by yoshi » Sat Oct 19, 2013 5:41 pm
I think having another designator at the very top of C10F might be ok. As long as the OPS has relevant cyber experience, thing should be ok. From what I can see, C10F focuses almost exclusively on cyber. And, given who holds, and will continue to hold, the authorities for those types of operations, C10F really is more of an operational element for NSA than for the Navy. I think an IP would be a good choice. They all have a network background are capable of letting the Navy (not just cryppies) know the relevance and effect of cyber operations to and from its own networks. I think their background (more integrated in the fleet than our IW officers, who for the most part are sequestered at the NIOCs or other less than typical Navy locales). While there is another side to cyber ops, that side is run and controlled by NSA, and logically less relevant to those service specific organizations charged with maintaining operations or operations support of that same service.
As IWs, we can tell the Navy what is going on in cyber, but we are not so good at articulating what it means to the war fighter and the war supporter (impact) as we should be. Do we know who lives on what networks in the Navy, which networks are connected to each other Afloat and ashore, what happens ashore when something like OHMS, or R Supply, or some Link flavor is affected? Don't get wrong, I think IWs involved in cyber are a great choice for the offensive side of things, but I think an IP at the Command level would more intuitively understand downstream impacts to the fleet (defensive perspective), as virtually all of their training and operations focus on cyber (networks). Cyber for IWs is a billet, maybe two over the course of 18-20 years. For the most part, almost every IP billet is focused on networks and an integral part of Navy operations (vice national side stuff).