Another graphic from Sam’s little black book of ideas. This graphic is based on a lot of work I did while at Purdue. There isn’t anybody looking at the cyber schism currently, but what it shows is the difference in attitudes and educational necessity for cyber education. There is a certain amount of base knowledge that is required to operate in cyber space at just about any level. We’re not talking about an undergraduate program or similar. We are talking about the ability to click a mouse and do many of the things technocrats never even think about. There are some other elements inherent in the graphic like the management of information systems and information technology disciplines diverge and are not part of the conflict spectrum.
Side bar: The “hyphenated cyber” world should just get over itself. The entirety of the domain should include everything from recreation, commerce, and communication nodes to conflict and warfare type examples. Cyber though is NOT conflict. The creation of a cyber command is not an aberration, but the authenticity of words like cyber war are. There is not a “cyber war” there is cyber power. There is only “war” not “cyberwar, cyber-war, or cyberwarfare”. Just like there is few if any examples of naval war, or land war. We know these as concepts but the hybridization of the domains is such that the terms have fallen into disuse and we use the words “power” to denote the specifics of a domains contribution to the “war”.
Enough of that.
The graphic depicted below is meant to show the learning and educational topics necessary for completion of a specific specialization in the cyber domain. It is not comprehensive (hell it was lifted from a graphic I drew in a notebook a few years ago). It is from general knowledge at the bottom to more specialized knowledge at the top (hence the arrows). It also shows that there is knowledge that spans the management and conflict domains. No I don’t think anybody is going to agree with this, but hell I don’t really care.
Educational tracks for a cyber paradigm (click to make larger)