CACI’s Michael Basla: Air Force Should Train Cyber Airmen Across C2, ISR Mission Areas

Michael Basla, a senior vice president at CACI International, has said the U.S. Air Force should operationalize and train cyber airmen across five mission areas, Signal Magazine reported Tuesday.

Those missions include command and control; intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance; global strike; rapid global mobility; and air and space superiority.

“In order for our cyber airmen to be cyber warriors, they need to be fully integrated into all Air Force mission areas, right from the beginning,” Basla said Monday during a panel discussion at the MILCOM 2017 conference in Baltimore, Maryland.

“From the generation of requirements, to the development stage, to acquisition, to fielding, testing, and operation and maintenance, cyber has to be a part of it,” he added.

Basla, a retired Air Force lieutenant general, noted that cyber is integrated into each of those traditional missions and that airmen entering the service undergo aptitude tests.

Air personnel with a “cyber mindset” undergo training at Keesler Air Force Base in Mississippi and take courses through the U.S. Navy in Florida to secure certifications necessary for joint combat missions, the report added.