I personally feel like the Marine Corps needs to leave the cyber warfare terrain to the US Navy when it comes to sea service participation, but since HQMC insists on setting up the unit I have a modest proposal. Recruit the best possible candidates by treating cyber like we treat the band. Check this out from Wikipedia...
The Marine Band recruits experienced musicians; members are selected through a rigorous audition procedure and must satisfy additional security and physical requirements to be eligible. Selected band members serve under a four-year contract as active dutyenlisted Marines and are subject to the Uniform Code of Military Justice and physical standards. They are the only members of theUnited States Armed Forces not required to undergo recruit training and do not perform combat missions. Also, they are not assigned to any unit other than the Marine Band.What would we get? We'd get computer geeks that have no interest in fighting but still want to be Marines and serve their country.
The band members start at the rank of Staff Sergeant, and wear rank insignia with a lyre replacing the normal crossed rifles. Commissioned officers are drawn from the band, although drum majors are career Marines and are selected from Fleet Marine Force bands, as they are responsible for the military development of the band's members.
We would have to develop some type of assessment to see if they're good enough at their skill to warrant the privilege of wearing the uniform but if they have the skill then we can get them up to standards physically.
We could replace the crossed rifles with a computer keyboard or whatever you want to represent cyberwarfare and suddenly we have patriotic hackers in Marine uniform.
Admittedly this is a rough sketch but it works. Now get it done and toss out the battlefield role for the units. They can do it long distance like we do UAVs and have all these critters stationed at Quantico so we can have them in one place to keep an eye on them.
i think this is also where alot of people with disabilities can serve thier country even if they cant physically do the PT. now given the physical requirements it might not be possible to be true uniform but why not let people with disabilities who are qualified do jobs on bases like tech, some logistical work, etc?
ReplyDeletei wouldnt want DOD to get mired in being an affirmative action or having people use it jsut to get healthcare or having to spend alot of money on changes. i believe in universal design but national security should come first but i do believe if people with disabilities like others want equality we have to be prepared to defend it as well, and this is a good way.
sorry Sol, got my soap box
I can teach a lot of good level one, level two support to a Marine riflemen. Big picture computer architecture is going to be done by contractors / senior GS level anyway.
ReplyDeleteI wouldn't want cyber tech for the Marines dependent on contractors. Remember Snowden? We definitely want them under the UCMJ.
ReplyDeleteunfortunately J4 there are many on the right who believe everything should be privatized (i.e. Halliburton, a lot of others including security companies who are in combat zones as soldiers), while they have some uses contractors in the military and in government are getting out of control because it loses accountability in many ways. while I understand government can be less efficient there are some things government needs to do.
ReplyDeleteI like where you are going with this idea Sol, it makes a lot of sense.
ReplyDelete'The Marines recruit experienced musicians'. You get experience by being a professional, not a bar band weekends and roadtrips part timer.
ReplyDeletePeople the Marines would hire from the civilian cyber security market would all be pro-trained from cleared providers.
i.e. Contractors.
The big deal here is that there are not a lot of jobs for even large city municipal orchestras anymore. It's a dying art. So you could theoretically get some real talent into the Corps Band just for want of economic desperation.
Can you do that in cyber? Not without a LOT of money.
Cyber is crazy hot as a job skill and there are no 'careeerists' because you either stay ontop of the game or you're no longer capable of providing the service at the levels the DOD will need.
That means Yupsters in the 35 and under cagetory, straight out of Stanford, MIT or one of the other big tech colleges which means... Asians. And not U.S. citizens. We graduate less than 13% of our yearly college population as STEM majors. The people who excel at that kind of math/spatial/crypto thing, thanks to Greenspan's treachery, are all from out of town.
About 6,000 miles West worth.
Snowden is nothing compared to the threat of stupid Americans unable to hack the kinds of tech jobs we need them to do..
your assuming all people who graduate from those top colleges and not Caucasian would not be completely loyal marines and thats a very big stretch. the marines are not going to hire international students but there are many STEM majors graduating that could fill those jobs. one problem is military must be able to compete with civilian salaries.
