Like most members of the defense community, I've grown tired of hearing about Chinese hacks against DoD databases. To live out a military campaign (cyber or otherwise) solely on the defensive is every soldier's nightmare. So I found this to be most welcome news:

U.S. military officials seeking to boost the nation's cyberwarfare capabilities are looking beyond defending the Internet: They are developing ways to launch virtual attacks on enemies.

But first the military will have to figure out the proper boundaries.

"What do we consider to be an act of war in cyberspace?" asked Lt. Gen. Robert J. Elder Jr., who heads the Air Force's cyberoperations command. "The military is not going to tend to do that (use virtual strike capabilities) until you cross some line that constitutes an act of war."

Elder said initial uses likely would be limited to diverting or killing data packets that threaten the nation's systems, the way the military may intercept a foreign ship carrying arms in international waters.

Nice to see that the Air Force's fledgling Cyber Command has found better things to do than police the internet. For years the Air Force has been mostly silent about its strategy for offensive cyber-ops against hackers, state-sponsored or otherwise. As for the enemy, the simplest definition of strategy is the analysis and exploitation of an enemy's weakness: China has been hacking us for years, so draw your own conclusions as to what they think is our Achilles' Heel.

Of course, if China really wanted to use cyberwarfare to bring the U.S. military to a standstill, all they'd have to do is figure out a way to bug Microsoft Powerpoint.