The so-called cyber-special operations forces-space triad or “irregular triad,” is a partnership between the three disciplines to deliver capabilities and outcomes greater than the sum of its parts, leveraging the unique access and authorities of each contributor. While officials explained this fusion of capabilities came about in tabletop exercises years ago, the Army began putting it into practice with its relevant components and it’s now making its way to the joint four-star combatant commands.

The strategic environment for the U.S. military is significantly more complex now than it has been in years past, requiring more and different options to deter adversary activity around the globe.

“Some of our adversaries are demonstrating a degree of skill and effectiveness in their employment of irregular warfare that the United States has difficulty matching and the United States has difficulty dealing with,” Mike Nagata, corporate strategic advisor at CACI and a retired three-star general with decades of special operations experience, said Thursday during a panel at the Special Operations Symposium hosted by NDIA. “Many of our competitors and many of our adversaries are adopting modern, powerful digital technologies faster than the United States is. They are not hesitating to use it.”

Experts explained that America’s adversaries have sought to use unconventional, irregular and hybrid tactics as a means of combating the conventional strength of U.S. forces. Much of this is taking place below the threshold of armed conflict.

“Our adversaries, particularly the Chinese but really all of them, are pursuing irregular strategies … It’s a combination of political warfare, economic warfare and irregular warfare. They are pursuing strategies to achieve objectives without having to go to conventional conflict,” said Ken Tovo, president and CEO of DOL Enterprises and a retired three-star general. “Our challenge is, are we ready to play on that field? While we have talked about irregular warfare, and especially in this community for many years, the reality is there’s a lot of things that have actually inhibited our execution of effective irregular warfare strategies around the world to achieve our objectives.”

Current officials explained that the modern triad provides an existing operational concept that is operating currently and can act as a deterrent capability.

“The irregular triad that we’re talking about here is an operational concept,” said Lt. Gen. Richard Angle, commander of Allied Special Operations Forces Command at NATO and Special Operations Command Europe. “It brings together multi-domain capabilities. This concept can, in fact, enable deterrence, because that’s what we’re talking about.”

Officials explained that the three disciplines aren’t as siloed as they may seem, noting inherent integration currently exists.

For example, the Marine Corps and Navy cyber service components to U.S. Cyber Command are also their service components to Space Command. Additionally, Marine Corps Forces Cyberspace Command serves as the coordinating authority for cyber for U.S. Special Operations Command under Cybercom’s Joint Force Headquarters-Cyber enterprise. Similarly, 16th Air Force/Air Forces Cyber, a service cyber component to Cybercom, is the coordinating authority for cyber for U.S. Space Command under its Joint Force Headquarters-Cyber.

“The area that I’ve been most proud of is the fact that we have aggressively taken this from a conceptual discussion to one where we’re doing operational activities together and doing it routinely and how we are able to come together to bring our respective strengths,” Gen. Timothy Haugh, commander of Cybercom, said. “Overall, where we’ve come together has been driven by we can produce better outcomes together in those situations, particularly on really hard problems, and the fact that the initial investments we’ve made to do that have produced outcomes just reinforces the need for us to be able to collaborate in our planning and also in how we approach problems together. Because it gives different options to the secretary than we would have been able to do independently.”

Angle, who also has cyber experience having previously served as deputy commanding general for operations at Army Cyber Command, explained that through deterrence by denial, the triad can make it difficult for adversaries to achieve objectives below the threshold of war.

But, he said, it has to be employed more often if it is to be successful in the future for deterrence, or if deterrence should fail, for managing escalation and crises.

“You need to employ this capability now if you want options later. You can employ it now at low cost, at fairly low risk with potentially high payoffs. By doing so, you can actually lower the risk later because you’re now holding critical adversary capabilities at risk,” Angle said. “The conversation we have to have is here’s also the risk of not taking action. Because if you don’t employ these capabilities, you won’t hold that critical adversary capability at risk when the time comes. We are doing a lot of things inside of this triad, but we have to find a way to do more. We have to find a way to get to the point where we’re doing things and the adversary is reacting to what we’re doing and we’re not reacting to what they’re doing.”

