Even as he spoke during his keynote at the RSA show last week, NSA head Keith Alexander must have had an inkling that he was to be commander of the new unit. According to a memo obtained by the paper, Defence Secretary Robert Gates plans to nominate Alexander to pilot an aggressive attack force that would focus on cyber conflicts.

The WSJ said that the Pentagon had confirmed coming changes to tackle the increasing spectre of cyber warfare, but was making no announcements last week.

The history of the US government's cyber attack policy is long and complex. For many years, STRATCOM, which originally controlled the US nuclear arsenal, was tasked with offensive cyber operations. Last year, the air force outlined its vision for a new Air Force Cyber Command and created new enlisted code for air force employees to work in the new organisation. Analysts now expect many assets from this unit to transfer to the new command, which is likely to share its headquarters with the NSA.

 Alexander said last week during his keynote that the NSA was not jockeying for position to run the US government's cyber warfare operations. The Agency has been the subject of much controversy recently. It became embroiled in a wiretapping scandal in 2005, when New York Times discovered that it was wiretapping US citizens without the required warrants. More recently, it emerged that the NSA wiretapped Congresswoman Jane Harman, who chaired the House Subcommittee on Intelligence, Information Sharing and Terrorism Risk Assessment.