TABLE OF CONTENTS

sites, encrypted e-mail, digital signatures, common access cards, electronic funds
transfers, secure socket layer connections and other transactions that rely on current
encryption methods, vulnerable to exploitation.
Supporting technologies needed to develop quantum computers such as quantum
manufacturing, electro-optics, single-photon detectors, and quantum display interfaces
will have significant impact on military operations. This research needs to continue to
maintain the U.S. and its allies’ asymmetric advantages in any conflict in 2025 and
beyond.
Recommendations: 1) The USAF must give the same priority to cyberspace as it
gave to achieving air superiority. Investments in information processing have the highest
return. 2) Though technically challenging and some way off, development of quantum
computing will pay huge dividends and may well be war preventing as well as war
winning.
Future Air Force Operations in Cyberspace
John F. Schrader, LTC, U.S. Army
The United States Air Force is poised to make another of the technological and
strategic leaps that have marked its short and storied history. The emergence of
cyberspace as a recognized domain is the latest in a series of technology-based mission
sets dating back to the beginning of air power. This paper proposes that by examining
the three historical cases of strategic bombing, intercontinental nuclear forces, and space
and precision strike in terms of ideas, technology, doctrine, and effect, it is possible to
identify relevant lessons and warnings as the Air Force navigates its way into the
cyberspace domain.