Rep. Paul Gosar ripped for tweeting ‘Russia is not our enemy’

Maj Kevin "Mac" McLaughlin - I spent a lot of time with the teams that were oriented against "the big four" when I was at the CNMF.

We would often relate that the Russians were like the criminals that would steal by doing "smash and grabs" ... very loud and didn't care. Get in, grab what they can, get out. If you leave 'prints' behind, who cares.

The Chinese were more like the con artists. Going for the long game - be sophisticated in your approach, keep below the notice of people, and try not to leave a trace.

Former CNMF Operator here from 2016-2019 with the AF's National CPT-62. Much has changed since I left, I hear... ;-)

You must have arrived just after I left - I was RADM White's J5/J7 overseeing the training and certification of the teams. I departed in late 2016, so you'll likely be more up-to-date on what changed.

Perhaps... I was there in Oct 16 through Oct 19 after getting promoted out of the COCOM CPT (834th COS). There was still a lot of "how are we going to use the N-CPTs" at the time. It was a little frustrating for me as I was a career Cyber Warfare Officer (retired). I think I could have made a more significant impact had I moved to CNMF vs staying at the squadron level, but location had everything to do with it. San Antonio is much less expensive to live, and traffic is a whole lot better. I love the DC area, as I was born and sort of raised there (my home away from home living overseas), but cost of living was very important, and I already had good connections in San Antonio. Today I am happy I left as the leadership got toxic and I just couldn't deal with the 2-year cycle of good commanders followed by bad ones. When I left, the incoming commander seemed like he would be a very good one, so I was happy for the folks I left behind.

Anyway, last I heard, CNMF was moving to the hunt forward strategy for the N-CPTs, modeling off the great work our sister squadron accomplished in eastern Europe not too long after you left. I liked the hunt forward idea a lot, but they were slow moving in making it happen, and I decided not to wait anymore. That coupled with bad decisions made by our new team lead setting us back another 6 months, I knew unit level wasn't going to work for me. I had just arranged for some solid inter-agency relationships to assist with information sharing and he cut it all off. I also had some really cool arrangements made for some of our very smart team members to work with certain entities within NSA and learn more defensive strategies. Again, her turned that off and watched two of his best civilians quit and go private sector. I stuck around a few more months before deciding to move on to contract work.

I was making some great inroads with a LTC Anderson (USMC), our incoming task force lead, before our new team lead cut off almost all communication with CNMF for several months before realizing he actually works for them and not just the ADCON Commander. Very frustrating! LTC Anderson seemed like he was going to be a great person to work with.