combatant commands Archives | DefenseScoop https://defensescoop.com/tag/combatant-commands/ DefenseScoop Thu, 24 Jul 2025 15:32:03 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.8.2 https://defensescoop.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/8/2023/01/cropped-ds_favicon-2.png?w=32 combatant commands Archives | DefenseScoop https://defensescoop.com/tag/combatant-commands/ 32 32 214772896 Congress pushing Joint Task Force-Cyber, shaking up how DOD employs digital capabilities https://defensescoop.com/2025/07/24/ndaa-fy26-joint-task-force-cyber-shake-up-how-dod-employs-digital-capabilities/ https://defensescoop.com/2025/07/24/ndaa-fy26-joint-task-force-cyber-shake-up-how-dod-employs-digital-capabilities/#respond Thu, 24 Jul 2025 15:32:00 +0000 https://defensescoop.com/?p=116256 Similar provisions in House and Senate versions of NDAA legislation are asking for assessments that could alter how cyber capabilities are employed within geographic combatant commands.

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The House and Senate are pushing for a potential shakeup in how cyber operations and forces are synchronized and conducted in the Department of Defense.

The proposals are part of each chamber’s version of the annual defense policy bill, the National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal 2026.

According to the Senate Armed Services Committee’s version, DOD must conduct a study on force employment of cyber in support of combatant commands and evaluate establishing Joint Task Force-Cyber elements across those geographic combatant commands.

A proposal in the House, offered by Armed Services Subcommittee on Cyber, Innovative Technologies and Information Systems chairman Rep. Don Bacon, R-Neb., requires a similar evaluation, though focused specifically on the Indo-Pacific Command area of responsibility.

According to Bacon, the military is not properly organized for the current cyber conflict.

“Since becoming Chairman of the Subcommittee, I’ve grown increasingly concerned that we are not correctly organized for the cyber fight we find ourselves in today, let alone a more complex and consequential future fight. Our Cyber Command does great working national threats, but I want to ensure our Cyber team is postured right for a potential fight with China over Taiwan,” he said in a statement.

He said he plans to push for the establishment of a Joint Task Force-Cyber — not merely an evaluation — when both chambers of Congress convene to reconcile their bills.

“If we accept the reality that we are already in hostilities with our principal adversary in cyberspace, then there is no time to waste,” Bacon said.

Bacon also pointed to the fact that this is not a new issue. In the fiscal 2023 NDAA, Congress required the creation of a similar organization — a Joint Task Force — in Indo-Pacom to support joint operations in the kinetic space before conflict, because the military was not sufficiently acting jointly, in lawmakers’ view.

Sources indicated that construct has worked well so far and these proposals could mirror that on the non-kinetic side.

Moreover, a classified DOD Inspector General report that examined the effectiveness of Indo-Pacom and Cyber Command’s planning for offensive cyberspace operations and Cybercom’s execution of offensive cyberspace ops in support of Indo-Pacom’s plans, recommended the creation of a Joint Task Force-Cyber, according to someone familiar. That examination began in 2023.

Congress has in several previous NDAAs asked for studies and evaluations on how Cybercom’s headquarters elements are organized and how it employs cyber capabilities effectively. Sources indicated these proposals are likely, in part, an indication that lawmakers aren’t pleased with either the responses from the Defense Department, or there has been a lack of response from DOD.

If realized, the creation of joint task forces for cyber at the combatant commands could potentially lead to a complete restructure for how operations are conducted, according to sources.

How cyber operations are conducted

Ultimately, these proposals could end up giving more oversight and control of cyber operations to the geographic combatant commanders.

Unlike the other domains of warfare, there still is no cyber component command at the geographic combatant commands. Each component command — land, air and maritime — is responsible for commanding and coordinating the forces under their domain on behalf of the four-star combatant commander, who has the ultimate authority on how and which forces are employed for particular operations.

Cyber, however, is different.

Since Cybercom established its cyber mission force over 10 years ago — the 147 teams that the services provide to Cybercom to conduct cyber operations — digital forces and capabilities are employed through what the command calls Joint Force Headquarters-Cyber.

These entities are commanded by the heads of the service cyber components and are assigned particular combatant commands to provide planning, targeting, intelligence, synchronization, and command and control of cyber capabilities.

