It's official: The administration is considering splitting up the NSA and CyberCom

At this point, I've already devoted two entries to the question of whether the NSA and Cyber Command should be split up once Gen. Keith Alexander retires next year (see my posts here and here). Now, however, it look as though the debate is heating up on the Hill:

"No formal decision has been made yet, but the Pentagon has already drawn up a list of possible civilian candidates for the next NSA director, the former official told The Hill. A separate military officer would head up Cyber Command, a team of military hackers that trains for offensive cyberattacks and protects U.S. computer systems.

The administration might also decide to have two military officers lead the two agencies. 

The fact that the administration is considering whether to split the commands isn’t a direct response to the revelations about the NSA’s surveillance operations, but it does reflect growing concern over the power of the NSA director and a shortage of oversight of the position."

I'm pretty skeptical about the last part: As I argued in my last post, it is preferable to allow Cyber Com to flourish without being tainted by the same controversy that surrounds the NSA and Gen. Alexander himself. But, one cannot expect the administration to admit that they share this perspective. And anyway, keeping Cyber Com free of controversy isn't the best (let alone the sole) argument for separating it from the NSA: I think Jason Healey has the right perspecitve:

"[Cyberspace] is too important to grant one person have a near-monopoly on threat intelligence while simultaneously conducting active espionage, directing military force, and advising on policy...Yes, General Alexander is a cyber expert and an intelligence hero whose work has saved hundreds of American lives. But this does not make him irreplaceable. The U.S. military has had generals in charge of combined offensive and defensive joint cyber commands since 1998; fifteen years should be enough time to develop a sufficient bench."

All things considered, there are still some larger issues at stake here, and the biggest is whether cyberspace is truly a military domain at all. Making it a separate combat command means that we are acknowledging that cyberspace is already a domain of warfare, and there are plenty of people prepared to argue against that assumption. Indeed, cyber espionage and IP theft are arguably the most exigent concern for policymakers right now, and those are not military concerns.