For Haugh, while there have been positive discussions among the relevant stakeholders and good operational applications, he’d like to improve upon what opportunities exist for tighter linkage.

“Today, we have started to put the right pieces in place. Much of what we could also talk about is, when we miss opportunities, why do we miss them? In many of those cases, it’s about the kit that’s available to us at that moment and are we fully using the opportunity for us to be innovative from a technical solution standpoint that fits the timeline of the opportunity of placement and access and the ability to come together around a specific problem,” he said. “I think there’s some things we could talk about what we’re each doing in that area where we could be also more purposeful to be able to fully leverage our respective authorities and how we innovate and how we acquire.”

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The triad consists of a partnership between the unique — and global — capabilities of space, cyber and special operations forces.

“The [Army] chief and the secretary talked about the character of war changing. I would also say the nature of deterrence is changing,” Lt. Gen. Jonathan Braga, commander of Army Special Operations Command, said during a presentation at the annual AUSA conference. “The tools that the adversary is using are changing and we need to stay ahead of the adversaries by converging these three disciplines right here for a larger holistic asymmetric advantage against our adversaries. You better believe our adversaries are investing in these types of capabilities.”

First imagined over a year ago, this partnership began informally to deliver more options to commanders in an integrated fashion. But it has now blossomed into an integrated package with wide joint and international contribution, potentially leading to a formal triad at the four-star combatant command level between Special Operations Command, Space Command and Cyber Command.

“This is not just an Army thing. We’re working on this to really be a thought leader for the joint force, by the convergence of these three different capabilities in front of you,” Braga said.

One of the key pillars of the National Defense Strategy is integrated deterrence. And this modern triad aims to provide options for commanders to deter activity below the threshold of conflict in a manner that likely won’t escalate into actual hostilities.

The traditional triad, in U.S. military parlance, consists of ground-, air- and sea-launched nuclear weapons,

“This triad’s a different triad. Okay, this one’s a modern-day triad. I think it’s baked in irregular warfare and all three of our formations contribute to assuring and coercing … to provide asymmetric, non-attributable options, flexible deterrent [and] flexible response options for the joint force. That’s what we’re trying to do as we experiment here going forward,” Braga said.

The power of the triad, officials say, is it is greater than the sum of its parts.

Army Special Operations Command provides unique access at the tip of the spear for both space capabilities or cyber access. Space and Missile Defense Command provides missile defeat and other unique space capabilities. And Army Cyber Command provides cyber capabilities as well as data analytics to better inform operations of the other two legs.

While Army Special Operations Command is in charge of conducting psychological and information operations, Army Cyber Command can help inform where threats and messages are coming from to inform those efforts.

“What I’m going to tell [Braga] is, where is it coming from, how is it coming, how is it being delivered, who is doing it, is it automated, can we target it depending on what the operation is and what kind of effect we’re trying to have,” Lt. Gen. Maria Barrett, commander of Army Cyber Command, said. “This is at the layer that becomes 1s and 0s at some point and we can give you that feedback in terms of to shape what it is that you’re doing. And this is why this comes together, this threesome comes together really well.”

Officials said they plan to double the amount of experimentation with the triad concept over the next year, advancing the model and techniques to inform future doctrine for operations and the Army warfighting concept for 2030-2040.

Officials described how the synergy between each component has grown extremely close the more they’ve worked together and exercised.

“I call this structured collaboration. It is structured because we do plan what it is that we’re going to be doing in advance and what types of innovation we want to do. There’s a charter between us. We rotate it. Then we are working with the respective theaters in terms of the activities that we’re going to be doing,” Barrett said.

Others noted the “automatic” collaboration.

“Two years ago, if we were doing an exercise and we were doing our mission analysis and running up to the exercise, we never would have thought about how do we organize space, cyber and SOF. Now, it’s automatic,’ Lt. Gen. Daniel Karbler, commander of Army Space and Missile Defense Command, said. “Mission analysis within my team is, hey, how are we leveraging the triad capabilities as part of our mission analysis? How do we leverage that? That is at the forefront now where two years ago, we didn’t think that way necessarily. We might have cobbled it together, but now it’s really a part of the formal mission analysis.”

