Staff Sgt. Wendell Myler monitors live cyber attacks on the operations floor of the 27th Cyberspace Squadron, known as the Hunter’s Den, at Warfield Air National Guard Base, Middle River, Md., June 3, 2017. (U.S. Air Force photo by J.M. Eddins Jr.)
WASHINGTON — A key lawmaker says his subcommittee will consider the idea of having a Space Force-like independent cyber military service, but he said he wants to study the idea more to make sure it wouldn’t complicate the challenging mission further.
The idea was floated on Thursday by Mark Montgomery, senior director of the Center on Cyber Technology and Innovation at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, who told the House Armed Services Committee’s (HASC) cyber, innovative technologies and information systems (CITI) subcommittee that it needs to examine “if the current design of the Cyber Mission Force is what we need for the 21st century, or should we be considering an independent cyber force as we’ve recently done with the Space Force.”
“US cyber forces are really inconsistent in their organization, readiness and training across the various military services, and the size of each military service’s contribution to the cyber mission has not changed appreciably since the original agreements of 2010, despite significant changes in the threat from China and Russia,” Montgomery said in his opening statement.
Rep. Mike Gallagher, R-Wisc., chairman of the HASC CITI subcommittee, told reporters after the hearing that while the subcommittee is opening to the idea, he’s concerned it could create more bureaucracy.
“I think we’re definitely going to consider it in the subcommittee’s work… I think we have to have like a public sort of analysis of it,” Gallagher said. “I think the hesitancy on our side would be — well, so soon after creating the Space Force, we don’t want to just create a bunch of bureaucracy. So we can find a way to do it that isn’t a massive increase in bureaucracy that in some ways is sort of consolidation efficiently of existing cyber warriors, then it could get compelling. I have yet to do my own homework on it.”
In 2018, US Cyber Command announced all of its 133 Cyber Mission Force (CMF) teams reached full operational capability (FOC). But since then, readiness levels have remained relatively the same, Montgomery said in response to Rep. Nick LaLota, R-NY, who asked if the CMF has improved since marking FOC.
“You know, before reaching FOC, full operational capability, we kind of all had a widespread belief that once…the CMF got there, they would then burn down the readiness problem over the years, they would only get better. Well, that’s not happened,” Montgomery said. “I think Cyber Command under Adm. [Mike] Rogers and then Gen. [Paul] Nakasone has absolutely laid out some good cyber metrics. And the truth is the services aren’t meeting them… And really it’s unreasonable to believe that pursuing the same course of action for a sixth year in a row is going to get us healthier.”
Though the idea of creating an independent cyber service did not elicit a clear “yes” or “no” from other lawmakers, Rep. Seth Moulton, D-Mass., asked another witness at the hearing, Chris Brose, chief strategy officer at Anduril Industries, what he thought of standing up the cyber service.
“An independent cyber service I think is definitely something that needs to be looked at,” Brose said. “I think that the reasons that the Congress led the creation of the Space Force are just as prevalent if not more inside of the cyber capabilities and cyber services. It’s definitely something that needs to be seriously considered.”