In what could mark a major improvement to the nation’s ability to defend itself against cyber threats, the Department of Homeland Security will announce Friday that the US Computer Emergency Readiness Team will merge with the National Coordinating Center for Telecommunications. The two groups — now separated by two floors — will now be co-located and will operate jointly.

In a rare public appearance, Gen. Xu Caihou, vice chairman of China’s Communist Party’s Central Military Commission, came to Washington and told an audience that his country remains a “developing country and would not, could not threaten developed countries.” In fact, the PRC seeks “accommodation, not confrontation.”

The long expected request for more troops from Afghan commander Gen. McChrystal is due within the next two days, his commander, Gen. Petraeus said. While he wouldn’t elaborate on the “pre-decisional” size of that request, Petraeus said both he and Joint Chiefs chair Adm. Mike Mullen endorsed McChrystal’s new strategy, leaked earlier this week. Petraeus highlighted a critical shortage of forward air controllers in Afghanistan.

It’s official. Jamie McIntyre, who used to cover the military for CNN, has joined the Military.com team with his own site, Line of Departure. I knew Jamie from my days covering NATO at Defense News and we shared a few flights with then-Defense Secretary William Cohen. He’s a rock solid reporter who will bring a deep source book and a unique perspective on how the military is faring and how relations between the media and the military shape both enterprises. Move out!

A new report by the U.S. Cyber Consequences Unit (USCCU) finds that citizens quickly became cyber warriors when the Russians started attacking Georgia. Our friends at AvWeek have a neat piece that includes an interview with one of the report’s authors who says that the attacks “were carried out by civilians with little or no direct involvement by the Russian government or military.”

The Obama administration’s guidance for the 2011 science budget makes clear that basic research spending will stay flat in most areas or decline, including at the Pentagon. Money will first go to research that can “drive economic recovery, job creation, and economic growth,” says the guidance issued in an Aug. 4 memo by White House Office of Management and Budget Director Peter Orszag.

Another senior cyber official has resigned and I hear few encouraging noises from the cyber warriors I speak with at the Pentagon in the wake of Defense Secretary Robert Gates’ decision to create a cyber command. They worry that fundamental policy issues have still not been addressed, leaving the military uncertain what actions it can reasonably expect to take in the event of conflict. Much of this worry derives from the fairly timid report issued by the administration about how it would handle offensive and defense cyber issues. Kevin Coleman has the rest of the story.

The US has long pondered how best to use its cyber capabilities to attack another country and has long shied away from using them, fearful that we might pull down the Internet curtain on ourselves if we tried to wipe out an enemy’s networks. The New York Times ran a piece this weekend about just how daunting is this balancing act. One of the reasons for that concern is that BotNets — networks of infected computers that can be controlled without the owner knowing it — have become what Kevin Coleman says is “a critical problem that must be addressed.” Wiping out one country’s cyber capabilities could easily affect its neighbors and also invite retaliation against the U.S.

Billions of new money to spend. Major new responsibilities at the senior-most reaches of the federal government. Sounds like a pretty good gig, doesn’t it? But as Kevin Coleman reports at Defense Tech, the job of cyber czar just can’t find a taker. One of the obvious problems with the job is that it comes with few operational power levers but is one of those coordinating jobs. Also, anyone who takes it will have to contend with the fact that the recently appointed head of Cyber Command will control most of the people and most of the tasks, along with the Department of Homeland Security.

South Korea and the US ignored advance warning that North Korea might mount cyber attacks should the US and allies punish the north for launching ballistic missiles. Kevin Coleman, a consultant on cyber war to Strategic Command, says we: knew the attacks were likely, couldn’t handle a relatively unsophisticated (though persistent) attack from one of the world’s less capable cyber forces and still can’t coordinate cyber issues between US government departments and agencies.

Now that cyber command has been approved and it’s grown increasingly clear that the US will deploy offensive capabilities, I thought it was time to revisit recent comments by Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Norton Schwartz who said the US can kill advanced surface to air missiles without F-22s, F-35s or any other kinetic capability. In fact, Schwartz may have let some of the cat out of the bag when he told a Brookings Institution audience that the US possesses “the nascent capability” of taking down surface to air missile sites using offensive cyber methods.

You are the commander of Strategic Command, charged with coming up with an implementation plan for the new cyber command within 60 days. But there’s going to be a new head of cyber command, a four-star just like you, and Lt. Gen. Keith Alexander has the Big Mo on his side. And Alexander is known as an almost crazily foxy guy who has rebuilt the NSA and will be largely dependent on folks from NSA for most of his capabilities. Air Force Gen. Kevin Chilton is known as one of the brainiest generals aroundHmmm. Who’s going to win this bureaucratic game will be great fun to watch.

Everyone knows the story by now about how the State Department asked Twitter to postpone an upgrade that would have taken the site down at a crucial moment during the Iranian election protests, surely the first time a 27-year-old at State could establish such an important policy precedent. Defense Tech’s Kevin Coleman (who also consults […]

Bot-nets, internet-zombies, industrial spies, and cyber-mercenaries attack U.S. networks every day in the ongoing 21st century cyber war, said Deputy Defense Secretary William Lynn. Defense networks are probed “thousands” of times a day and the frequency and sophistication of those attacks are increasing exponentially. Defeating cyber enemies will require developing an agile and nimble cyber “maneuver warfare” response, not a “digital version of the Maginot Line.”

Cyber security, as part of the so-called global commons, looms large in the analyses of Michele Flournoy, head of OSD policy and point person for the QDR, and many other senior OSD leaders. Kevin Coleman, a consultant for Strategic Command who writes for Defense Tech, looks at whether the European Union is doing its part to protect this global asset. This is one area where allied cooperation is absolutely crucial and the EU’s incredibly byzantine and creaky structures apparently are not making this any easier.

This week, Joint Forces Command is running high-level war games to test whether forces can operate when they lose radio communications and digital connectivity, said Rear Admiral Dan Davenport, concept director at JFCOM. In such environments, decentralized operations with small units may be the only way to remain effective.

The Department of Homeland Security will lose its role as the US goverment’s lead agency on cyber security and the current head of the National Security Agency is almost certain to win a fourth star and become the combatant commander responsible for cyber warfare. Also, a White House cyber czar will lead the nation’s efforts on this front, leaving the job in the hands of a policy person instead of in the hands of an operator. Those are among the preliminary results of the so-called 60-day study led by Melissa Hathaway, acting senior director for cyberspace for the National Security and Homeland Security councils.

The first defense budget of the Obama administration clearly demonstrates its shift in priorities from Iraq to Afghanistan and from conventional forces to irregular warfare. It also, in the words of the Defense Department’s comptroller, marks the start of the closing of the spigot of defense spending.

It sounds almost Chinese. The five threats. The five challenges. The six principles. That was how Michele Flournoy, undersecretary of defense for policy, outlined the Pentagon’s approach to the Quadrennial Defense Review. But the key to this QDR: balance. Balancing “current operational needs with an increasingly uncertain future” and balance between the current and future budgets.

Has the manic hornet’s nest that is North Korea been stirred so much by the UN’s reaction to its missile launch that the Dear Leader bunch might launch a cyber attack on the members of the Security Council? Kevin Coleman, who regularly writes on cyber war issues for DefenseTech, has a penetrating analysis of North Korea’s cyber capabilities and discusses the chances North Korea might launch a cyber attack. He notes that, while the North Koreans only spend an estimated $56 million annually on their cyber troops they are ranked eight in the world in terms of effectiveness.