Last year, the three organizations saw seven events collectively from field experiments to technology exchanges. Over the next year, the goal is to have more than 14.

“That’s led to identifying gaps, capabilities, equipment, TTPs — tactics, techniques, procedures. We’re informing doctrine in our schoolhouse, we’re doing educational exchanges out there. This is happening at the tactical to the strategic level,” Braga said.

Braga noted last year they deployed for the first time a two-star level task force to fit into a combatant command exercise for Pacific Sentry through a Special Operations Joint Task Force contingency.

He also explained they’ll be embedded in the Army’s Project Convergence experimentation.

“A lot of great lessons learned last year, both with our international partners that contributed towards this, that actually provided some unique lessons learned as we integrated them into the Army Project Convergence run by Army Futures Command,” he explained.

Braga also described three key mission threads they sought to game out with 89 partners across interagency, joint and international partners.

The first is multi-domain operational preparation of the environment. This will be critical for enabling operations if a wider conflict breaks out, as accesses and targets need to be developed and identified ahead of time.

Second is enabling network access either from the human dimension, the cyber realm or the space layer.

“All these things we’re talking about still come back to the terrestrial layer where the land force component, the special operations component, the cyber and the space and missile defense component have a nexus there,” Braga said. “It all has to come back down to the Earth and all has to be tied back to a human. [It] provides opportunity for us.”

Third is defeating enemy networks.

“Together, we have an outsized impact against the adversary’s capabilities when you’re talking about their capabilities in SOF, space and cyber, which is why it’s inherent we have to work together, why we’re experimenting together, we’re learning together,” Braga said. “Again, we’re changing it from the form and function of equipment to how we interoperate downrange.”

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Unveiled last year, the Army has begun exercising and demonstrating this concept in which its components pair their unique capabilities that span across the globe to provide integrated packages for commanders.

“The reason we coalesced around the term ‘triad’ because it means so many things. Again, anyone who’s our age or older can remember the … ’60s, ’70s, ’80s — all that of where ‘triad’ just meant so many different things. It meant deterrence theory, it meant the three different legs of the [nuclear] triad, it meant tactics, techniques and procedures, it meant developing actual weapons systems, it meant contributing towards deterrence theory,” Lt. Gen. Jon Braga commander of Army Special Operations Command, said during a presentation at the Space and Missile Defense Symposium on Tuesday.

He continued: “My proposal is that the same thing is needed today in competition … from the modern day triad, because our adversaries are actually using against us to impose doubt and cost and coerce — in some cases, [to] assure their own friendly network, but certainly to deter us from actions.”

Unlike the United States, which has long viewed conflict under the binary states of war and peace, adversaries have viewed it as a continuum seeking to achieve their objectives without firing a shot. As such, America’s competitors have begun to be more active in this gray zone sphere, leveraging non-kinetic capabilities such as cyber, electronic warfare, intelligence, information and influence operations in order to subvert the U.S. and its allies, officials say.

The new modern triad is one way the military has sought to address this paradigm shift and provide commanders additional capabilities to combat adversary activity.

In February, the Joint Staff published a concept for competing in this gray zone or competition space, formally recognizing the Department of Defense is engaged in a competition on a daily basis below the threshold of all-out war or conflict.

Braga noted that from observations in Ukraine, there has been an ongoing game of escalation as new capabilities and offensives are presented.

The capabilities of the triad can help manage escalation and possibly deter actions — either below the threshold of conflict or during conflict — or prevent situations from getting worse, he suggested.

“When you bring on a new piece of equipment, a new weapon system, a new technique, it’s a question every time for policymakers: ‘Are you contributing towards escalation or towards deterrence?’” he said. “We have to be better at developing those capabilities for the policymakers and being able to deliver on those effects in order to make informed decisions that we look at a larger contribution to actually strategic deterrence there.”

Braga is concerned about not only winning potential high-end conflicts, but also preventing them from breaking out in the first place.