Joint Force Headquarters-Cyber Army is responsible for Central Command, Africa Command and Northern Command. Joint Force Headquarters-Cyber Navy is responsible for Indo-Pacom, Southern Command and United States Forces Korea. Joint Force Headquarters-Cyber Air Force is responsible for European Command, Space Command and Transportation Command. Joint Force Headquarters-Cyber Marine Corps is responsible for Special Operations Command. DOD Cyber Defense Command, formerly Joint Force Headquarters-DOD Information Network, is the coordinating authority for Transportation Command.

None of the these entities were designed to be identical.

Moreover, there is also the Cyber National Mission Force, a sub-unified command under Cybercom, which is responsible for defending the nation against significant digital threats and is thought to possess the most elite cyber operators. It is a global entity aligned in task forces assigned to different threat actors, which means they are also operating within the areas of responsibility for geographic combatant commands.

Given Cyber National Mission Force’s global mission, the commander of Cybercom can conduct operations in a particular theater based on his priorities and mission sets. While this may be coordinated with the regional commander, they don’t necessarily have to ask for permission, in what could be seen by the geographic combatant commander as infringing on their area of operations.

U.S. Cyber Command operators participate in Cyber Guard 25-2 exercise on June 3, 2025, at Fort George G. Meade, MD. The exercise, in coordination with the Joint Staff, simulates scenarios that test response protocols and defensive and offensive techniques across geographic areas of responsibility (Photo credit: U.S. Cyber Command).

The geographic combatant commanders don’t have as much control over cyber forces in their regions as they do for the physical or kinetic forces. The cyber teams are controlled by the JFHQ-Cs through Cybercom. Moreover, Cybercom has the ability to reorganize and realign forces around as they see fit against different priorities and threats, though, this is usually done in consultation with the combatant commands.

Cybercom, not the combatant commands themselves, approves the cyber operations for the regional commands, which includes interagency coordination.

Approvals for cyber ops flow through the commander of Cybercom, not the geographic combatant commands themselves, which includes interagency coordination.

Taken together, sources indicated these could all be seen as a loss of control for the geographic combatant commanders, who are responsible for running the operations in their regions and typically have oversight of their forces. Some have argued that the regional combatant commanders should have control and oversight of all the forces in their geography.

Sources indicated tensions exist in this construct with a regionally focused combatant command and a globally focused combatant command that has a high-demand, low-density asset in cyber.

“I think what you’re seeing is the tension that exists today between having Cybercom forces that really, at the end of the day, are controlled by the Cybercom commander in general support to the other Cocoms versus having that combatant commander have full control,” a former military cyber official told DefenseScoop.

Others indicated the creation of a joint task force is a natural evolution for the command and control of cyber forces.

Indo-Pacom, in particular, poses a unique challenge with all the cyber forces operating within its area of responsibility.

There are combat mission teams that conduct cyber operations on behalf of combatant commands, mostly in the offensive sphere, coordinated by Joint Force Headquarters-Cyber Navy, Joint Task Force-Ares — which initially was a counter-ISIS cyber task force but shifted four years ago to focus more on nation-states, particularly in the Pacific region — run by Marine Corps Force Cyberspace Command — as well as teams from the Cyber National Mission Force.

For those reasons, the command and control of these forces must be under a single chain of command. Those forces could be packaged together and work for the Indo-Pacom commander, the former officials posited when discussing a potential future scenario, and then the Indo-Pacom commander would have full control over them, a departure from the situation today.

For Indo-Pacom, everything is on island, a second former military cyber official said, meaning where their Hawaii headquarters are located. Indo-Pacom wants everyone on island with them so capabilities can be better integrated, they added.

Experts and former officials noted that a Joint Task Force-Cyber structure would likely clean up command and control lines for the employment of cyber.

Those that spoke to DefenseScoop noted combatant commands could see this as enhancing simplicity and speed.

In a future conflict, decisions will have to be made at unprecedented speeds, as seen in the Ukraine-Russia war.

However, the global nature of cyberspace and actors could complicate such an arrangement where the regional commander has more control.

China, for example, is a global threat actor and taking control from Cybercom could lessen its ability to surge or act in other regions. If there is a global threat versus a regional threat, officials would have to figure out what takes priority, who makes the decision and who has the authority to re-direct cyber forces to address them, a third former military cyber official posited.

