We need a cyber corps as a 5th service

[Commentary] At US Cyber Command at Fort Meade (MD), newly appointed Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter said that a new, independent branch is “one of the futures cyber might have.” He is right. We need a new branch of military service. We need a US Cyber Corps.

In today’s increasingly connected world, critical infrastructure such as energy and communications utilities, as well as key corporations and the financial markets, are increasingly vulnerable to cyber-attack. In 2010, a targeted computer worm named Stuxnet destroyed at least one fifth of Iranian nuclear centrifuges, setting back Iran’s project to develop nuclear weapons significantly. In 2012, an Iranian cyber-attack struck Saudi Arabia’s national oil company, Aramco, destroying more than 30,000 computers and significantly impacting the oil production which forms the basis of Saudi Arabia’s economic strength.

In 2012, then Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta warned that the United States faced the possibility of a “cyber-Pearl Harbor”. In the wake of the recent high-profile cyber-attack against Sony by North Korea, few would contest that the United States must take cyber-attacks seriously and move to shore up our defenses against this emerging threat. Yet despite the damage inflicted through cyber-attacks in the past, only a fraction of this technology’s destructive potential has ever been unleashed. It is time to actively foster our evolution to the battlefield of the future, and ensure that the United States retains its military advantage as the world’s strongest superpower.

[Alexander McCoy served in the United States Marine Corps for six years]