“That’s what’s before us,” he said. “I really think the weight of that burden, while not 100% on the legs of the triad, we certainly have a major role to play in that, an outsized ability to influence and prevent and contribute towards deterrence in this modern day triad.”

For a real-world example of how these capabilities have demonstrated tangible results, Braga pointed to Ukraine.

“Jump forward to Ukraine and look at everything from one-way attack drones to the use of satellite communications to help assist with deep sensing, the use of cyber effects, … information ops,” he said. “Sixteen-thousand Russian soldiers have deserted, 16,000 have been taken off the battlefield without having to expend kinetic rounds. That’s by a combination of effects, delivery effects, I would suggest, that have been assisted by space capability, cyber capability, human capability and just old-school information operations there. That’s a dramatic effect. That has few comparisons even dating back to some old information ops in our World War II chapters when we worked very closely with our Brit partners there.”

Others have noted that the capabilities the triad can provide to commanders and policymakers will present new and more complex problems to adversaries.

“When confronted with a constantly changing situation, then our leaders can employ the triad to create new combinations of capabilities, methods and effects to pose new dilemmas for the adversaries,” Lt. Gen. Daniel Karbler, commander of Army Space and Missile Defense Command, said. “The triad is valuable in competition as commanders have to consider the possibility that overt military action may escalate towards armed conflict … The combined use of space, cyber and SOF capabilities provides other options to commanders that are less likely to cause escalation. Triad capabilities can provide commanders with options to defeat, destroy, disrupt, or manipulate energy networks, information and decision-making.”

Karbler noted that the triad has advanced beyond concept and the Army’s components have been exercising it and developing tactics.

“When you look at what the triad demonstrates and its ability to integrate, synchronize space, cyber, SOF capabilities at the most effective tactical echelon, and then it expands options for creating advantages to exploit — that’s what commanders are looking for. That’s what our ground commanders [are] looking for. That’s what the joint force is looking for,” he said.

At the four-star, joint combatant command level, U.S. Special Operations Command has begun to take note of what the Army components have done and is examining it to see if it applies to its mission.

The other services haven’t exactly created a formalized “triad” to date, though officials pointed to the fact that Marine Corps Forces Cyberspace Command also serves as the service’s space component. It also conducts cyber operations for Socom through its responsibilities to U.S. Cyber Command under what’s known as Joint Force Headquarters-Cyber Marines.

For its part, the Navy’s 10^th Fleet/Fleet Cyber Command is also the service component for space as well, taking an integrated approach to cyber and space capabilities.

Non-kinetic capabilities can help provide commanders a greater understanding of the battlespace to make more informed decisions.

“One of the biggest things that I think from my perspective, when I’m thinking about the competition sphere, is what can I produce for Gen. Braga and Gen. Karbler in terms of situational understanding of what the environment might look like,” Lt. Gen. Maria Barrett, commander of Army Cyber Command, said. “It could be the cyberspace environment, it could be the electronic warfare environment, it could be the information operations environment.”

Conversely, those leaders could bring their insights to Army Cyber, which through its big data platform can make sense of the information from sensors and data sources.

“If you’ve got a big data platform that can do things at a classified and unclassified level and I can take things off of sensors that … produce something that is then layered and makes sense, now you have an understanding of what is happening in the competition space at a level that maybe previously you did not have,” Barrett said. “That sets the conditions for delivering effects in crisis and conflict.”

While there aren’t any overt examples from the U.S. side of the triad’s uses or successes, likely given the classified nature of these operations and capabilities, Barrett noted that she’s seen practical examples within Central Command.

Officials noted that each component of the triad won’t always be featured equally. Depending on the situation or problem, it could be one or two that play a bigger role.

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Officials have described this modern-age triad as a key aspect to integrated deterrence — a major pillar of the Biden administration’s national defense strategy — focused on combating malign adversary activity occurring on a daily basis. The U.S. military term “triad” has traditionally been a reference to the three legs of the nation’s nuclear forces, which consist of bombers, intercontinental ballistic missiles and ballistic missile submarines.

