The US Military’s Cyberwarfare Challenge

Excerpt

Days after the United States launched Operation Epic Fury, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Dan Caine described how US Cyber Command had been “layering” cyber effects with space and other non-kinetic capabilities to disrupt Iranian communications and sensors. The remarks came weeks after President Donald Trump implied that US forces used cyber effects to “turn out the lights” in support of the raid to capture Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro. Once a highly classified tool of espionage, cyber operations have emerged as a normal part of how the US military fights.

Despite the administration’s positive narrative, offensive cyber operations remain difficult to fit into the joint warfight. For a decade, US cyber forces have postured to disrupt malicious cyber threats below the level of armed conflict. The doctrine of persistent engagement, the delegation of authorities under NSPM-13, and the concentration of elite operators within the Cyber National Mission Force were all optimized to wield cyber as a standalone instrument. This posture enabled US Cyber Command to dismantle terrorist propaganda networks and disrupt ransomware gangs, but it is less well-suited to cyber’s emerging role as a combat enabler.

The US military needs to adapt how it plans, resources, and employs cyber effects to support joint operations across all domains. Cyber operations should become so tightly integrated that commanders can employ cyber effects as readily as they can call for kinetic fires or resupply. Iran and Venezuela are best understood as qualified successes, where cyber succeeded against less capable adversaries and with time to plan and rehearse. Against a peer competitor like China, deficiencies in how the US military currently develops joint plans, generates cyber forces, and employs them in joint operations will be exposed.

Challenge 1: Joint Planning with Cyber

Today, cyber effects remain inconsistently integrated into joint operational and contingency plans, particularly at the operational and tactical levels. Cyber is often confined to a domain-specific annex and poorly synchronized with activities in other domains. The US military’s planning process must overcome three barriers to integrating cyber effects. 

RADM (Ret.) Mark Montgomery is a senior fellow and the senior director of the Center on Cyber and Technology Innovation (CCTI) at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. Matthew Ferren is a visiting fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, where he researches China’s cyber programs, US defense policy, and international cyber cooperation.