Traditionally, militaries have fought in four arenas: air, land, sea and space. But as the damage wreaked by computer hackers expands from breaching retail security systems to penetrating national security computer networks, a fifth—and perhaps even more nefarious—battlefield has emerged: cyberspace.
As cyberthreats increase, so do the number of students choosing to protect their nation on the cyberspace front. Texas A&M University’s Bush School of Government and Public Service is proving to be the ideal training ground for these students. Since its founding in 1997, the Bush School’s faculty mixture of top-tier academics and real-world practitioners have prepared graduate students for careers in public administration, public service and international affairs. This includes grooming students for careers in national security.
Dr. Andrew L. Ross, professor of international affairs, points to the increasing demand for cybersecurity experts in the intelligence field. “Everything associated with the Internet—including the billions of devices connected to it—has come to be considered a new domain of warfare: cyberspace,” he explained.
One of the Bush School’s most recent cybersecurity graduates is 28-year-old Emily Otto ’17. Formerly an Army sergeant, Cadet Otto put her military active duty career on hold to pursue a Master of International Affairs degree and an Army commission. In May, she completed the program with minimal debt, thanks to financial support from the Army and from an endowed fellowship established through the Texas A&M Foundation by Patricia and Terry Finkbiner ’65. While completing a cybersecurity concentration, Otto was selected for a cyber operations officer position in the Army’s cyber branch. While she is certainly not the only Bush School student to pursue a cybersecurity career, she is the first cyber officer to commission directly from Texas A&M’s Reserve Officers’ Training Corps.
As the military, the government and private companies scramble to confront rapidly increasing cyberthreats, graduates like Otto are in high demand. By supporting Bush School students, Foundation donors like the Finkbiners are giving them the educational and analytical tools they need to enter the world and make it a better, safer place.
Cybercom connnection
While the concept of cybersecurity might be relatively unfamiliar to the public, it’s well-known to Bush School international affairs faculty members, many of whom come from intelligence, international security and homeland security backgrounds. Ross’ teaching and research interests, for instance, have long focused on security issues. Since the early 1990s, he’s collaborated on projects with Dr. Emily Goldman, who is now the director of the Combined Action Group of United States Cyber Command (CYBERCOM).
Created in 2009 as a component of U.S. Strategic Command, CYBERCOM is charged with defending the Department of Defense Information Network against cyberspace threats, providing cyber support for U.S. military missions, and strengthening the nation’s ability to guard against and respond to cyberattacks. In addition, each of the military branches has its own cyber command component that oversees multiple “cyber forces.” The result is a growing network of cyber operation units linked not only to allied military partners, but also to industry, academia, and state and local governments.
This is where Ross comes in. As a Bush School international affairs professor, Ross annually leads a student capstone—a team-based, applied research project required for all second-year students. During this intense, in-depth, semester-long endeavor, students work on behalf of a real-world client to research, analyze and—if requested—provide recommendations for an issue impacting the client. The experience culminates in a formal written report and briefing. Capstone projects encourage students to think independently, frame and analyze issues, and apply their academic knowledge and skills, preparing them for post-graduation careers.
Through a cybersecurity capstone project at The Bush School of Government and Public Service, students under Professor Andrew L. Ross' (far right) leadership are theorizing potential cyberspace-related changes that could affect the nation's future. Their findings can help shape cybersecurity policy and security measures.
cyber scenarios
For this year’s capstone project, Ross’ team of eight Bush School students scoped out the future of the cyber domain and generated three distinct futures for CYBERCOM'S Combined Action Group. Applying established international relations theories, the overarching mission of the project was to look 10 to 15 years into the future and theorize possible cyberspace-related changes. In doing so, the students considered such concepts as security, privacy, technological innovations, growth in Internet users, geopolitical issues, non-state actors, increased system vulnerabilities, continued cybercrime, and cyberspace as a war-fighting domain, among others.
But while the students were tasked with developing a set of scenarios, Ross stressed that they were not in the business of fortune-telling. “We were not trying to predict what the cyber future will look like,” he explained. “Instead, we were looking at possible alternatives.”
