DaytonDailyNews.com

These are not steady times for the Air Force. When Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates sacked Air Force Secretary Michael Wynne and the Air Force chief of staff, Gen. T. Michael "Buzz" Moseley, in June, it was one in a string of incidents suggesting things are not humming.

More recent — and of interest to Wright-Patterson Air Force Base — was the reversal of how the service is going to decide where to put the so-called Cyber Command. All the military services are ramping up their defenses of their communication capacity. If the enemy can shut down communication, that puts the military out of business and in serious danger.

Meanwhile, cyber warfare is a weapon that our side wants to understand and to be able to use against enemies.

Among the questions is whether there needs to be a separate command for this work or whether it needs to be integrated into everything the Pentagon and the military branches are doing. Former Secretary Wynne favored an Air Force command and had invited 18 states, including Ohio, to apply to be the site. That approach has now been put on hold, and the Pentagon says it'll get back to the invitees later about how it wants them to proceed.

Gov. Ted Strickland's pitch — written by the Dayton Development Coalition — to locate the work at Wright-Patterson includes an interesting list of this state's attributes. You might not know, for instance that some evaluators say Ohio is a leader in broadband capability. Ohio ranked fifth nationally, according to a study published by TechNet.

The proposal also notes that "WPAFB has more communications capability than any other site in the United States with the exception of a few national agencies in the Washington, D.C., area. The diverse mission of the National Air and Space Intelligence Center (NASIC), located at WPAFB, necessitates a robust communications structure, with a diversity of powerful networks and bandwidth supporting government capabilities."

Ohio and Wright-Patterson have to stay on top of the Cyber Command policy debate, if for no other reason than this is a growth business in the Air Force. Wright-Patterson's specialties have been logistics and acquisition, and research. Those are critical tasks, but if the base is going to stay strong, it needs to attract new work, not just keep doing what it's always done.

Having the Air Force Research Laboratory helps ensure Wright-Patterson's place in cutting-edge research, including in the realm of cyberspace. But it's never smart to assume that logic — rather than politics — will dictate where Air Force work and jobs will end up.

One consideration in the Cyber Command debate is that some officials are suggesting that the work needs to be physically spread around, that there are both security and economic benefits to not putting the operations all in one place. That approach, if it's taken, would seem to assure Wright-Patterson a piece of the action.

Given how virtual the world is becoming, the argument is hard to dismiss. Given that the mission is about protecting the country virtually, that strategy is hard to dispute.

The order to slow down the decision-making process can be a good thing for Dayton. At minimum, it creates more opportunity and time to sell Wright-Patterson's assets — not just to the Air Force, but also to the Department of Defense. What it's not is an occasion to back off of any advocacy.