BATTLE CREEK (WKZO AM/FM) — They held the ceremonial launch of the 272nd Cyber Operations Squadron at the Air National Guard Base in Battle Creek Saturday. It’s now one of a number of facilities that are tasked with protecting the U.S. Military from cyber-attacks.
Senator Gary Peters says if hostilities break out the cyber-warfare will likely come first, making such units the “tip of the spear”. A lot of its mission is understandably classified but officials say they are a defensive unit and not an offensive one.
Maj. Dan Guy was formally installed as the commander of the new unit, which will have 70 employees.
It now joins another operation at the ANG Base that provides pilots for the remotely piloted aircraft called the MQ-9 ‘Reaper,’ which has both surveillance and combat applications, and has also become the tip of the spear for a lot of U.S. intelligence and military ventures and operations in the middle east and Africa.
It has also given the base in Battle Creek a leg up in the defense of Fort Custer from Pentagon and Congressional forces who are looking for ways to cut the budget and close bases that no longer serve a purpose.
That has been one of the main missions of the base commanders and the Michigan Congressional Delegation since Fort Custer barely survived a couple of Base Realignment and Closure Commissions efforts over the past few decades.
An effort to launch a new BRAC was attempted last summer which failed to gain momentum, despite support from the pentagon and the Trump administration. A lot of politicians and top military officials still feel closing bases is the most expedient and efficient way to generate cuts in the military budget.
It’s also just one of the reasons there is now a bi-partisan push underway by Michigan’s Congressional Delegation to have an anti-ballistic missile base located at Fort Custer.
The Pentagon has narrowed a list of hundreds of sites to three possible locations for the base: Camp Revenna in Ohio, Fort Drum in New York State and Fort Custer on the Kalamazoo/Calhoun County line. They have been under no pressure to make a decision because there was no funding for it anyway. Its generally believed it would be funded now.
Missile tests in North Korea and the claim they can now lob a nuclear weapon anywhere in the U.S. has prompted Congress to order that a decision on the location be made in the next few months.
Funding for missiles was included in the last Congressional budget extension approved just before Christmas.
Its yet another “tip of the spear” military program that would help prevent Fort Custer from having its last stand the next time a BRAC Commission is appointed. That’s in addition to the billions it would pump into the regional economy and the jobs it would create.