ReplyDeleteJoe,
DeleteIt may not be a matter of choice.
The Chinese know what national loyalty is. There is never any question that they are Asians in a Laowai culture and so any Chinese who provides technical skills to the U.S. is doing so purely as 'contract personnel' with all base loyalties still to the country that sent them.
The professor who handed over small-nuke focused detonation processes, the guy who turned over B-2 flight control laws. These were all men (and an increasing number of women) who were given highly sensitive positions despite all contrary natsec indicators because they had skillsets which we simply don't teach to our own anymore because nobody has the brains or the commitment.
They all want to be 'community organizers'.
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Students from China, India and South Korea now make up 49 percent of the total number of international students in the United States.
Much of the increase in international students stems from China. The number of Chinese students enrolled in U.S. colleges and universities increased by 21 percent in total to almost 235,000 students, according to the report. That number jumped to 26 percent at the undergraduate level.
Yige Li, a 19-year-old freshman at Missouri's Westminster College, is one of the thousands of Chinese students who came to the U.S. to study. Her home city of Beijing has a variety of high-quality schools, she says. But she craved an environment that would allow her to explore her interests in English, political science and other disciplines within the humanities.
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http://www.usnews.com/education/best-colleges/articles/2013/11/11/us-sees-record-number-of-international-college-students
Read _Wired For War_. China has an active eugenics program, breeding smart college grads to partners they have known since elementary school as a condition of giving (their women) a free apartment and 'city voucher' guarantee of youth education in the best schools for simply doing what nature commands. They have FOUR THOUSAND gene sequencer hoods, split 50:50 between an 'international' (all your research is ours) facility in Hong Kong and a secret equivalent deep in-country. They graduate 50% of their college population as STEM majors. And they have 1.5 Billion people with which to generate the typical genius personality on a skew that centers at 105-106, already 3-4 points higher than American whites.
The U.S. is basically screwed in the intermediate/long term (20-30) when it comes to technical innovation. We will be lucky to maintain dominance in 2-3 top fields.
i am not as pessimistic as you are, yes we have a large number of international students but when they are here doing research the research from these institutions is benefiting the US and comes from those institutions. also the chinese economic model does not allow for innovation like ours does, it stifles it, hence the challenges its having getting its military industrial complex off the ground. also you talk about us whites but other races here are getting into degree programs and doing well, we are still leading in technological innovation, those that are close behind are our allies. we spend alot more money on R&D than other nations do, so while we do need to increase STEM careers of our own citizens (and just not whites), i dont believe the objective of china sending their people here is completely nefarious.
DeletePerhaps we should perform a digital spectrum warfare corps attached to the army or airforce with a relationship similar to that shared by the navy and marine corps. All things internet, computer, communications. If it receives or transmits it is their primary mission.
ReplyDeleteEveryone in the world is so reliant now on commo, GPS, radar, and remotely piloted platforms that I feel the need to ask; Can we effectively deny our enemies the use of these nifty tools, and simultaneously maintain the use of our own nifty devices? Blue on Blue jamming is not effective electronic warfare.
Whatever brings in more talent and destructive/disruptive creativitiy to this force multiplier. This force multiplier will soon become a force exponential virus because the number of people and functions using computer chips in their daily lives. Every soldier from every major country expecting to see combat has or will have in the next 10 years an internet enabled "smart phone". That should give you the level of importance of spreading your reach to every processor chip out there.
ReplyDeleteBefore China gets the dual advantage of processor chips....."made in china" as well as "hacked by China", we all have to get a move on.
To be clear, I think that it is only The President's Own that are hired as professional, experienced musicians. Other bands in the USMC, including all unit field music, are composed of regular Marines who have the 55xx MOS.
ReplyDeleteSol, please correct me if I am wrong.
@Paul.
Deleteto be honest i really don't know. if you want i can dig into it but my bigger point was that we should make some type of quasi Marine that will get us the patriotic hackers that might not want to go through what it takes to be a full fledged rifle touting Marine.