Across the military, the services are moving electronic warfare and cyberspace operations ever closer together as the two disciplines become increasingly intertwined, dependent on each other and a source of growing pains. And while that integration is happening across the Defense Department, it’s the battlefield effects that should be the focus, according to a top Air Force official.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The push to combine EW and cyber is well established \u2013 at Fort Gordon, Georgia, the Army will co-locate its cyber and signals headquarters, and the service’s CIO\/G-6 office currently is assessing integration<\/a> of some cyber, signal and electronic warfare operations. But more than integration, it’s about synchronizing operations, effects and personnel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In cyberspace, “we provide pathways for information. We deny adversaries information. It’s the same mission\u2026that we do in different domains. And when you do it in different domains that means you have to have different operators that are trained and expert in those domains,” Gen John Hyten, commander of Air Force Space Command, said at the Association of Old Crows symposium in Washington Dec. 1. “We’re not trying to synchronize the mission of electronic warfare with the mission of cyberspace \u2013 cyberspace is not a mission. What we’re trying to do is synchronize electronic warfare with the domain of cyberspace and the other domains as well.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n