Turbulent Times for Technical Types in Tanks and Turrets

Why can't the military retain qualified information security professionals? This question might as well be rephrased as "Why can't the public sector retain qualified information security professionals?" Lieutenant Colonels Gregory Conti and Jen Easterly have a thesis. They share it in Small Wars Journal. (Hint: It has to do with centralization of authority.)

Conti and Easterly claim that while today’s military excels at recruiting, developing, and retaining kinetic warfighting expertise, it is ill-suited for doing the same with intellectual talent. "Recruitment, development, and retention of highly skilled individuals" is the key to future military success. They go on to explain how and why the military must grow and retain its cyber workforce.

If you work in the public sector, or if you just want to move your organization's intellectual capability forward, this analysis of what it takes to do cyber-security recruitment and retention the right way is required reading.

Postscript: The US Center for Strategic and International Studies has released a new report concluding that the United States is lacking an adequate number of individuals within the federal government and private sector with the technical skills necessary to secure cyberspace.