The Battle for the Cyber Command

I was intrigued when California's rural Yuba County joined the competition to host the Air Force's new Cyber Command, the cutting edge of the service's new mission to "fly and fight in air, space and cyber space." So I asked intrepid reporter Marty Graham to visit two of the 15 locations vying for the Future of Warfare, including the command's provisional headquarters in Louisiana.

She returned with an awesome 3,000 word story exploring the roots of the Cyber Command, complete with interviews with the generals in charge, and community leaders in Bossier, Louisiana, and Bellevue, Nebraska, where excitement over the first major Air Force command in a decade is palpable.

"It would sure be nice to have it here," says Tammy Frank, manager of the Waffle House in Bossier, Louisiana, outside Barksdale's gates. She pushes her hair behind her ears and leans on the cash register. "My (preteen) son is into computers, and it will be easier for him to find a good job and stay here."

The Cyber Command was provisionally established on Barksdale's 22,000 acres in October, at the edge of a black lake stitched with swamp trees that narrow just above the water line. The placement was good news for Bossier, which took it as a sign that Louisiana would win the permanent command, too.

A military town for generations, this sprawling suburb-opolis has about 58,000 residents, including 7,000 active-duty and reserve personnel. Across the Red River in Shreveport, downtown buildings are crumbling and half-abandoned -- but Bossier is thriving. Now realtors are touting proximity to the Cyber Command as a selling point for houses, while local residents hope permanent placement will boost the local economy, and perhaps even infuse the town with high-tech esprit.

To persuade the Air Force of Bossier's potential as a Deep South Silicon Valley, city officials broke ground last month on a "Cyber Innovation Center," a $100 million office complex abutting Barksdale. The consortium paid $4.7 million for a 64-acre parcel, and they've raised $50 million from state and local government and another $50 million from the federal government for a complex of buildings, starting with an $11 million, 120,000-square-foot cyberfortress. Renderings show a moat and huge, silvery wedges of metal jutting outward from the building's base. There's a jet in the design, pointed toward the sky.

"The building has force protection designed into it," says Craig Spohn, who's heading the development. "It can withstand a multitude of attacks."

The full story is here, along with an interactive map of all the contenders to the cyber war throne.