The Air Force Cyberspace Technical Center of Excellence at Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio, on Tuesday begins its first Cyber 200 and Cyber 300 professional development courses with about 100 students. These courses are designed for cyberspace professionals, including those airmen in USAF’s cyberspace warfare operator career field (17D), as they transition to intermediate and higher level responsibilities. Cyber 200 runs about three weeks, while Cyber 300 lasts about two. The courses are meant to provide an understanding of the design, development, and acquisition of cyberspace systems and explore cyber asset capabilities, limitations, vulnerabilities, and employment in joint military operations. Beta test classes were held in June and July with 39 students. (Wright-Patterson release) (See Air Force Institute of Technology’s Center for Cyberspace Research website for more details on courses.)
While U.S. defense officials have spent much of the past decade warning that China is the nation’s pacing threat and its People’s Liberation Army represents an urgent threat in the Indo-Pacific, several defense researchers are skeptical that the PLA has the human capital, the structural ability, or the political appetite…