Security

Ousted Air Force Secretary Looks Back in Cyber

MARLBOROUGH, MASS. — Air Force Secretary Michael Wynne spent the early days of his military career here, as a young Second Lieutenant at Hanscom Air Force Base. Today, as his Pentagon tenure winds to a close, Wynne returned — to look back on some of his achievements, and to settle some scores. Weeks after being […]

Wynne_handsMARLBOROUGH, MASS. -- Air Force Secretary Michael Wynne spent the early days of his military career here, as a young Second Lieutenant at Hanscom Air Force Base. Today, as his Pentagon tenure winds to a close, Wynne returned -- to look back on some of his achievements, and to settle some scores.

Weeks after being forced to resign by Defense Secretary Robert Gates, Wynne was greeted by a standing ovation at the Air Force's second Cyber Symposium. Lt. Gen. Ted Bowlds hailed him as the man "who made sure we still have an Air Force," for Wynne's fights within the military to build more stealth fighter jets. In those battles, Wynne's boss, Defense Secretary Gates, was often on the opposite side.

Wynne described himself by historical analogy. "As the hugely successful Ottoman empire slowly slipped away during the 19th century, Turkish military potentates pushed away innovators who attempted to modernize their forces," he told a crowd of 1400 airmen and defense contractors. "Sometimes, I can sincerely empathize with those 19th Century Ottoman military technologists, who [were] beating on a door of a military establishment, trying to convince them that the old, low-tech way of war had come to an end."

And he looked at more recent history -- the mid-years of the Iraq war, to be exact. He began by praising General David Petraeus as "probably one of the most innovative commanders of his generation." Then Wynne took a swipe at the counterinsurgency manual which Petraeus oversaw, calling it "a doctrine who's main piece of advice on air power was not to use it."

"When he got to Iraq, however, changes in technology" -- especially the ability for traditional pilots, drone operators, and troops on the ground to swap battlefield views and targeting data -- "quickly rendered his theory as obsolete," Wynne continued. "While he wound up increasing ground troops by about 20 percent, he increased air strikes by 400 percent. And the weight of ordnance that was used in those attacks went up by 1000 percent. Let me say again that this was kind of in direct contravention to the new doctrine... How could the experts in counterinsurgency have gotten it so wrong? Well, the answer, truly, is cyber -- our ability to communicate."

Wynne has pushed the importance of information networks since he took office. One of Wynne's first acts as Air Force Secretary was to change the service's mission statement. No longer would the Air Force confine itself to planes and missiles and satellites. "As Airmen, it is our calling to dominate Air, Space, and Cyberspace," it read.

Now, the Air Force has an entire, 8,000-man Cyber Command that's due to become operational in about three months. By then, Wynne will be gone.

[Photo: Me. And full disclosure: I'm a speaker at the Symposium.]

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