Navy sets a three-prong plan for information dominance

The Navy has laid out its long-range plans for effective operations in cyberspace with three documents that address different areas of what the military calls information dominance, from treating information as a weapon to building a capable corps of cyber warriors.

The documents were signed by Vice Adm. Kendall Card, deputy chief of Naval Operations and director of Naval Intelligence, and Vice Adm. Michael Rogers, commander of the U.S. Fleet Cyber Command, a ceremony at the Pentagon this week.

Each document sets out a strategy for ensuring that the Navy can effectively use—and defend—cyberspace, its networks and the electromagnetic spectrum to optimize decision-making and warfighting mission. The strategies “set the course for the future for our Navy Information Dominance and cyber warriors," Card said during the ceremony, according to a Navy report.

Those strategies are:

The Navy Strategy for Achieving Information Dominance 2013-2017. Drawing the distinction that cyberspace constitutes the domain of warfare and the network and electromagnetic spectrum are the battlespace, this document sets broad goals in the three key areas of information dominance: assured command and control, battlespace awareness and integrated fires. “(A)lthough historically employed as an enabler of combat (information 'in' warfare), information is being deployed more and more as a weapon (information 'as' warfare)," the document states.

Navy Cyber Power 2020. Acknowledging that cyber capabilities are essential to any future naval operations, this strategy will focus on four principal areas: integrated operations; an optimized cyber workforce; technology innovation; and reforming development and execution of requirements, acquisition and budgeting. It goal is to ensure access to the3 cyber realm, deter attacks and cyber surprises and maintain the ability to carry out cyber operations.

The strategy "captures our efforts to seamlessly integrate cyberspace operations into our traditional maritime operations," Rogers said. "It maps out the way ahead as we continue to employ Navy and joint cyberspace forces with an effectively recruited, trained, and positioned workforce of warriors who have the finest technology available and an acquisition process that strengthens cyber capabilities and maximizes return on investment."

The Navy Information Dominance Corps Human Capital Strategy 2012-2017. An essential element of all cyber operations is developing and maintaining a skilled force of cyber warriors, something all of the military services are working on. This strategy calls for building an Information Dominance Corps through education, establishing a culture of information dominance in the Navy and making that culture a part of the “warrior ethos.”