The White House announced last week that Howard Schmidt, President Obama’s cybersecurity coordinator, met last month in Washington, D.C., with his Russian counterpart Nikolay Klimashin for in-depth discussions on strengthening bilateral relations in the area of cyberspace security. “[O]ur goal was to continue building mutual confidence in our two governments’ activities in cyberspace to reduce the risk of misperception and inadvertent crisis,” wrote Schmidt in a White House blog entry. Schmidt said this diplomatic outreach with the Russians is consistent with the White House’s cyberspace strategy released in May. He said, by year’s end, the two sides want to have three initiatives in place: regular information exchanges on technical threats like botnets; a better understanding each other’s military views on operating in cyberspace; and around-the-clock systems to communicate about cybersecurity issues that leverage existing bilateral crisis-prevention communications links. (Schmidt-Klimashin joint statement)
The Air Force is placing Air Combat Command in charge of teaching combat tactics to fighter and remotely-piloted aircraft units, according to a May 12 announcement. Beginning this summer, the service will reassign the formal training units for the F-35, F-16, and MQ-9 from Air Education and Training Command to…