In response to recent Chinese cyber attacks on the Secretary of Defense, critical space assets, and U.S. nuclear war-fighting procedures, on September 18, 2007 the US Air Force  established a provisional Cyber Command as part of an expanding mission to prepare for wars in cyberspace.

According to Agence France Presse, "The move comes amid concerns over a wave of hacker attacks originating in China."
 
The new cyberspace war-fighting command is expected to be fully operational within 12 months.

The new USAF Cyber Command is being hastily set up at Barksdale Air Force Base. Headquarters of the U.S. 8th Air Force, which bombed Germany into rubble during WWII, the Louisiana air base was the unexpected destination of an unauthorized diversion of a B-52 heavy bomber loaded with six armed nuclear cruise missiles, following a reported computer "hack" of National Command Authority nuclear launch codes by the People's Liberaiton Army of China on August 30, 2007.

The new Air Force Cyber Command "will train and equip forces to conduct sustained global operations in and through cyberspace, fully integrated with air and space operations," said Major General Charles Ickes.

"We've got to contest the virtual space," added retired general John Abizaid, former US commander in the Middle East. “We have to understand that the virtual domain is a domain of war that requires our constant attention and vigilance… It's an area in which to fight,"