LOS ANGELES — The newly-created 24th U.S. Air Force, the service’s latest numbered force, aims to establish the first elements of a cyberspace command operations center in San Antonio by the end of December.

The 24th was stood up in August to conduct cyberspace operations and defend Air Force and other U.S. assets from cyber attack. However, the force does not intend to announce its initial operational capability target until early next year when it clearly understands the task at hand. “Job No. 1 is to create an awareness of the battlespace,” says 24th Air Force commander Maj. Gen. Richard Webber.

Near-term goals include the development of basic defense tactics. “We need to know how to set up and defend the enterprise. It’s going to be a crawl/walk/run process,” Webber says. But there is an underlying urgency to the ramp up. “We’re under attack literally every day,” he adds.

Webber, speaking at the Air Force Association’s Global Warfare symposium in Los Angeles Nov. 19, said near-term priorities include normalizing “Net ops” and standing up command-and-control functions while moving into the new operations center. Occupying more than 50,000 square feet, the custom-built facility is being constructed at the former Kelly Air Force Base site across the runway from Lackland AFB, Texas. “We have limited ability to monitor various ‘pipes’ and we have the ability to push ‘patches,’ but it is not a warfighting organization,” Webber says, adding this will change when the new operations center is up and running. The facility is due to be fully completed by the end of 2010.

Speaking at the same event, the head of U.S. Strategic Command, USAF Gen. Kevin Chilton, says the real catalyst for the birth of the 24th was a massive cyber attack in late 2008. “One year ago this month we had a wake-up call in cyberspace. We had a severe intrusion into the Defense Dept. networks. It’s why I didn’t come to this conference a year ago. It changed the way people are thinking about cyberspace. This time it’s everybody’s problem — every soldier, sailor, airman and Marine. Every one of us is on the Net, and depending on it to conduct operations. It’s the commander’s business to make sure the network is supported to help the warfighter’s needs. That’s the biggest change in the mind-set — to make it the commander’s business.”

As part of this mind-set adjustment, Webber says cyberspace “is a place, not a mission. It’s about where operations are conducted, like the land, air, sea and space. Our job is to integrate the mission, not the domain. It’s about assuring the mission, not the network.” Remarking on a recent cyber attack on Peterson AFB, Colo., Webber says, “What did we do? We disconnected. But we must learn to fight through an attack because we need mission assurance.”

To ensure this, Webber says change must occur. “Our defense has been very much like the Maginot Line. But building the wall higher and higher is not going to be effective. We need to defend in depth. So we will work with backbone providers and go to the medical- or personnel-information worlds and say, ‘What hardware is essential?’”

The process will be used to develop a list of protected targets and defended assets.

Photo: USAF