Conti and Easterly on Cyber Warriors
Thanks to Lieutenant Colonel Gregory Conti and Lieutenant Colonel Jen Easterly for pointing me to their article Recruiting, Development, and Retention of Cyber Warriors Despite an Inhospitable Culture. They are doing a real service by examining cultural issues challenging the success of a Cyber Command.I'd like to provide a few excerpts:
Until the end of the 20th Century combat arms expertise ruled the day, but in the 21st Century kinetic combat arms soldiers must learn to co-exist, cooperate, and coordinate with non-kinetic cyber warriors...
[E]xperience gained to date in building the Army Network Warfare Battalion (ANWB) overwhelmingly points to the critical need for a career path to effectively recruit, manage and retain cyber talent...
In the world of cyber warfare, experts such as Mr. Kaminksy are the “Chesty Pullers” of the 21st Century...
The problem often lies not in the talent or desire of these individuals, but in inflexible military human resource systems...
A big question is when to allow personnel to join a cyber warfare force. Should this occur immediately upon joining the service, or at a later point, after the individual has had operational, possibly even combat, experience. We believe the cyber force would be best enriched by allowing both options...
Regardless of entry point, though, care should be taken to select only those with a true passion and capacity for cyber warfare, not those with careerist or other ambitions. Under no circumstances should an individual be forced into a cyber warfare assignment. To fall into any of these traps will certainly create an unhealthy work environment that encourages talent to leave and undermines mission accomplishment...
Cyber Command must take advantage of the prior experience of incoming personnel, and link it closely with cyber-related career fields rather than the current haphazard approach that wastes years of academic preparation. In addition, we should identify talent as early as possible and track their careers, reaching out to them at an appropriate time...
We cannot build a professional cyber warfare force without viable cyber warfare career fields within each service. Recreating the current model that rotates personnel into and out of cyber assignments is insufficient. It drains training resources, induces skillset atrophy and encourages the departure of our best and brightest. For many specialists, an assignment away from their skill area is reason enough to leave the force...
We will know we have succeeded when we have General Officers, Sergeants Major, Senior Warrant Officers, Master Chiefs, and Chief Master Sergeants that are products of a pure cyber warfare career.
All of the above speaks to my experience, directly. What do you think?
Comments
I also like the bit from their Slashdot question. (reminds me how much I hate the fact that the guy handing out towels get the same pay as me).
A lot of the talk amongst senior folks I've seen has centered around policy, which is great and also important, but then I ask where they're going to get the people and they look at me like I've got three heads. Or they simply want to go out and buy a solution.
There is still little to no appreciation that operating in this domain is not as simple as handing Cpl Bloggins his 'cyber weapon' (computer workstation?) and telling him to aim over there.
Traditional kinetic weapons soldiers such as infantry have a very limited lifetime due to the natural ageing process and are in many cases getting close to past it in their thirties.
This is not true of "grey matter" warriors with specialist skills, they are hardly getting started at thirty and can still be pulling very significant punches well beyond normal civilian retirment age.
To offer a real career path the armed forces will have to realise that kicking "grey matter" warriors out simply because they have reached the age limit for "kinetic soldiers" is a waste of very valuble very hard won resources.
Also the forces need to realise that a career path for a specialist does not have to include the normal "rank" promotion, in fact this can have a detrimental effect (Majors and above are often just managers not specialist practitioners).
Secondly the armed forces need to consider what a "grey matter" warrior is worth, pay can be low for "kinetic soldiers" as there is little in the way of non forces work to draw them out, not so for "grey matter" warriors with specialist skills that have a high premium in the civilian world.
Again pay should not be linked to "rank" for specialists.
Essentially the forces need a third structure away from the "Officers and Other Ratings" to allow specialists to develop.
This is esspecially true as less and less "contact with the enemy" happens these days as more and more kinetic weapons become both "smart" and "stand off". Even traditional picket deployment for defence is so agumented by technology that the "knuckle dragging" "Ground Reconacance Unit Nearly Tactical (GRUNT) is in danger of extinction.
We have seen this happen indirectly as some specialists come in as "consultants" or as "part time soldiers" this realy only works in peace time not in actual conflict for a number of reasons (which I don't intend listing for obvious reasons).
Unless the armed forces get a grip and address these issues all other incentives etc will be for nothing because the civilian world has moved on atleast a century beyond their current structure.
As an aside, one of my last tours was in a cyber warfare shop. I vehemently state, with a loud and booming voice, "Nothing can be worse than an umotivated troop who neither understands, desires or cares to be part of the Cyber Warfare mission".