Air Force to explore cyberspace mission

MAXWELL AIR FORCE BASE, Ala. – Military and civilian defense personnel, industry and business leaders, academics and others interested in the Air Force’s cyberspace mission are invited to attend Air Force Symposium 2008–Cyberspace, which will be held July 15-17 at Maxwell AFB in Montgomery, Ala.

To be co-hosted by Air University’s Air War College Cyberspace Information and Operations Study Center at Maxwell; Eighth Air Force and Headquarters Air Force Cyber Command (provisional), Barksdale AFB, La.; and U.S. Strategic Command, Offutt AFB, Neb., the symposium is expected to engage military, industry and academic participants with a desire to discuss a broad spectrum of topics affecting the cyberspace mission.
“Our goal is to bring together a diverse group of participants interested in the Air Force’s role in an expanding cyberspace mission,” said Lt. Gen. Stephen Lorenz, Air University commander. “This is an event that will address a topic that is of vital significance to the Air Force of today and the future.”
The symposium will offer active, seminar-style workshop sessions for attendees to analyze and discuss the Air Force’s role in cyberspace. It will feature three general topic tracks: doctrine and concepts of operations, policy and law, and cyber capabilities supporting national security.

Sessions will address, among other things, defining cyberspace and working toward establishing the domain, control and use of cyberspace. Participants will also participate in discussions of international and domestic law related to cyberspace and analyze national security and other issues from both military and civilian perspectives.

Lt. Gen. Robert J. Elder Jr., Eighth Air Force commander and leading Air Force authority on cyberspace, will serve as a keynote speaker at the symposium. He said the symposium will welcome experts from the Department of Defense and commercial industry to join Air Force members and academia to share information and advance knowledge of cyberspace.

"Over 70 years ago our predecessors gathered at the Air Corps Tactical School to develop the doctrine and concepts that were employed with great success in World War II,” General Elder said. “The Cyber Symposium is a similar gathering of people from the Air Force, academia and industry to think through how to best employ cyberspace operations in defense of the nation.”

General Elder added that while there are many complicated cyberspace issues to resolve, there is “no better place to do it than at the intellectual center of the Air Force—Air University.” He predicts that in the future “historians will look back on this conference as a defining event in the development of integrated air, space and cyber power.”
Also scheduled to speak at the symposium are Gen. Kevin P. Chilton, commander, U.S. Strategic Command, Offutt AFB, Neb.; Maj. Gen. Charlie Dunlap, Air Force deputy judge advocate general; Maj. Gen. William T. Lord, commander, Air Force Cyberspace Command (provisional), Barksdale AFB, La.; and Dr. Rebecca Grant, president, IRIS Independent Research.

For more information about the symposium and to register online, go to http://www.maxwell.af.mil/au/awc/cyberspace/.