The US Air Force is laying both physical and virtual groundwork for its newest warfighting organization, the Air Force Cyberspace Command. This unique group will have a physical headquarters, but it will be virtual in nature, with most of its personnel distributed across several bases.

"What has driven this whole business is speed. We’ve gone from the pony express to train mail, to Federal Express to e-mail."

These rapid changes not only affect how the Air Force fights wars, but also how commands such as AFCYBER conduct their daily business. Because of the rapid nature of threats in cyberspace, the Air Force must respond to worms and other types of cyberattacks almost instantaneously. Gen. Lord notes that the Air Force cannot hope to respond by developing a software patch and distributing it across the entire organization in several days because an enemy can take control of an entire network within two or three minutes. “You need the ability to be very agile,” he emphasizes.

This agility will require establishing rules of engagement for defensive and for counter-cyber operations. "You’ll have to fight in the network while an adversary is potentially in it."