Army officials with Army Cyber Command, Army Special Operations Command and Army Space and Missile Defense Command first unveiled the new triad concept in August 2022 and described it as combining each of their unique capabilities to provide better and more integrated options to policymakers.

Now, the joint combatant commands are beginning to look at how this partnership can apply across their areas of responsibility.

U.S. Special Operations Command “has been reviewing the work U.S. Army Special Operations Command is doing with Army Space and Cyber Commands to determine which elements they have developed have applicability at the combatant command level to ensure the entire Joint Force maximizes the SOF/Space/Cyber triad’s capabilities,” a Socom spokesperson told DefenseScoop.

This informal relationship of synching and integrating the capabilities of these three organizations stems from their global reach.

“At its heart is the ability to converge those capabilities, the SOF placement and access, the cyber work and certainly the space work in places for integrated deterrence effects that we would otherwise not get if we were doing it individually, and bringing certainly a bigger sum back to not only the mission, but any partner we’re working with,” Gen. Bryan Fenton, the commander of Socom, told senators in March.

Fenton noted the ties that exist between Socom and U.S. Cyber Command and said the organizations are looking at experimenting to advance the partnership.

“We’ve got a very close relationship with Gen. [Paul] Nakasone and Cybercom and it’s progressed into an area that we now call a capability: SOF, space, cyber triad,” Fenton said during a March hearing. “That’s been an incredible effort alongside Gen. Nakasone’s team. We’re very grateful for that and also in the [U.S. Space Command] arena. We are moving forward with exercises, experimentation, a number of senior leader huddles, and I think you’ll see that progress and we’d be happy to talk about the progress.”

Special operations forces are also at an inflection point of sorts. Following the heavy reliance on these troops during the global war on terror, many inside and outside the Pentagon have openly wondered what role they’ll play in the so-called great power competition with China.

Moreover, there have been talks of cutting SOF due to budgetary restrictions.

Some have noted that greater partnership — such as the triad — is a way to ensure the importance of these elite troops and thus negate cuts some find counterproductive.

“Special operations forces are our nation’s premiere force during peacetime and war. In the face of recruiting challenges for our military and growing threats around the world, cuts to SOF are not the answer,” Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, said in a statement. “We should be increasing greater cooperation between Special Operations Command, Space Command, and Cyber Command to prevent conflict and protect the homeland. With the shift to peer competition, this integration will help us operate more effectively in the information domain.”

Ernst added that as ranking member of the Senate Armed Services Subcommittee on Emerging Threats and Capabilities, she will ensure cuts to SOF won’t risk operational security or pose a threat to missions, noting that the U.S. “must be prepared to take on the risks of the 21st century and deter aggression in the face of great power, and that means we need a fully operational SOF.”

Spacecom and Cybercom deferred to Socom regarding this triad, but pointed out the strong relationship they have with one another.

“U.S. Space Command contributes to integrated deterrence by preserving freedom of action in space and by providing critical support to the rest of the Joint Force. Our mission spans the spectrum of conflict and every domain. For example, we are creating concepts to further integrate space, cyber, and special operations to generate asymmetrical advantages around the globe,” Gen. James Dickinson, commander of Spacecom, told lawmakers in March.

The nominee to be the next Cybercom commander at his July confirmation hearing noted the “strategic competitive advantages” each of these combatant commands brings to the table.

“It offers us an opportunity to look at where each of us can come together to work in support of a geographic combatant commander’s needs and be able to do that more effectively together,” Lt. Gen. Timothy Haugh told senators. “We’re looking for what are those hard requirements that a geographic combatant commander needs, and those are the areas that we’re focused on. How do we work together to achieve something that would have been more difficult independently, but when we partner with unique strengths of Special Operations Command and Socom components, with what our cyber mission force brings, that capacity tied together our goals to satisfy hard problems for the geographic combatant commands.”

Haugh, as well as Army officials, have noted that special operations forces provide Cybercom’s forces placement and access, which alludes to the notion that these forces are forward deployed in austere locations and provide proximal plug-ins to targets that Cybercom can then attack.

