"The new arms race scrambles for bytes, not bombs. To take and hold the cyber high ground, the armed services (and just about everybody else) want more fingers on keyboards and eyes on screens," notes James Jay Carafano, The Heritage Foundation's vice president for national security and foreign policy studies, in an article "The US Army's Next Big Challenge: Training Civilians as Cyber Warriors" published by The National Interest.
"We need to give serious consideration to how the US Army could combine the technical expertise of the "Google" generation with its more traditional military skills," said Lt. Gen. Robert Brown, commander of the US Army Combined Arms Centre at Fort Leavenworth, as quoted by the Telegraph.
However, training of young computer geeks as US Army cyber warriors and turning them "into instant military assets" will not be an easy task, Mr. Carafano notes.
Addressing the future cyber regiments recruiters, the expert emphasizes that they should provide the talented youths with new and exciting opportunities, as well as get prepared for inevitable "frictions" and cultural "clashes" with the "Google" generation. The recruiters should choose the best and brightest among the candidates, since "the pain is only worth the gain for going after truly extraordinary talent," the expert stresses.
"Hopefully, when General Brown threw out his notion of tapping the Google generation, he had in mind something more thought out than just giving a few hackers helmets and the passwords to the NSA," the expert underscores.
