I'll Never Catch Up

OK so I felt like I needed to write something down, and I wrote that down at USNI. Think about it before replying quickly, because it is a more complicated issue than we want it to be.

Then I was about to write more stuff down when I realized I still have hundreds of email to read.

Then somehow I got distracted by this article that is full of win in the Feb 2011 issue of Proceedings, where I was half way through reading when my wife comes up behind me to remind me that Mark Montgomery is her favorite sailor - because while at the Current Strategy Forum a few years ago the then Captain Montgomery charmed the hell out of her over dinner and desert. The real story is actually much worse for me, as the sailors charmed her from another table and a "Moose" was involved...

Now I am looking out my window thinking the next few days will involve lots of quality time with my snow shovel...

So if you've emailed me and are waiting for something - give me a few days to catch up. Are there topics I need to discuss - you bet. Stuff is coming, but I'm moving real slow as I wish I was still in San Diego but instead find myself in the middle of a brutal upstate NY winter.

No really, check out this USNI post I wrote, these issues are important. Maybe if we keep talking about these issues someone from the Navy will be answer the question that no one in the Navy can give a good answer to yet:

What the hell does 10th fleet do?

What is funny about that question is that the best answers come from people who have no freakin clue whatsoever, but every sailor I've ever asked tells me how important 10th fleet is - because that is what their boss told them. My concern is how no one in the real fleet can actually answer the question, and 10th fleet is drawing money from those folks.

I'm still very skeptical that cyber is a major DoD function, because I'm thinking it needs to be a civilian function. I have not heard a good argument why offensive cyber in the DoD is a good idea when even a super targeted cyber attack like Stuxnet leaves collateral damage all across the Asian continent, including potentially a few satellites.

Under the very odd way the US government is treating threats in cyberspace so far to date, how do we square the circle of offensive cyber from the DoD that inadvertently or even intentionally strikes American computer systems?

Keep in mind that has already happened, and no one cared because the damage was very small. What happens when the damage isn't small?