He also explained that when he was the commander for Cybercom’s Air Force component that oversaw cyber operations for U.S. European Command — from October 2019 to August 2022 — they were working with Special Operations Command Europe every day on meeting needs of the Eucom commander.

From a space perspective, Haugh described the relationship between Cybercom, Spacecom and the Space Force as “inextricable” when it comes to supporting the joint force.

“When we think about what those challenges are and we think about the resiliency that is going to be required, as we think about what potential future conflict could look like, how do we ensure both a redundant set of communications? Much of that is going to be built on space,” he said.

At the Army level thus far, officials have said there isn’t a desired end state for the time being. The immediate focus has been synchronizing and converging the capabilities of each organization to create an effect and delivering outcomes.

According to an article by three active-duty Army officers, an emerging partnership between special operations forces and cyber forces involving data integration and information capabilities has “demonstrated the value of the larger ‘Space, Cyber, and SOF Triad.’”

“Within three weeks of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the combined SOF-cyber team developed seven new analytic approaches (including two new deep learning models and three new network science models) to support the unique requirements of the information dimension in Eastern Europe,” the officials wrote. “In addition to the seven models, the team also relied upon existing models that the team had already developed and deployed, including machine learning, network science, natural language processing, and image-analysis models and visualizations. These models were deployed into production in custom machine-learning pipelines and atop the unified SOF-cyber data to feed a daily product automatically produced and distributed to relevant Army, Joint, and SOF commands in Europe.”

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“Secretary [Christine] Wormuth said the No. 1 thing, the No. 1 thing the Army of 2030 needs to do is to see more, faster, farther and more consistently at every echelon than our adversaries,” Lt. Gen. Jonathan Braga, commander of Army Special Operations Command, said at the annual AUSA convention earlier this week. “The cyber, space, [Special Operations Forces] triad does exactly this by providing the joint force with the enhanced capability to rapidly see, sense, stimulate, strike, assess and effect across the spectrum from integrated deterrence during competition to high-end conflict.”

The U.S. nuclear triad — which consists of bombers, intercontinental ballistic missiles and ballistic missile submarines — that emerged during the Cold War era was geared toward strategic deterrence. The Army’s new modern triad is aimed more at contesting malign adversary activity occurring on a daily basis by integrating and converging the unique capabilities of each component.

Braga said the modern triad isn’t meant to replace the nuclear one, but rather, enhance integrated deterrence — a key pillar of the Biden administration’s national defense strategy — by providing more options for policymakers.

“It is our professional responsibility to provide our best military advice to policymakers that would contribute to deterrence perhaps in a different way,” he said. “Cyber, space and SOF all possess … unique but independent capabilities. Each component can rapidly gain intelligence, attack critical vulnerabilities. And we must leverage all of these components in order to impose doubt, cost … upon our adversaries.”

What is less clear is, however, is how these capabilities will be integrated and provided to joint commanders when needed.

“I would say that’s part of the experimentation,” Braga told reporters when asked what this triad looks like in practice and how it integrates its capabilities on the battlefield for commanders. “Right now we have SOF, space and cyber working side by side. We’ve done this recently, physically co-located in Fort Bragg. We’re physically working together in support [of] Project Convergence as well and have been doing that the last year. And then there’s other exercises that we’ve been doing … I’d say it’s been both episodic and then we’ve been growing in physical co-location of different entities.”

Others explained that it depends on the mission.

“If you’re doing Project Convergence, you’re going to be out at their ops center. If we’re supporting one of [Braga’s] operations, we’re going to be co-located at Fort Bragg,” Lt. Gen. Maria Barrett, commander of Army Cyber Command, told reporters.

Project Convergence is the Army’s campaign of learning that is intended to facilitate Joint All-Domain Command and Control (JADC2).

The Army’s new multi-domain operations doctrine, which was officially unveiled this week, directs the service to combine and integrate land, air, maritime, space and cyber in all facets of operations.

Officials also explained that given each entity of the triad is essentially global and works for global combatant commands, they are joint by nature and must work across services and interagency, which is especially important in the cyber realm.