Questions and resource constraints

Experts raised several issues that should be addressed with the potential formulation of joint task forces for cyber at the combatant commands, posing questions that should be answered in an evaluation for their necessity or creation.

One concern is whether the assessment for the creation of a Joint Task Force-Cyber is fair when balanced against what Cybercom has been doing over the last couple of years.

Cybercom has continued to reevaluate how it conducts cyber operations over the years.

Discussions in recent years inside the command have also focused on creating task forces that would be assigned against particular threat actors. This would potentially allow cyber forces to transcend the geographic boundaries given cyber threat actors are global.  

The drafting of this legislation, however, signals that the current processes can be done better.

Would a new process create more hurdles or would it enable greater simplicity?

“You have to ask yourself with what we’ve designed today, is it simple … Simplicity, speed, precision, clarity, these kind of things are really important in a fast fight for C2. And you could offer that’s not necessarily the case with the current design,” the first former official said. “Is the juice worth the squeeze?”

The third former official noted it’s important to ask what problem is this trying to solve? What is this a joint task force to do? Is this an authorities issue, is it a cyber mission force capacity issue, or what are the combatant commands not getting that they need from Cybercom?

Some of these issues could be wargamed or worked out through table top exercises, they noted.

For many officials, an education gap still exists where combatant commands still don’t always know how to employ the JFHQ-Cs or what to ask for from Cybercom. Some of this is relationship and personality based and can differ based on each organization.

About eight years ago, Cybercom began to create planning cells — Cyber Operations-Integrated Planning Elements (CO-IPEs) — located within the staffs of the geographic combatant commands to help them with synchronization and planning given the JFHQ-Cs are at remote locations.

An aerial view of Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam, where U.S. Indo-Pacific Command is headquartered. (U.S. Navy photo by Chief Mass Communication Specialist John M. Hageman/Released)

While the CO-IPEs were designed to assist in planning and understanding how to employ cyber operations, they still haven’t all matured effectively to provide all the necessary answers and planning requested.

According to the third former official, some of the geographic combatant commands are probably saying, “I just don’t have the authority.”

They pushed back on that assessment, noting if the combatant commands asked for something, they’d likely get it, but an educational issue on both sides of the problem exists.

Another model could be to bolster the CO-IPEs to mirror Special Operations Command’s theater special operations commands (TSOCs), which are small teams and how special operations forces are employed in geographic combatant commands.

These entities can act as a connective tissue between seams in geographic regions and anticipate which threats may need more resources. They can provide command and control for running operations, if needed. CO-IPEs are currently only for planning and have no command and control functions.  

Another option could be to co-locate the cyber forces within the JTF within the combatant command. Currently, only the CO-IPE is embedded in the geographic combatant command staff. The JFHQ-C and cyber forces conducting the operations are at remote locations, not directly within the geographic combatant command they’re supporting.

But part of the challenge with the way the legislation is written is if Congress wants a Socom model, lawmakers would establish a TSOC equivalent for a Cybercom forward element or cyber element for forces in theater and not a Joint Task Force-Cyber, one of the former officials said. The reason that doesn’t exist today, they added, is the control is done in the rear of the CO-IPE and they conduct the integrated planning with the combatant command staff forward.

“I don’t think Cocom commanders are happy with that. I think they want the control,” the official suggested.

Other key questions surround resources. Oftentimes when there’s a new problem, organizations stand up a new headquarters, but nobody gets any more people, one of the former officials pointed out.

Of note, given each Joint Force Headquarters supports multiple combatant commands, in many cases officials within those organizations wear multiple hats. For example, a service cyber component might have an integrated operations staff that does everything for all their Joint Force Headquarters.

If each combatant command creates a Joint Task Force-Cyber and the Joint Force Headquarters go away — something that isn’t necessarily clear based on the legislation proposed — where do the new joint task force personnel come from? Are those staff that wore multiple hats ripped apart, some sources asked.

Setting priorities

One of the other aspect driving an assessment to create a new joint task force construct is to help drive more emphasis on the combatant command cyber forces and capabilities.

According to a congressional staffer, there was a sense that there was neglect for the combatant command-related cyber capabilities in favor of the Cyber National Mission Forces that defend the nation.

