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Schwartz says he will protect cyber mission

The Air Force’s top officer is all for attacking foreign-based computer systems if the strikes support the cyber mission but remains steadfast that securing the service’s own networks is still “Job 1.”

Chief of Staff Gen. Norton Schwartz took on offensive cyber operations in a speech Wednesday to the defense industry, a topic that many in the military, intelligence and law enforcement communities don’t want to talk about because of the questions it raises: What legal authority does the U.S. have to conduct offensive cyberwarfare? How should the government categorize a cyber attack? A military activity? An intelligence activity? What happens if an offensive unwittingly targets a private business or a citizen?

Schwartz made it clear from the outset of his remarks that the Air Force isn’t interested in conducting any offensive cyber attacks unless they’re related to work the Air Force already does, such as taking a surface-to-air missile battery offline.

“We do not have ambitions, however, to go beyond those tasks for which we are currently assigned,” Schwartz told the National Defense Industrial Association. “The bottom line is, we are focusing our admittedly limited resources in this area on those things that will magnify our cross-domain war-fighting capability.”

As an example, Schwartz pointed to an attack on an SA-20 air-defense missile system: The Air Force could attack it with a guided bomb or take it down “with electrons.”

“You might choose to be one or the other depending on the circumstances,” he said. “That’s, in my view, an appropriate application of cyber capability for an Air Force mission.”

During a question-and-answer session, Schwartz discussed the Air Force’s new long-range strike bomber, which Defense Secretary Robert Gates pledges to fund.

Plans for the plane, which will be optionally manned, must respond to today’s fiscal climate, Schwartz said.

“We’re not going to be as ambitious as we perhaps were at one time,” he said.

And for the industry officials in the audience, Schwartz had strong words: “Deliver what you promise. Period. Dot. Don’t blow smoke up my ass. There is no time for it. There is not money for it. There is no patience for it.”

Less ambitious performance targets, Schwartz said, will make it easier for the Air Force to manage the program and for industry to deliver an operational aircraft on time and on budget.

“And that kind of thing will make it easier for us to manage and less challenging for industry to keep their promises,” he said.

In these difficult budgetary times, Schwartz said, there is no leeway for “wishful thinking.”

One way the Air Force could keep costs under control is to build a bomber that could be upgraded with new features as technology advances and the threat evolves, said Paul Kaminski, chairman of the Defense Science Board.

Most importantly, Kaminski said, the Air Force must limit its ambitions for the first increment of the new bomber, yet still include the necessary hookups for upgrades because retrofitting such equipment would be difficult and expensive.

Retrofitting the aircraft with the needed electromagnetic hardening for the nuclear role needs to be planned in advance, he said. The new bomber should include the necessary space and wiring for a nuclear capability even if the plane will not receive that ability until later in its operational life, he said.