While Army Cyber Command provides high-end cyber operators to conduct operations on behalf of U.S. Cyber Command, it only is responsible for conducting those ops for a select number of combatant commands — Central Command, Africa Command and Northern Command.

Offensive cyber capabilities are conducted on behalf of Cybercom through what’s known as Joint Force Headquarters-Cyber. These entities provide planning, targeting, intelligence and other cyber capabilities to the combatant commands to which they’re assigned. The heads of the four service cyber components also lead their respective JFHQ-C. These organizations oversee combat mission teams and combat support teams.

Army Cyber does, however, provide tactically focused cyber and electronic warfare personnel globally through the 915^th Cyber Warfare Battalion that conducts more proximal radio-frequency types of operations, and has global control and oversight of the Army’s portion of the Department of Defense Information Network.

When it comes to the unique capabilities each component of the triad provides, leaders described how SOF provides irregular warfare, Army Cyber provides increased awareness and intelligence to the network along with integrated cyber, electronic warfare and influence packages, while Space and Missile Defense Command provides space capabilities and intelligence at the theater level.

Army Special Operations Command is creating a two-star headquarters at 1^st Special Forces Command on irregular warfare, transforming headquarters elements to converge on adversaries. Additionally, 1^st Special Forces Command is experimenting with a deployable two-star special operations joint task force headquarters to better interoperate with the joint force during high-end conflict. Exercises are slated for next summer in the Indo-Pacific, Braga said.

Meanwhile, Army Cyber Command provides insight to commanders on what their battlespace looks like from a digital perspective.

“How well are your networks responding, what does the attack surface look like, what does the influence sphere look like, what are the trends that the adversary is doing in that information sphere, and so on and so forth,” Barrett said. “What I really think Army Cyber delivers are some comparative advantages of a few key areas … There is a track record of integrating cyber, EW and influence operations. We’ve done it before. Now we can deliver this to my partners over here having the reps and sets of doing that.”

Space and Missile Defense Command assists with space-based intelligence.

“When integrated with SOF and cyber, whether that’s the accesses that each of those commanders can provide us, whether it’s space capabilities that I’m going to provide them, it’s going to have a deterrent effect on the adversary and it will provide non-lethal effects to our adversaries,” Lt. Gen. Daniel Karbler, commander of Space and Missile Defense Command, said. “When we talk about active campaigning, we look at what we’re also able to provide intel support to space, provide that information, whether it’s to SOF or whether it’s to cyber or whether it’s to supported commander.”

Moreover, by integrating capabilities, units that deploy forward can help provide additional intelligence and access needed for another unit, creating a more holistic and even symbiotic relationship with increased capability for commanders, officials say.

“There are some places that they go that maybe I can’t get to. This is where I would say, ‘Hey, can you get me close to something so that I can do X, Y and Z?’” Barrett said. “They offer me a positional advantage and then can I let then see the environment in a way then perhaps they were not able to do — or if they’re downrange and a special operator perhaps doesn’t have the time to take a look at all the data that we’re seeing, can I offer him something very fast and very informative to his team’s decision-making that might inform their operations?”

When pressed to provide specific examples of how the triad has performed, officials declined to offer a recent example — likely for classification reasons — but referenced the counter-ISIS fight during the mid-2010s.

Joint Task Force Ares was part of the campaign in which Cybercom sought to not only attack ISIS through cyberspace, but also to integrate cyber effects into battlefield operations.

“We combined lethal and non-lethal effects for much, much more of a holistic effect that provided the gains on the ground in the physical domain, but it also provided gains in the information domain that both Cyber Command was able to do with non-lethal means. And then there were some kinetic means that were put into effect for exponentially more impact and actually had an even larger impact than any of us actually expected and predicted before we went down that journey together,” Braga said.

“That’s really informed a lot of my thinking going forward,” he added. “Combining [cyber capabilities] with actions to the maneuver force on the ground, I think this really was groundbreaking for leading a lot of different thoughts for how the maneuver force could actually employ this in combined arms maneuver and in a very kinetic fight. But combining those two together I think has shaped a lot of thought moving forward.”

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