Are we still preparing for 20th Century Wars in the 21st Century?

Keeping the following to publicly disclosed information.

MAJ (Join to see), most of your comments above are seriously out of date. The Air Force is NOT DoD's main proponent of cyberspace, that role belongs to USCYBERCOM (the Air Force made a bid to be DoD's proponent, but that was officially nixed when USCYBERCOM was stood up). Each of the Services DO have cyber warfare within their mission and have been preparing for it for years (research various public release statements about DoD Cyber Mission Forces(CMF), National Mission Teams (NMT), Cyber Protection Teams (CPTs), and Cyber National Mission Forces (CNMF)). In this same vein, MAJ Ken Landgren, USCYBERCOM is the principle agency for organizing cyber warfare.

I chuckle every time I see an article in the press about "China is in our networks" or such. Really? This is news? DoD networks are under constant pressure/attempted intrusions/attacks. This has been going on for many, many years and will continue until we perfect brain to brain transfer over large distances (in which case, it will only move to that neural network).

In the late 80s/early 90s, the military had evolved to being a "net-centric" military. Many of the combat multipliers we had were due to the increase in combat power that information sharing brought to the table. We have continued to evolve and have become a "net-dependent" military in many cases. Our multipliers due to information sharing are so tied to integrated networks that if you deny the use of those networks then you have severely reduced (or even crippled) those capabilities. Frequently, those severe reductions in capability will actually take us to a point that we are less effective than a like unit of 20 years ago because along with increased combat multipliers from information, force reductions were implemented because "we can do more with less"

DoD is building many cyber capabilities for the force. Some are Service specific while other are focused at the national level. From an awareness point of view (maybe good, maybe bad), much of that information does not filter down to those outside the cyber community except at the higher levels (I guarantee you that your senior leadership is at least aware of the capabilities if they aren't very familiar with them).

Cyberspace operations are seen as a the great equalizer by those that have no hope of competing with us otherwise on the battlefield. Developing traditional combat power takes an exceedingly long time where only near-peers have a hope of matching our capabilities on the battlefield, and even then only with some other multiplier on their side (no, ISIS does not have the capability for armored warfare development. They can capture tanks on the battlefield and develop their own rudimentary tactics for their employment, but that's going to be the limit of their options).

One of the reasons the Germans were so successful in WWII was conducting a military and government wide AAR on WWI. What did they intend to do, what happened, and shrinking the delta of WWI. We are so stuck on the conventional approach that it makes us myopic.

The NSA is the principal agency for organizing cyber warfare. Snowden's revelations have given nations of threat our TTPs in that field.