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‘West Point’ Academy Prepares U.S. Cyber Soldiers Troops | ASHARQ AL-AWSAT English Archive 2005 -2017
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United States Military Academy at West Point


Washington – U.S. Military West Point Academy has started preparing its students for the future warfare that is expected to be totally different from the traditional war.

CNN visited the West Point military academy to find out how the U.S. is training its cyber forces for the future.

In a field visit, the CNN revealed in a report that the students started learning a new military curriculum that differs from usually common ones in the framework of preparing the students to join the three-year-old cyber branch in the U.S. armed forces.

Being considered part of the new curriculum, young soldiers get to know cryptology, the study of codes and are trained to deal with cyber weapons to defeat different forms of rivals as they could be humans or machines equipped with deterring electronic tools.

Deputy Chief of Research U.S. Army Cyber Institute Major Natalie Vanatta said that they are working on developing their students’ skills in critical and creative thinking and getting them used to handle the most advanced devices and technologies among global armies.

Vanatta noted that this training is not limited to cyber-attacks and hacking but exceeds that to carry out field war where the U.S. soldier is just a backup for electronic devices and developed weapons that play filed role in the fight.

She noted that this strategy is expected to depend less on human forces and limit risking lives of U.S. soldiers to the maximum possible level .

The U.S. cyber officer told CNN: “It is also our job to prepare soldiers to integrate cyber fighting with all the roles usually played by traditional fighters and this is more complicated than preparing networks and surveys.”

She said that this mission lies in preparing scientific participation in the cyber maneuvers and carrying out attacks using modern electronic techniques that do not require risking lives of the U.S. soldiers.