It comes down to prioritization and resources. The Cyber National Mission Force has a global mission and there is a lot of prioritization that goes to them, but that doesn’t mean the other teams aren’t working, former officials said.

With limited resources, what gets the focus? Are they things that are important to Cybercom or the geographic combatant commands, one former official asked, noting they could see an argument coming from a combatant command asking is Cybercom doing things that are of the most interest to that combatant commander or are they working on things that are of less interest to them, but of more interest to Cybercom, which are typically CNMF targets.

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Lawmakers fearful of SOCOM cuts, possible risk to mission https://defensescoop.com/2025/04/09/lawmakers-fearful-of-socom-cuts-and-possible-risk-to-mission/ https://defensescoop.com/2025/04/09/lawmakers-fearful-of-socom-cuts-and-possible-risk-to-mission/#respond Wed, 09 Apr 2025 16:15:00 +0000 https://defensescoop.com/?p=110529 Members of Congress on both sides of the aisle expressed concern this week over cuts to special operations forces, with many vowing to plus-up their budget as a response. During Senate and House subpanels, military leaders and members of Congress outlined force cuts and budget reductions that have led to risks in missions for special […]

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Members of Congress on both sides of the aisle expressed concern this week over cuts to special operations forces, with many vowing to plus-up their budget as a response.

During Senate and House subpanels, military leaders and members of Congress outlined force cuts and budget reductions that have led to risks in missions for special operations forces because, in many cases, the head of Special Operations Command has been forced to tell combatant commanders “no” when they request capabilities.

Headlining the details outlined on Capitol Hill in recent days is the fact that SOCOM has had a flat budget since 2019, leading to a 14% decrease in purchasing power and a 5,000-person reduction in forces across the command over the last three and a half years. That includes reducing roles in communications, logistics, intelligence, civil affairs and psychological operations, and specifically a reduction of 3,000 personnel for military information support operations.    

“SOCOM has operated under stagnant budgets. The limitation of SOF end strength was a very short-sighted decision at a time when SOF capabilities are needed more than ever. We must change course now,” Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, the chair of the Senate Armed Services Subcommittee on Emerging Threats and Capabilities, said during a hearing Tuesday afternoon. “That is why I intend to work with the DOD to rebuild SOCOM’s budget. Given SOF’s critical role in national security, this is a wise and cost-effective investment.”

That view was shared among other members of the panel, as well as their counterparts in the House.

“I would like to plus them up … A big bump up in funding for the SOF community,” Rep. Morgan Luttrell, R-Texas, a retired Navy SEAL, told DefenseScoop in an interview Tuesday. “I know for a fact that they are hurting for funding lines, for pots of money in certain places, through discussions with the leadership. My stance is: Hey look, I’m going to work as hard as I can with the members in [House Armed Services Subcommittee on Intelligence and Special Operations] and with the committee to get you what you need, which we are having those discussions.”

A bump in funding for SOF will provide more placement and access for units forward-deployed, Luttrell said. Their global footprint and ability to flex at a moment’s notice provide a defensive posture that exceeds traditional measures, he said, whereas if conventional forces are required to show up, “we are in trouble.”

Sen. Elissa Slotkin, D-Mich., ranking member of the Subcommittee on Emerging Threats and Capabilities, noted that, like how Space Force was excluded from taking cuts, her hope was these high-demand mission sets would be taken into consideration as well.

“[I] just would hope that if there’s someone who’s picking and choosing missions that are going to be cut versus protected, I know you’re advocating, but that we realize that the units that are in highest demand should not be taking the same haircut as everybody else across the force,” she said.

Members of Congress led witnesses in talking about how the cuts to purchasing power and end strength have hurt special operations forces’ ability to meet the requirements of combatant commands, with SOCOM Commander Gen. Bryan Fenton explaining how it’s hurt his ability to offer support.

Combatant command requests are up 35 percent in the last three years due to the need for deterrence, Fenton said. Special operations forces bring a variety of capabilities in the way of building relationships, developing access, providing indications and warnings, closing kill webs or kill chains, and giving commanders options and opportunities they wouldn’t otherwise have in the hopes of preventing a drawn-out conflict.

