U.S. needs new cybersecurity leaders to protect nation

WASHINGTON, Feb. 19 (UPI) -- Efforts to safeguard the U.S. homeland tend to focus solely on the unrealistic task of protecting infrastructure. However, the politically charged "failure is not an option" approach to classify all infrastructure as "critical" is detrimental to prioritizing national security missions.

Instead, the United States needs leaders who understand the need for creating and implementing strategies of resiliency, or methods for ensuring that basic structures and systems of global, national and local economies remain strong even after a cyberattack, other malicious acts or acts of war, as James Jay Carafano pointed out in his paper "Resiliency and Public-Private Partnerships to Enhance Homeland Security," Heritage Foundation Backgrounder No. 2150, published June 24, 2008, at http://www.heritage.org/Research/HomelandDefense/bg2150.cfm.

A strategy of resiliency does not mean abandonment of preventive measures. At its core, resiliency is far more complex -- and effective -- than simply protecting critical infrastructure against natural and man-made threats. Protection alone cedes the initiative to the enemy.

The United States needs cyber-strategic leaders. Because of the vulnerability of cyberspace, one initiative that should be prominent in constructing a resiliency strategy for the 21st century is a cyber-strategic leadership program. Cyber-strategic leadership is not a specific technical skill or person, but a set of knowledge, skills and attributes essential to all leaders at all levels of government and in the private sector.

The recipe of education, assignment and accreditation that worked so successfully following the Goldwater-Nichols Act of 1986 can also be used to foster critical interagency skills among national security professionals. No institutions in Washington, academia or elsewhere in the United States are currently designed to carry out such a task. A national effort with national standards should be initiated, and a new government institution to help foster interagency learning should be built in Washington, D.C.

This professional development program could integrate a shared body of common knowledge, practices and experiences, as well as trust and confidence among practitioners. Among the skills and attributes this institution could provide would be an expertise in the cyber environment, risk management, best practices, effective interagency cooperation and public-private partnerships.

Just as senior leaders in government and the private sector are expected to have an understanding of accounting and information technology, a working knowledge of cybersecurity must also become commonplace.

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(Part 4: Creating the curriculum and training program to prepare the required new generation of cyber-strategic leaders in the United States)

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(James Jay Carafano, Ph.D., is assistant director of the Kathryn and Shelby Cullom Davis Institute for International Studies and senior research fellow for national security and homeland security in the Douglas and Sarah Allison Center for Foreign Policy Studies, a division of the Davis Institute, at The Heritage Foundation. Eric Sayers is a research assistant in the Allison Center for Foreign Policy Studies at the Heritage Foundation.)

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