Tying the Hands of the Cyber Command

The new established Cyber Command at Fort Meade is being asked to defend the nations computer networks with the equivalent of one hand tied behind its back. According to this story by Ellen Nakashima in The Washington Post “senior policymakers and administration lawyers want to limit the military's offensive computer operations to war zones such as Afghanistan, in part because the CIA argues that covert operations outside the battle zone are its responsibility and the State Department is concerned about diplomatic backlash.”

General Keith Alexander, the chief of the Cyber Command wants “maneuvering room” to protect the countries interests globally. In fact, the so called war zone countries are the least of our worries when it comes to cyber attacks. The greatest number of these attacks are currently coming from China and Russia.

According to this artcle by Jay Bavisi and Joseph M. Grimm in The Federal Circle  “The greatest cyber advantage of Russia and China is its wealth of human capital. Both nations have a very high education rate that, when combined with the legacy of emphasizing math and science education, has created a large labor pool of well-educated technology specialists, capable of sophisticated cyber attacks.”

“…it is also important to note that Russia and China also consider us to be their primary cyber foe.”

It doesn't seem to make much sense to go through all the effort of creating a robust cyber command to defend the country and then holding it back from doing its job.