“Where we’ve had to say, ‘no,’ I’ll give you a number: Last December in one of the global force management tanks, I had to say no 41 times to request[s],” Fenton told members of the House Armed Services Subcommittee on Intelligence and Special Operations on Wednesday. “It’s a high compliment that this SOF team is that value proposition to the entire department … [Why] we couldn’t do it, my sense, and I’ll wind this down for you, is two reasons: There’s certainly a capability and capacity piece against the great humans that do that work. And as you know, we’ve been reduced in the past couple years by up to 5,000. But there’s also now a fiscal constraint that’s pulling at us based on an increasingly decreasing top line that now comes into play.”

Others warned of the proposed eight percent cuts the Department of Defense is seeking across the board in a measure to reduce inefficiency and redundancy.

“I’m not a doctor, but if I was, it would be cutting into bone. We are already lean and efficient,” Colby Jenkins, the official performing the duties of the assistant secretary of defense for special operations and low-intensity conflict, said when asked by Rep. Jason Crow, D-Colo., what an eight percent cut would look like.

To that, Crow added: “There’s no fat in SOCOM. You’re lean and mean as you’re supposed to be.”

Jenkins replied that special forces leaders are doing their best to avoid the negative impacts of DOD-wide budget cuts at all costs.

Aside from deterrence, the cuts in personnel and resources have also hurt SOCOM’s ability to modernize, particularly as the character of war changes, slowing its ability to adopt new technologies such as uncrewed systems, artificial intelligence, additive manufacturing and autonomy.

Fenton described that due to a 14 percent reduction in buying power, which equates to about $1 billion, his command is unable to acquire capabilities that might be able to provide asymmetry on the battlefield.

To stress the importance of that, he used the backdrop of the conflict in Ukraine, where the Ukrainians have been outmatched in terms of legacy capabilities — tanks, missiles, airplanes and helicopters — against the Russians, but adopted asymmetric tools to impose costs on Russian forces and stay in the fight.

“From the modernization piece first, I think first and foremost, the risk is not winning, not being able to complete the mission in the future environment,” Fenton said. “We’re taking risks there, the inability to get after the things I think that are asymmetric, that are part of the changing character of war, to do it at speed. You could add anything uncrewed, artificial intelligence, additive manufacturing, autonomy, all that. I think we’re accruing high risk because we as SOCOM are not able to get after that based on a flat top line.”

Fenton noted that, additionally, the acquisition system needs significant modernization to keep up with these emerging technologies driving the changing character of warfare.

He called the current system “outdated” and “glacial,” designed for the old world of aircraft carriers and airplanes, but not suited for the modern battlefield.

“But what we’re seeing through the lens of Ukraine needs to be an acquisition and procurement system that is hyperspeed, supersonic. Because over there, we’re watching the changes in minutes, hours and days,” Fenton told members of the House.

He added that requirements must be addressed and updated by reducing the number of people involved in them to enable a faster cycle between operator, commander and acquisition, such as allowing those downrange to directly inform requirements.

The cycles could also be faster.

“As I think about the requirements process, certainly the buckets of time give us an opportunity to think through multi-year processes,” Fenton said. “Two years might see multi-year. I think to all of us, multi-year probably needs to be five-to-10 years so we can move at the speed and evolution of what we’re seeing out on the battlefield.”

Fenton also advocated for consolidating the “colors” of money and compressing multiple funding pots. Within the DOD, funds are divided into separate categories of operations and maintenance, procurement, and research and development, and they must be used only for those purposes, negating flexibility to move around additional allocated funds if needs require more in another pot.

“I think there’s a way to take a lot of that off, compress the multiple lines to just a couple and really modernize there,” Fenton said.

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Gen. Milley hosts Mike Bloomberg to advise military bosses on innovation challenges https://defensescoop.com/2023/05/15/gen-milley-hosts-mike-bloomberg-to-advise-military-bosses-on-innovation-challenges/ https://defensescoop.com/2023/05/15/gen-milley-hosts-mike-bloomberg-to-advise-military-bosses-on-innovation-challenges/#respond Mon, 15 May 2023 20:54:58 +0000 https://defensescoop.com/?p=68157 DefenseScoop was recently briefed on their discussion.

