https://warontherocks.com/2019/08/every-marine-a-blue-haired-quasi-rifleperson/
By Nina Kollars and Emma Moore
warontherocks.com
August 21, 2019
All the U.S. military services suffer a shortage of competent and
experienced cyber talent. But with a tiny pool of eligible candidates
willing to do work for the Department of Defense, hiring programs need to
rely on more than just patriotism to be successful. The most recent
attempt to shore up cyber capabilities comes from the Marine Corps’
announcement that it will create a Cyber Auxiliary. Here too, this program
runs aground by asking for too much and offering too little. The Cyber
Auxiliary seeks volunteers willing to provide the “training, education,
advising, and mentorship” needed within the Marine Corps, and to provide
hands-on instruction in simulated environments.
The Marine Corps is feeling the pressure for real-world skills and
training to defend its systems and to conduct offensive operations under
conditions of competition as well as combat — especially as it continues
to put flesh on its future warfare concepts, specifically its
expeditionary access basing operations concepts in the joint fight.
Whether those capabilities are provided by Cyber Command, or are organic
to the force itself, the capability to integrate with cyber warriors and
defend systems — particularly for expeditionary basing — matters. In
theory, this is what the Cyber Auxiliary will do: guide and train the
Marine Corps in supporting, conducting, and facilitating those operations.
The details, though, as with many things in cyber, are scant.
In an innovative move for the Marine Corps, Cyber Auxiliary participants
refreshingly need not meet the Marine Corps’ physical fitness requirements
or its grooming standards to join — hair color and pull-ups are no longer
limiting factors in an institution that places value on conformity,
personal bearing, and physical fitness. Insofar as this is the case, the
Corps appears to be trying to move beyond its self-imposed high-and-tight,
square-jawed image in order to increase the state of the Corps’ cyber
readiness.
Nevertheless, the authors remain doubtful of its success. The Cyber
Auxiliary as currently described attempts to entice a community it knows
nothing about. It is trying to do this as an institution with antithetical
values and a fundamentally different culture from the community it seeks
to entice. In short, the program is trying to gain talent without
accommodating it. While fitness and grooming standards are, perhaps,
limiting factors to entry for a broader set of occupational
specializations in the Marine Corps, there are bigger issues with
recruiting and integrating the current cyber workforce than a penchant for
mohawks, purple locks, and flowing beards. Cyber Auxiliary mistakes the
loosening of typical requirements for actual incentives to become part of
the Marine Corps.
[...]
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