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Lord also referred to what he called "cross-domain synergies," or the ability to use both kinetic and non-kinetic weapons "in concert, more efficiently. The bottom line is about changing enemy behavior," which doesn't necessarily have to result in total destruction. "Now you can have a more gradual and perhaps different kind of warfare where both a potential belligerent and another nation are not killing and maiming people" to effect change, Lord said.

"[Cyber] can potentially be a weapon of mass disruption."

The new Cybercom will be a subunit of the U.S. Strategic Command and will be commanded by the director of the National Security Agency. It is expected to be headquartered with NSA at Fort Meade, Md., and to reach initial operating capacity in October, with full operating capacity coming in October 2010.

The order is recognition that cyberspace is a distinct military domain, along with land, sea and air, and the Defense Department must be prepared to defend and conduct offensive operations in it.

“Cyberspace and its associated technologies offer unprecedented opportunities to the United States and are vital to our nation’s security and, by extension, to all aspects of military operations,” Gates wrote in his order. “Yet our increasing dependency on cyberspace, alongside a growing array of cyber threats and vulnerabilities, adds a new element of risk to our national security. To address this risk effectively and to secure freedom of action in cyberspace, the Department of Defense requires a command that possesses the required technical capability and remains focused on the integration of cyberspace operations.”

The Pentagon plans to create a new military command for cyberspace, administration officials said Thursday, stepping up preparations by the armed forces to conduct both offensive and defensive computer warfare.

The military command would complement a civilian effort to be announced by President Obama on Friday that would overhaul the way the United States safeguards its computer networks.

Hernandez says the cyber command will be focused on defending the nation’s networks from threats, while the NSA facility will focus on launching attacks.

“We have the full package in San Antonio,” Hernandez says.

The 24th Air Force command is slated to have up to a $1 billion budget and create up to 400 military and civilian jobs. It will have an annual payroll of $40 million to $45 million.

Hernandez says the importance of cyber defense is growing as the country becomes increasingly dependent on technology.

“The United States is the most technologically advanced country in the world,” he says. “But we still have adversaries who try to break into our networks everyday.” Hernandez says there are an estimated 20,000 cyber attacks against government networks every week.

“We don’t have enough trained people to mitigate all of these attacks,” Hernandez says. “We need to keep moving forward and this is a step in the right direction.”

Last year the term cyberspace was officially defined (Defense Department adopts new definition of 'cyberspace', May 2008) and last fall elevated to a new domain:

cyberspace - A global domain within the information environment consisting of the interdependent network of information technology infrastructures, including the
Internet, telecommunications networks, computer systems, and embedded processors and controllers. (CJCS CM-0363-08)
REF: Department of Defense Dictionary of Military and Associated Terms (JP 1-02) (12 April 2001 - As Amended Through 17 October 2008)

To further the discussion, it is also necessary to present the definition of another domain medium from the same publication:

space - A medium like the land, sea, and air within which military activities shall be conducted to achieve US national security objectives. (JP 3-14)

With all of the redundancies across the various services, why not consolidate them into a new service?  Analogous to the National Security Act of 1947, which created the Air Force from the Army Air Force, a 21st century reorganization could create a CyberSpace Force. (The exact name is not significant, using CyberSpace Force as a generic moniker.) This new force, formed from components in all of the services, would concentrate the existing disparate and duplicative efforts into one organization.  No service would lose capabilities, because we fight as a Joint team now.  Personnel from the newly created force would join operations and command structures as dictated by mission requirements.

In the face of an increasingly dangerous collection of network-enabled terrorists, politically and economically motivated hackers, and potentially adversarial countries flexing their muscle in the cyber realm, the Defense Department is in the process of creating a doctrine for waging — and preventing — war in cyberspace.

That effort has included the creation of command structures to equip and train a new class of cyber operators. The most visible of those efforts was the Air Force’s provisional Cyber Command, now destined to be a numbered Air Force under the umbrella of the Air Force Space Command. The Army also has established a cyber warfare unit, the provisional Army Network Warfare Battalion at Fort Meade, Md., created in July 2008.