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Senior U.S. military leaders spotlighted the services’ unique near- and long-term technology needs — and the combatant commands’ competing urge to accelerate such deployments — during a meeting with Defense Innovation Board Chair Mike Bloomberg earlier this month that Gen. Mark Milley hosted at the Pentagon. 

The engagement marked the first of two this year that Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, will steer as part of his organization’s semi-annual Strategic Seminar Series. 

“Gen. Milley had all the service chiefs go down the table and talk about their priorities for innovation — really over the next near years and far out,” Col. Dave Butler, Milley’s spokesperson, told DefenseScoop at the Pentagon.

Some elements of the conversation with Bloomberg demonstrated areas where the services and unified combatant commands might be at odds in terms of modern technology deployments.

While the Joint Chiefs must ultimately “train, man and equip” each specific military service, Butler noted, the combatant commands are responsible for carrying out all the military’s regional security operations in defense of the U.S.

“So you have the people, on one side, that are building the force — and you have people, on one side, using the force, right? And there’s an interesting friction there because the services innovate, and they harness new technology, and they build new airplanes and new things on the service timeline as approved by Congress and that long [Defense Department] procurement process. And then the combatant commanders want stuff now because they need it, right? And they need more stuff. The [combatant commander] is asking for more and new and different. And so all the money is with the services and all the execution is with the [commands] — it’s an interesting friction there,” Butler explained.

Later in the conversation with DefenseScoop, Butler noted that “’friction’ is probably a little bit of an overstatement,” when describing the exchange. 

Still, points were made that surprised him.

“The combatant commanders, they were like calling on the services like, ‘Oh, we need this stuff sooner, faster, better.’ I wasn’t really expecting that dynamic — it was interesting,” Butler said.

In the next few months, Milley’s team is getting poised to release a new joint warfighting concept that outlines how the force will fight in future combat. That in-the-works document, Butler suggested, might help address some of the challenges raised by military leaders in that recent meeting.

“When we go to war, we all are side-by-side in all of our different uniforms — interestingly, we don’t innovate enough like that,” Butler said.

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Space Force puzzling out future support for combatant commands https://defensescoop.com/2022/11/22/space-force-puzzling-out-future-support-for-combatant-commands/ Wed, 23 Nov 2022 03:46:58 +0000 https://defensescoop.com/2022/11/22/space-force-puzzling-out-future-support-for-combatant-commands/ A full-scale mission analysis is in the pipeline, a senior Space Force official confirmed.

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With the activation of its first-ever overseas service component for a geographic combatant command, the Space Force still has a lot to flesh out regarding all the ways its personnel will support joint force activities in the Indo-Pacific and other regions in the future, a senior official suggested.

The service announced the establishment of U.S. Space Forces-Indo-Pacific on Tuesday.

“Space Operations Command is our [Space Force] component in the U.S. Space Command, and it’s been that since the day we were established. But this is the first official establishment of a component with those other combatant commands. So in that sense, it’s a big day,” Vice Chief of Space Operations Gen. David Thompson told reporters in a briefing on Tuesday ahead of the Pentagon’s announcement.

At this point, 21 Space Force guardians — a mixture of officers, enlisted and civilians — have been tapped to support the branch’s new service component to U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, he confirmed.

Brig. Gen. Anthony Mastalir, formerly special assistant to the commander of U.S. Space Command’s Combined Force Space Component Command, will lead U.S. Space Forces-Indo-Pacific.

“We were very deliberate in picking Indo-Pacom first,” Thompson noted. “Every day [Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin] reminds us of the pacing challenge — and that’s China.”

“And so we very deliberately chose Indo-Pacom first because we want the nation, the Department of Defense, that combatant command, and anyone who might wish us harm in that region, to understand that that’s what we pay attention to every single day,” he added. 

Austin has also authorized the establishment of additional Space Force service components for U.S. Central Command, U.S. European Command and U.S. forces in South Korea, Thompson said. Those will be established “probably soon within the next year” and “with time the rest will” follow, he added.

“Centcom and Korea will come relatively soon. We’ve got a little bit more coordination and agreement work to do with the countries in Europe before we set up the Eucom component,” he said.

Currently, the Space Force anticipates supplying roughly 10 to 20 guardians for Centcom and Eucom. 

