September 14, 2011
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INDUSTRY NEWS: NSA, CYBERCOM Leadership Should Be Split, Hayden Says
Published: September 07, 2011 Washington: Gen. Keith Alexander should give up his role as head of the National Security Agency to focus more on his job as chief of Cyber Command, former CIA director Mike Hayden said today. Alexander was already the top military officer at NSA when he was nominated to receive his fourth star and head up Cyber Command last year. Despite the fact that the NSA chief has always been a three-star general, DoD and the White House opted to give Alexander both jobs. Alexander's nomination was confirmed by the Senate last May. In July, DoD released its long-awaited cyberwarfare strategy which provides the blueprint for how the Pentagon will defend against potential national security threats in cyberspace. But as the role of cyber in military and intelligence operations grows, the head of Cyber Command will likely have to give up the NSA job to focus on that mission, Hayden said during a intelligence and national security symposium sponsored by the Center For Strategic and International Studies today. Hayden, who held the top job at CIA from 2006 to 2009, added that splitting up command of both organizations would also ensure that NSA does not become too focused on cyber operations and lose sight of its main mission of signals and imagery analysis. Breaking up command of NSA and Cyber Command would also make both organizations more responsive, since each caters to different areas of the military and intelligence communities, Hayden added. NSA, according to Hayden, is primarily responsible for providing intelligence and analysis for DoD's combatant commands. It is, by and large, an intelligence "force provider" for the military, he said. On the other hand, Cyber Command will be the preeminent cyberwarfare arm for the entire Defense Department, similar to Special Operations Command. Putting such a wide range of responsibilities under one commander simply does not make sense and will likely not continue, Hayden argued. That said, the respective heads of both organizations must maintain close ties with each other, as well as with other agencies in the intelligence community and the office of the director for national intelligence, he added. |
 
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