Building the Best Offensive and Defensive Cyber Workforce

The U.S. military's success in cyberwarfare depends on the capabilities of the cyber personnel who are brought to the fight. Because cyberwarfare is considered a core element of the U.S. Air Force (USAF) mission, USAF has been looking for ways to revamp training of its offensive and defensive cyber operators to develop the best cyberwarfare workforce possible. USAF has also sought to better understand some of the drivers of attraction to and retention in the cyber field. To this end, researchers at the RAND Corporation conducted 30 discussions to collect the viewpoints of enlisted and civilian cyber personnel on training, recruiting, and retaining issues and solutions in their career fields. The researchers also spoke with subject-matter experts at several bases. The authors summarize participants' insights on recruitment and retention in this second volume of this report. Volume I presents findings related to training.