber.
PRICE: The military has struggled with recruiting in recent years, partly because many young Americans don't meet the physical requirements. Harding says a separate Cyber Force could set its own standards.
HARDING: The cadre of people you might want to hire for a cyber force might not necessarily need to meet the same physical specifications, and that can be physical fitness, but it can also be just appearance.
PRICE: Some, for example, may want to sport a wild hairstyle or not shave or put on a uniform every day.
HARDING: And that really should be OK. There's room for that in a cyber corps where there wouldn't be in, say, the Marine Corps.
PRICE: Harding says a Cyber Force also could address recruiting challenges by relying largely on part-time reserve troops, like some of the cyber operators inside this small room at the heavily secured North Carolina National Guard headquarters. Guardsmen and reservists can continue to work full-time private sector jobs in the high-paying tech industry while getting advanced training and government benefits through their military duties. Lt. Col. Seth Barun is chief of cyber operations for the North Carolina Guard.
SETH BARUN: There's a lot of people that want to do cyber. There's so many that I don't even have enough slots to put them all into. So far, knock on wood, retention has been pretty good.
PRICE: Other experts see risk in creating a new cyber service. Vanderbilt University Professor Charlie Moore is a retired Air Force lieutenant general and a former deputy commander of U.S. Cyber Command. He says it would be too disruptive to shift around the military cyber experts.
CHARLIE MOORE: Threats are too great right now, and the costs are too high for us to lose focus on what's going on inside the domain at the current moment. We're in a state of persistent engagement with our adversaries in cyberspace.
PRICE: Experts on both sides of the argument say, regardless of whether Congress eventually decides to create a cyber force, each of the existing services will still have specific needs they'll have to handle themselves. The cyber needs for a submarine, for example, are substantially different from those for a fighter jet or tank. So the branches would all need to retain at least some cyber specialists of their own.
For NPR News, I'm Jay Price in Raleigh, N.C. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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