The recent attacks on U.S. and South Korean IT infrastructure has once again raised awareness around national cybersecurity issues here in the States. While I certainly agree with my security colleagues that it is high time that President Obama finally appoint a cybersecurity czar to head up the overarching public-private initiatives that have been promised, I think there may be even more pressing leadership demands within the military.

Unfortunately, our current military IT security services suffer from a level of disjointed focus that leaves our nation vastly unprepared for a new era in warfare. Our most aggressive current and future adversaries will no longer try to beat the United States by trying to out-do our air or weapons superiority. Instead, they will strike first at the heart of our IT infrastructure in order to cripple the country and weaken it before a physical attack.

This one-two punch could have a devastating effect on the country if we are not able to defend against or counter it. The fact of the matter is that things have changed dramatically in the last 50 years. Back then, there was no way for our enemies to turn off our power grid, shut down our fuel pipelines or cripple our air traffic control infrastructure through any kind of central mechanism. Now all of those things are a possibility without the right protection. Heck, they even hacked into the pentagon’s plans for the Joint Strike Fighter project so what is going to prevent them from hacking into the jet itself when it is deployed?

The average American needs to really understand that other countries are absolutely thinking along these lines. They need to know that we currently do not have a centralized authority here that can not only protect us from these attacks, but also put us in an offensive position in case somebody else tries to do the same thing to us. The truth is that the four major branches of our military-Navy, Marines, Army and Air Force—all operate with their own independent IT fiefdoms. Even within those fiefdoms, even smaller hierarchies lacking cohesion exist. They all operate differently, and more importantly, they are all focused on facilitating their own services. They have no awareness of our private sector infrastructure, even though a well-planned attack on this infrastructure could put us at great military disadvantage.

I honestly believe that the only way we can evolve to meet this modern demand of warfare is to develop a ‘fifth arm’ of the military. This new arm should look at IT both offensively and defensively just like any other weapon. Not only would this go a great way toward protecting the country, I think that it may even be more feasible to enact quickly compared to some public-private initiatives. After all, such action would remain within the confines of government domain.