Since Cybercom was created a decade ago, it has been co-located with NSA at Fort Meade, Maryland, and shared a leader. At the time, this made sense to help the nascent command grow, relying on the personnel, expertise and infrastructure of the high-tech intelligence agency. The arrangement was initially expected to be temporary.

Severing the dual-hat has been one of the most hotly contested issues in cyber policy. Proponents believe the military can benefit from the unique intelligence insights and resources of NSA, leading to faster decision-making and operational outcomes. Opponents argue the roles of NSA director and Cybercom commander are too powerful for one person to hold and relying on the intelligence community’s tools — which are meant to stay undetected — for military activities poses risks to such espionage activity.

At the end of the first Trump administration, officials made a last ditch effort to sever the dual-hat, but it ultimately was not brought to fruition. Press reports prior to Trump’s inauguration for his second term indicated the administration wanted to end the dual-hat relationship.

There “is renewed speculation about the separation of the ‘dual-hat’ relationship between Cybecom and NSA, a construct that proves its value to our national security every minute of every day. This issue has been studied exhaustively but somehow there are still those who believe they know better,” Rep. Don Bacon, R-Neb., chairman of the House Armed Services Subcommittee on Cyber, Innovative Technologies and Information Systems, said in opening remarks during a hearing Friday. “I’ve spoken to my colleagues on this panel and our friends in the Senate, and on a bipartisan and bicameral basis, the Armed Services Committees are strongly opposed to ending the dual-hat relationship. I want to take this opportunity to make very clear to the Department’s leadership that if they believe they have allies on this issue who sit on the Pentagon’s congressional oversight panels, they do not.” 

Following the firing of Cybercom commander Gen. Timothy Haugh at the beginning of April, there was a feeling that the dismissal prepped the ground to split the dual-hat by nominating a civilian to lead NSA and a military officer to lead the command.

Bacon’s sentiment was shared by the subcommittee’s ranking member, Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., on Friday.

“Let me reaffirm what you said about keeping our Cyber Command and NSA together. That is a bipartisan position, that is a position that we have discussed many times now, and people on this side of the aisle support you in that. It’s bicameral, it’s bipartisan. And you know, I just want to make that clear, because it keeps coming up and … because the support in the Congress is very strong for keeping the — those two departments together,” Khanna said at the hearing.

The issue was addressed on the Senate side over a month ago as well, with Sen. Mike Rounds, R-S.D., voicing support for the current arrangement.

“In wake of the various persistent cyber threats originating from the People’s Republic of China over the last two years, it is my firm conclusion that the importance of the dual-hat is as important today as it has ever been,” Rounds, chairman of the panel’s Cybersecurity Subcommittee, said during an April 9 hearing.

At that hearing, Lt. Gen. William Hartman, acting commander of Cybercom and director of NSA, told Rounds that the relationship between the two organizations allows the command to see what the adversary is doing.

“From my standpoint and senator, I’ve been sitting on the campus of the National Security Agency and Cybercom for most of the last 15 years. I’ve continued to see this partnership evolve. And our ability to execute increasingly more precise operations is fundamentally because the dual-hat allows me, in my current capacity, to move with the speed and agility and unity of effort that is required,” he said. “But it also forces leaders across the organization to collaborate, to do the hard work and to provide the best options for the national security of the country. That’s what I believe is the importance of the dual-hat, and that is really where I believe we’ve evolved.”

Concerned with the prospect of a premature split, in which Cybercom would not be ready to stand on its own, Congress has previously issued a prohibition on a breakup in leadership until certain metrics are met. They include, among others, that each organization have robust command-and-control systems for planning, deconflicting and executing military cyber operations and national intelligence operations — as well as ensuring tools and weapons used in cyber ops are sufficient for achieving required effects and that Cyber Command can acquire or develop these tools, weapons and accesses.

Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told lawmakers at his confirmation hearing for the role in April that he believes the dual-hat should be maintained, agreeing with the findings of a 2022 study that found the role should be strengthened as well.

“The Dual-Hat arrangement provides the ability to look across both organizations and has empowered both USCYBERCOM and NSA to fulfill their missions better than each could do alone. It promotes agility and enables intelligence to be operationalized rapidly,” he wrote in response to advance policy questions from senators. “It also facilitates relationships with key foreign allies and partners in part because the corresponding foreign organizations with signals intelligence (SIGINT) and cyber operations missions are fully integrated, operating under a Dual-Hat leadership structure. The span of control, does however, place a burden on one leader.”

Ahead of his own confirmation hearing in January, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth wrote to senators that he would “bring these debates to conclusion, consult with Congress, and make final recommendation for the way ahead.”

