OMAHA, Neb.—The Air Force plum that Offutt and other Air Force bases hoped to land is getting smaller, sliced into electronically linked parts in keeping with its cyber mission.
And how big a piece of the new U.S. Air Force Cyber Command—if any—might set down at the base south of Omaha likely won’t be known for several more months.
The Air Force had wanted to make its decision in February, then delayed that date to this month.
“We had hoped to know soon, but right now it’s just really hard to say,” said Pentagon spokesman Ed Gulick on Friday.
Offutt-area representatives have made presentations to Air Force brass, as have other bases and their community leaders across the country. Among those cities was Bossier, La., as the home of Barksdale Air Force Base, where the new unit’s provisional headquarters are being housed.
Other Air Force bases reported to be in the running include Keesler in Biloxi, Miss.; Langley in Hampton, Va.; and Peterson in Colorado Springs, Colo.
At stake were the 541 Air Force jobs authorized for the new unit’s headquarters and perhaps thousands more in the community, especially if military money flows off base to civilian contractors.
The Cyber Command military mission is to use military hardware and software to make sure the U.S. Air Force has access to its key computers and networks while trying to deny similar access to the nation’s adversaries.
But the Air Force secretary, Michael Wynne, has now decided that the new command should be spread across several bases.
“We’ve asked (the command) to become virtual,” Wynne said during congressional testimony last week. He said he’d asked the unit’s commanders to look at private companies to see how they operate and minimize their headquarters’ footprints.
Many of the units destined to be part of the Cyber Command “are already located in the various states around the country, so our first inclination is to leave those in place,” Wynne said.
Cyber Command’s provisional boss, Maj. Gen. William Lord, is moving ahead with plans for dividing his operational and headquarters forces geographically.
“We live in a time where technology makes operating ‘virtually’ possible … and practical,” Lord said in a news release sent by e-mail on Friday.
“But, let me be clear that we’re still exploring all our options, and even this option may change,” he said. “There are still many questions and details that need to be answered, but this what we’re working toward right now.”
How those 541 jobs will be divided has not been decided. A contingent of a 100 or more might still make a welcome addition to any community’s military payroll, but technology makes even that figure—less than a fifth of the total—uncertain.
Lord said he has to get the Cyber Command up and running by Oct. 1.
The Pentagon spokesman said Friday that it was unlikely the final basing decisions will be made by then.
“This is a new concept,” Gulick said.
Every major unit has subordinate units out of sight, out of state or even in another country, Gulick said, but the concept of having key headquarters personnel in different locations is new to the military.
“We’re operating like that right now in the provisional command” at Barksdale, Gulick said, “and I understand it’s working quite well.”
Forty of the provisional headquarters’ 160 members work with Lord at Barksdale. The rest are scattered at other bases, said Capt. Rob Goza at Barksdale.
In its news release, the Air Force identified some of the operational units for Cyber Command.
Among them are the Air Force Information Operations Center and the 67th Network Warfare Wing at Lackland Air Force Base in Texas.
Also, the Air Force Communications Agency at Scott Air Force Base in Illinois and the Global Cyberspace Innovation Center at Langley Air Force Base in Virginia will be deactivated when the new 689th Cyberspace Wing begins operations under the Cyber Command. The 689th’s provisional headquarters will be at Scott, the Air Force release said.
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