Military Review English Edition July-August 2016 | Page 20

(Photo by Capt. Meredith Mathis, U.S. Army)

Spc. Casey Payne (left), 201st Expeditionary Military Intelligence Brigade, and Sgt. Andrew Lee, Company D, 14th Brigade Engineer Battalion, 2-2 ID (SBCT), pull security for a soldier from the 780th Military Intelligence Brigade as he sets up a patch panel antenna during a
cyber training exercise 20 October 2015 on Joint Base Lewis-McChord, Washington.

I never blame myself when I’m not hitting. I just blame the
bat, and if it keeps up, I change bats.1
—Yogi Berra

W

hen developing capabilities, the Army
could use a little of Yogi Berra’s paradoxical wisdom that quickly gets to the heart
of almost any matter. Like asking, “If Army tactical
commanders are utterly dependent on cyberspace, then
why do they have no way of seeing it?” All U.S. Army
cyber capabilities ride on some kind of network, yet
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there is almost no means to provide real-time situational understanding of the cyberspace domain for tactical
combat units.2 This leaves tactical commanders blind to
potential cyberspace threats and opportunities, lessens
their ability to defend their own networks, and places
traditional forms of combat power at risk.
The Army is keenly aware of this predicament
and considers cyberspace situational understanding
(cyber SU) a top priority, but a technological solution
to bring a cyber SU system to conventional combat units seems years away.3 At present, the Army
is simply struggling to define precisely what tactical
July-August 2016  MILITARY REVIEW