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Communist China is especially dangerous because, unlike other adversaries, it is able to compete with and potentially surpass the United States economically. Many of my colleagues in Congress have appropriately pointed out the urgency with which the United States needs to modernize our economy with the most state-of-the-art technology, a key component of which is building out a robust 5G telecommunications infrastructure. Information flow is increasingly central to our highly digitized economy, and the importance of a modern, optimized 5G telecommunications network is vital. I agree with my colleagues that we need to dominate next-generation wireless technologies to stay ahead of our adversaries and advance strong economic growth. Economic power is military power — just ask the totalitarian adversaries the United States has left on the dust heap of history.

You will find no disagreement in the halls of Congress on the importance of building out America’s 5G infrastructure. Many are frustrated with the slow pace at which the Federal Communications Commission and Congress have been moving to restore spectrum auction authority and open up more spectrum bands for commercial use. Unfortunately, when it comes to how to reach that goal, some are willing to sell Department of Defense (DOD) capabilities for short term economic gain. This would be just as disastrous to our national security in the long run as not developing our 5G networks. 

Many of our military’s most important radar systems operate on the 3.1-3.45 gigahertz (GHz) band of the spectrum, referred to as the lower-3 band. These radars are essential to homeland defense missions and protecting our troops overseas. Right now, Arleigh Burke-class destroyers are conducting missile defense missions off the coasts of the United States and protecting our deployed forces in the Red Sea against sophisticated Houthi missile and drone attacks. The Navy’s Aegis Combat System relies heavily on the lower-3 band, using radars to track threats and guide weapons to targets. Forcing the DOD to vacate or share those portions of the spectrum would cost taxpayers dearly — the Navy alone estimates that it would cost them $250 billion to migrate their systems to other bands of the spectrum, and that would take time we do not have with the looming threat of a belligerent Communist China.

Furthermore, on January 27, 2025, President Trump issued a potentially game changing Executive Order directing the DOD to develop and build an “Iron Dome Missile Defense Shield for America.” Before the Senate Armed Services Committee this month, General Guillot, the Commander of Northern Command charged with protecting our homeland, confirmed that NORTHCOM needs unfettered access to portions of the spectrum, and that any Iron Dome for America concept is dead on arrival if the DOD has to vacate the lower-3 band and other crucial portions of the spectrum. In short, the binary choice many in the telecommunications industry are lobbying Congress to make would kill President Trump’s Iron Dome for America and continue to leave the U.S. homeland exposed to an array of long-range strike threats ranging from intercontinental ballistic missiles to cruise missiles to hypersonic weapons. The American people should not accept this. I agree with President Trump’s vision, and therefore want to safeguard the DOD spectrum necessary for developing and deploying an Iron Dome for America, ranging from point defense up to a space-based layer.

Advocates for restricting DOD’s use of the lower-3 band or portions of the 7 and 8 GHz band of spectrum argue that Communist China has been willing to build out some of their 5G infrastructure on those bands. However, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) can arbitrarily turn off or blow out commercial use and infrastructure of any portion of the spectrum whenever they want with no recourse for civilian users, and provide their military primacy in spectrum use. Certainly, that is not a situation the U.S. telecommunications industry is interested in.

The telecommunications industry should abandon its quest to restrict the DOD’s use of the lower-3 band or require it to share all or a portion of the band — a course of action which would materially damage the national security of the United States. The DOD has developed exquisite radars on this portion of the spectrum precisely because of the unique physics there which enable them to function so effectively. There is a reason the CCP is actively advocating that other countries around the world build out their 5G infrastructure on the lower-3 band. It is to limit the capabilities of our most capable radars.

The twofold path forward must be (1) an aggressive pursuit of spectrum sharing technology for use throughout the spectrum (not just the critical lower-3 band), and (2) a thorough and candid assessment of what portion, if any, of the 7 and 8 GHz band of spectrum can be auctioned off to industry without harming national security. From there, Congress can give the spectrum auction authority necessary. This should happen quickly as 5G expansion remains a priority.  

As the United States engages in this competition with Communist China with a renewed vigor under the Trump administration, it is imperative that we not trade national security for economic prosperity. Now is not the time to degrade our military capabilities, especially those capabilities needed to defend our homeland from attack. We never want to send our troops into a fair fight. We want to give them every possible advantage to prevail with minimum losses. That includes crucial bands of the electromagnetic spectrum. I look forward to working with my colleagues to find a solution to the ever-increasing demand for spectrum usage, while acknowledging our need to restrict certain portions for national security.

Sen. Mike Rounds, R-S.D., is a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, chair of the SASC Subcommittee on Cybersecurity, and also serves on the SASC Subcommittee on Emerging Threats and Capabilities and the SASC Subcommittee on Strategic Forces.

