Air Force Will Guard Cyberspace?

The U.S. Air Force's goals now include "fighting" in cyberspace, according to a new mission statement released this past week...

"The mission of the United States Air Force is to deliver sovereign options for the defense of the United States of America and its global interests -- to fly and fight in Air, Space, and Cyberspace."

Not all that new for them, see this document from January 25, 2005...

The Air Force is pursuing technologies that it believes could engender new operational concepts, to dominate air, space, and cyberspace. These include high performance stealthy aircraft (the F/A-22 and Joint Strike Fighter (JSF)), unmanned combat aerial vehicles (UCAVs), directed energy weapons (such as the airborne laser), miniaturized munitions, and advanced command, control, communications, computers and intelligence (C4I). The Air Force’s space-related programs are in varying states of maturity, and include space-based radars, space-based lasers, micro satellites, “next generation” missile defense, and space operations vehicles. Air Force efforts in the area of cyberspace include computer network attack, computer network defense, and information assurance activities. Both space and cyberspace capabilities are expected to become increasingly important as the Air Force and the other services leverage U.S. information technology assets in numerous warfighting applications.