A link to the DoD strategy document: http://cryptome.org/2015/04/dod-cyber-strategy-2015.pdf

Amid sequestration in discretionary defense spending, cyber capabilities have been spared the harsh bulk of cuts and the published strategy amounts to what looks very close to all-in by the USG.

The DoD has begun to build career paths for professional cyber soldiers, is extending and reinvesting in training programs, is and will invest further in internet and cyberwarfare simulation, will redouble efforts to acquire technical capabilities including offense from the private sector, have started partnering with Venture Capitalists in Silicon Valley to encourage startup with defensive and offensive technologies and to discourage startups with consumer encryption solutions, is creating collective cyber defense partnerships with allied nations, is expanding information sharing programs both overseas and with US corporations, and will be further refining the technological capabilities to respond to nations suspected of cyber attacks.

So many things to say about this. Here's two:

One. The US thought that Bush was a fool when he claimed that the US needed to prepare for cyberwarfare. Because people scoffed at cyberwarfare (it's not war, they said, making vague references to the absence of explosions) so the Bush Administration switched to trying to pry support from the public by waving around the goto boogieman - now it was cyberterrorists - Americans are afraid of terrorists right? This didn't pass muster either. The image of hacker at that time was still of neckbearded manchildren renting their parents basements and people didn't feel like computers could hurt them.

The Bush Administration pursued cyber capabilities anyway, now switching to the tactic of keeping the discussion out of the spotlight. This proved to be largely successful, as it tends to be. Without widespread coverage only a few fringe outlets and advocacy groups followed the legislation.

This, from my short time on Earth, describes my experience of US politics. The US is an international superpower and just as often as not its legislation is about what it needs to do internationally to remain top dog (case in point - TPP). But Americans, by part their own volition, part the determination of a Washington that thinks it knows better about this complicated subject (and may very well) and in part because of sheer magnitude and complexity; the public are not invited to vote on Foreign Policy except in the coarsest of ways. You want out of the Middle East? No president will do that unless the complicated set of international stategic circumstances happen to align with American ideals.

This brings me to the second point. That time is now. The US is trying to 'rebalance' away from the Middle East. Not for high minded reasons mind you - and it will invariably maintain a presence. But now is an era where the US is undergoing fundamental transformation. It is shifting from its peacekeeping role in Europe and as a garunteur of energy security by interventionism and neocolonialism in the Middle East. It is moving to invest in the Asia-Pacific and to contain China from becoming a hegemonic power there (this is US grand strategy, both two decades ago by the Wolfowitz Doctrine and this decade by its reassurtion in the Bush Doctrine). New challenges face her: space and hypersonic delivery vehicles for nuclear warheads, air denial around the world by the proliferation of anti-air capabilities (sold by Russia, China), very effective propaganda campaigns on US citizens by foreign states fake blogs and newspapers, decrepit alliances and infrastructure, and having the softest underbelly in new sophisticated levels of cyberwarfare.

America's cyberstrategy can only be understood in context of its broad strategy to both contain its competition beneath a level where physical warfare can break out and to prevent balances of powers and alliance systems that could similarly challenge her.

The problem for us is that an all-in in cyber is a canary. It means that diplomacy and other forms of coercion, influence and sabotage haven't been enough to address the issue - and it foretells of conflict, at least for the meantime in the information domain.