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They did so at an invite-only summit hosted on the Hill by the non-partisan UAP Disclosure Fund, on the heels of the House Oversight and Accountability Committee’s latest hearing on the issue earlier that day. This marked the first time in history that an advocacy group explicitly focused on the formerly more taboo topic of UAP has ever hosted an event inside the Capitol, those leading it said.

“The U.S. government has not been transparent enough about what it knows. UAP transparency is a marathon. It took many decades to result in the status quo of over-classification, and it will likely take time to find the right balance between protecting our national security and an acceptable level of disclosure,” Sen. Mike Rounds, R-S.D., noted.

Humans have long speculated about seemingly unexplainable objects that appear to do things that transcend the capabilities of modern technology — from flying saucers to modern and transmedium UAP.

The Pentagon’s secretive and complicated history grappling with this issue spans decades. 

“For many years, I was entrusted with protecting some of our nation’s most sensitive programs,” Lue Elizondo, a former intelligence officer who was involved in a now disbanded Pentagon task force studying sky-based anomalies, said during his testimony at the briefing.

“Let me be clear: UAP are real. Advanced technologies not made by our government — or any other government — are monitoring sensitive military installations around the globe. Furthermore, the U.S. is in possession of UAP technologies, as are some of our adversaries. I believe we are in the midst of a multi-decade secretive arms race, one funded by misallocated taxpayer dollars and hidden from our elected representatives and oversight bodies,” Elizondo, who recently published a New York Times bestseller about his experience, testified.

Pentagon officials have maintained that they’ve found no credible evidence thus far of non-human or extraterrestrial activity.

In direct response to mounting public pressure over recent years, via the fiscal 2022 National Defense Authorization Act, Congress mandated the Defense Department to set up its latest UAP investigation team known as the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO).

During the hearing on Wednesday, multiple lawmakers suggested the office’s ongoing pursuits, as Rep. Nancy Mace, R-S.C., put it, have “stoked suspicions that AARO is unable, or perhaps unwilling, to bring forward the truth about the government’s activities concerning UAPs.”

“I’m disturbed that AARO itself lacks transparency — even its budget is kept from the public. So if there is no ‘there’ there, then why are we spending money on it? And how much? Why the secrecy? If it’s really no big deal and there’s nothing there, why hide it from the American people?” Mace said. 

Throughout the hearing, lawmakers and witnesses spotlighted examples that they said demonstrate a clear lack of DOD transparency, and the need for even greater oversight.

“While I applaud previous bipartisan legislation passed by Congress concerning UAPs, a more comprehensive approach is needed to address the broader implication of UAP on public safety and national security, as well as the socio-economic opportunities that open UAP research could unlock,” retired Navy Rear Adm. Tim Gallaudet said.

At the UAP Disclosure Fund’s event Wednesday night, Gallaudet doubled down on these claims alongside Elizondo. They were joined by dozens of stakeholders, lawmakers and others in the audience.

“UAP, UFOs are real and they’re interacting with humanity. And we know this without a doubt. Not only that, but there’s some significant implications and effects. We know that there are national security impacts,” Gallaudet, who among other leadership roles previously served as the U.S. Navy’s top oceanographer, said.

Also during the UAPDF event, lawmakers representing both chambers committed to pushing existing proposals and introducing new legislation to enable UAP disclosure and confront the risks such phenomena poses to U.S. national security and public safety.

Sen. Rounds said he’s moving to partner with “colleagues on both sides of the aisle” to re-introduce and enact a law that would establish an official board of officials to comprehensively review federal UAP records and revamp the associated declassification process.

After speaking onstage at the engagement, Rep. Eric Burlison, R-Mo., told DefenseScoop that while he was hoping for another “whistleblower to come forward to testify” on Wednesday, he was pleased with some of the materials submitted and released to the congressional record, via the hearing.

“Usually we’re blocked from even getting access to documents,” Burlison said. 

“And I think the next step is going to be to get [whistleblowers including Elizondo and former federal civilian David Grusch], and to get people from AARO and some other people from the Department of Defense in a SCIF — and let’s see where the truth really is,” he added, using an acronym to refer to a secure compartmented information facility.

Burlison also acknowledged his aims to support some of the latest House legislation that he said would “force UAP disclosure,”and was put forward by Rep. Tim Burchett, R-Tenn. 

One of the most vocal contemporary congressional advocates for UAP oversight across government agencies, Burchett introduced the UAP Transparency Act in May. Shortly before the hearing this week, he put forward the UAP Whistleblower Protection Act.

“Our people really like that [sort of legislation]. So I’m hoping to get more of that kind of thing [put forward]. But I’m very hopeful [incoming President-elect Donald] Trump will come forth with this information and quit trusting people at the Pentagon to tell him the right answer,” Burchett told DefenseScoop. 

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