“In fact, one of Gen. Mastalir and his staff’s early task will be to do a full-scale mission analysis to understand how many people do I have today? Is it sufficient? And what other resources might I need? Here’s the mission I’m going to perform. Here’s the resources I needed to perform that mission. And then we’ll have a conversation about, is that enough? Do you need more? Where’s the priority?” Thompson explained.

During the roundtable with reporters, Thompson didn’t go into great detail about the technological implications of this activation. Instead, he reflected broadly on what Space Force-steered capabilities might look like in the Indo-Pacific theater.

“Do you want to navigate with confidence? Do you want to be able to communicate anywhere in the Indo-Pacific?” he said. “Do you want to understand threats, especially from North Korea, and China that might come from ballistic missiles or hypersonics, or other things?”

In the immediate term, none of the guardians supporting Indo-Pacom are specifically dedicated to cyber missions, according to Thompson.

“Today, our cyber professionals and capabilities really reside around what it takes to operate our space systems and what it takes to defend our space systems. And so most of that resides in our continental U.S. forces and systems that are used by U.S. Space Command,” he said. “So we won’t have a significant cyber presence in these [combatant commands] today. It doesn’t mean that once these teams look and do the analysis of the jobs they think they need to do, they might come back and say, ‘We need a few cyber folks.’ That’s certainly a possibility — but today — not yet.”

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SABRE military software tool approaching initial operational capability https://defensescoop.com/2022/04/27/sabre-military-software-tool-approaching-initial-operational-capability%ef%bf%bc/ Wed, 27 Apr 2022 12:15:43 +0000 https://www.fedscoop.com/?p=51081 SABRE will be integrated into the DOD’s Mission Partner Environment.

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A new software tool viewed as a key enabler for U.S. military collaboration with allies and partners is expected to reach initial operational capability in the coming months, according to a top Defense Department IT official.

The software tool, known as the Secret and Below Releasable Environment (SABRE), was designed to facilitate information sharing between the computer networks of the U.S. and other militaries during joint operations, and it will be integrated into the DOD’s Mission Partner Environment.

“The initial operation operational capabilities for what we’re calling SABRE … will be delivered this spring or summer. I think it is the summer. And then we need to continue to work with the combatant commands — [U.S. Indo-Pacific Command] being the first — to be able to start with their implementation paths,” said Danielle Metz, chief information technology strategist in the office of the secretary of defense.

Combatant commands and international partners will need to migrate their mission applications into that environment, she noted during remarks at AFCEA’s TechNet Cyber conference.

The Pentagon’s CIO “needs to ensure that we’re working with the mission partners to be able to refactor and decide how they’re going to move those mission applications into SABRE, because that’s how this is all going to work. It’s not enough just to have the technology. We need to make sure we have mission applications in there, and that the users know how to use it, and that it is all working together,” Metz said.

SABRE will tie into what the Pentagon calls the Mission Partner Environment (MPE), which aims to facilitate collaboration between combatant commands and foreign allies.

“The Mission Partner Environment provides the ability for DOD and mission partners to exchange information with all participants within a specific partnership or coalition, as well as supports commanders’ execution of critical jointwide warfighting functions,” Metz said.

The initiative requires intensive collaboration between the U.S. and partner governments across vast geographic divides, multiple time zones and a diverse technology set, she said.

The Pentagon has struggled with the MPE, she acknowledged.

“The combatant commanders have been screaming for the need to be able to seamlessly be able to collaborate not only internally … but across the mission partners. And that mission partner can mean anything to anybody, depending on where you are located and depending on what that actual mission is. And so, quite frankly, the department has struggled for years to be able to articulate what was meant by Mission Partner Environment and then to be able to transition from a very physically network-centric type environment to a more cloud-based one,” she said.

The Pentagon has been working on the initiative for the past three years. The secretary of the Air Force has been serving as the executive agent, while the DOD CIO is the principal staff adviser working with the office of the undersecretary of defense for intelligence.

“The idea is that we want to be able to blend the intel aspects as well as the [command and control] aspects together in a cloud-based approach,” Metz said.

She added: “I think that we’ve moved along from having a perfect solution, or what we thought would be a perfect solution, and then delivering it to being able to set minimum viable products that we can easily build upon and get that user feedback so that we can improve when and where it’s needed.”

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