The U.S. Air Force plans to anoint its new Cyber Command the 24th Air Force and attach to it four wings, including new ones for electronic warfare and cyberspace.
The service on March 14 announced it will create the 450th Electronic Warfare at Lackland Air Force Base, Texas, and Scott Air Force Base, Ill., the latest developments in the Air Force's plan to create a new command focused on expanding its activities in the cyber and electronic spectrums.
The 450th will handle "various electronic attack and protection units," while also supporting EC-130J and EA-6B aircraft missions, according to a March 14 service statement. The EC-130J flies above-ground units and gives them an electronic shield that prohibits enemy forces from using EW tools.
The 689th will be composed mostly of communications and information functions, as well as "deployable communications capabilities," according to the service.
Both homes for those new wings are interim ones, with the service continuing efforts to meet the Air Force Cyber Command's initial operational milestone by Oct. 1.
"We are aggressively moving forward with plans for having initial operating capability by the Oct. 1 deadline mandated for us by the Secretary of the Air Force," Maj. Gen. William Lord, the provisional commander of the 24th Air Force, said in the statement. "That means we will have a portion of the staffing we need and the organizational structure in place to continue to build the command until we reach full operational status."
The service has established a list of criteria the 24th must meet before initial operating capability will be declared, including "establishing a budget, articulating details of organizational realignments, developing and assigning manpower requirements, and establishing policies and procedures for daily operations," the statement said.
Along with the two new wings, the 24th will feature the Air Force Information Operations Center at Lackland, which will be renamed the 688th Information Operations Wing, and the Lackland-based 67th Network Warfare Wing.
While Air Force Secretary Michael Wynne has directed the command's headquarters be established at Barksdale Air Force Base, La., the service is planning a "distributed headquarters." That means because many of the functions and jobs the headquarters staff will carry out are spread across the nation, its 541 employees will be scattered at bases across the U.S.
"We've asked [the command] to become virtual. In other words, we've said, we don't want you to be a standard … command as you might see from the Napoleonic era," Wynne said. "We asked them to look [into commercial] companies [to] see how they operate and minimize the headquarters. [Many of our units are] already located in the various states around the country, so our first inclination is to leave those in place."
E-mail: jbennett@defensenews.com.
The Army's Future Combat Systems (FCS) program is ready to test a few components that soldiers may have in their hands by 2010.
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