Space, Cyberspace Viewed as Likely Battlegrounds for U.S. in 21st Century

Space News ^ | 1/29/2010 | Turner Brinton

[ErnstStavroBlofeld]

The United States faces an evolving list of potential adversaries in the 21st century that not only continue to seek weapons of mass destruction, but are honing the skills necessary to wage battle in cyberspace as well as outer space, a panel of national security experts said Jan. 20.

The nature of warfare has changed significantly since the end of the 20th century, with new technologies and threats emerging faster than ever, U.S. Air Force Gen. Robert Kehler, commander of Air Force Space Command, said during a panel discussion at the Conference on National Security Strategy and Policy here. The conference was sponsored by the Institute for Foreign Policy Analysis and Tufts University’s Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy.

“If you think about what has happened over the last century with air power changing our conception of time and distance, I believe that that advent of the military use of real-time space power has changed our views of time and distance again,” Kehler said. “And I think cyberspace will do that again.”

In addition to its responsibility to field and maintain space capabilities for the Air Force, Air Force Space Command recently took on the service’s responsibility for the cyber domain, while responsibility for the nation’s ICBM fleet was transferred to Air Force Global Strike Command. The 24th Air Force was established last year at Lackland Air Force Base, Texas, to handle the new cyber mission, and Kehler certified its initial operational capability on Jan. 22.

The notion of national and regional boundaries has changed in recent years with the use of cyber- and space-based technologies, Kehler said. Adversaries today intentionally use the U.S. military’s geographic partitions to their advantage, and the time may be right to think about organizing the military differently to address this.

[PIF]

We don’t have to worry about space battles - Hussein is making sure we will not be there. Russia and China will be battling the Indians, the Japanese, and maybe the Euros. The US will sit on the sidelines and take what ever falls out of the sky in stride... We’ve got the wise men of the left and kumbahya for the comon folk.

Names will never hurt us, for nuclear sticks and rocky stones falling out of the sky are just transitory.

RUN.....