The Air Force’s new family of career specialty codes for cyberspace support (3DXXX) that took effect Nov. 1 supplants the three former career fields of communications-electronics (2EXXX), knowledge operations management (3AXXX), and communications-computer systems (3CXXX). About 43,000 active duty, Air National Guard, and Air Force Reserve personnel from former communications career fields now fall under the 11 new cyberspace support specialty codes as do more than 8.800 civilian-equivalent positions. This conversion process had been underway for more than a year and a half as part of USAF’s drive to bolster its cyberforce. Airmen in this field will receive a new occupational badge that will become mandatory wear by next June. (SAF/PA report, including full list of cyber support specialty codes)
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…