A revised version of Joint Publication 3-12 Cyberspace Operations — published in December 2022 and while unclassified, is only available to those with DoD common access cards, according to a Joint Staff spokesperson — officially provides a definition for “expeditionary cyberspace operations,” which are “[c]yberspace operations that require the deployment of cyberspace forces within the physical domains.”

DefenseScoop has seen a copy of the updated publication.

The last version was published in 2018 and was publicly available. The Joint Staff spokesman noted that five years has been the norm for updates.

The definition, recognition and discussion of such operations are indicative of not only the maturity of cyberspace and associated operations, but the need for more tactical capabilities to get at targets that the current cyber force might not be able to access.

U.S. Cyber Command owns the offensive cyber capabilities within DOD, and the services conduct offensive cyber ops through Cybercom and the cyber mission forces that each service provides to the command. Authorities to launch cyber effects have traditionally been held at the highest levels of government. In recent years, those authorities have been streamlined and delegated. However, most cyber operations are still conducted from remote locations by the cyber mission force (CMF) and primarily focused on IP-based networks.

Many of the services have begun investing in capabilities and forces for their own offensive cyber, however, that is mostly in the blended electronic warfare or radio frequency-enabled sphere at the tactical level.

The updated doctrine recognizes that these capabilities, which will still have to be coordinated centrally, could provide access to targets that remote operators might not be able to get for a variety of reasons.

“Developing access to targets in or through cyberspace follows a process that can often take significant time. In some cases, remote access is not possible or preferable, and close proximity may be required, using expeditionary [cyber operations],” the joint publication states. “Such operations are key to addressing the challenge of closed networks and other systems that are virtually isolated. Expeditionary CO are often more regionally and tactically focused and can include units of the CMF or special operations forces … If direct access to the target is unavailable or undesired, sometimes a similar or partial effect can be created by indirect access using a related target that has higher-order effects on the desired target.”

It also notes that these effects and operations should be coordinated with the intelligence community to deconflict intelligence gain/loss.

Moreover, the updated doctrine recognizes the complexity of cyberspace and how in-demand cyber capabilities might be. Thus, global cyber support might need to “reach-forward” to support multiple combatant commands simultaneously.

“Allowing them to support [combatant commands] in this way permits faster adaptation to rapidly changing needs and allows threats that initially manifest only in one [area of responsibility] to be mitigated globally in near real time. Likewise, while synchronizing CO missions related to achieving [combatant commander] objectives, some cyberspace capabilities that support this activity may need to be forward-deployed; used in multiple AORs simultaneously; or, for speed in time-critical situations, made available via reachback,” it states. “This might involve augmentation or deployment of cyberspace capabilities to forces already forward or require expeditionary CO by deployment of a fully equipped team of personnel and capabilities.”

When it comes to internalizing the new doctrine, the Air Force sees this as additional access points for operations.

“How do we leverage folks that are and forces that are at the tactical edge for access? That’s primarily how I think about the expeditionary capabilities we have … is empowering or enabling the effect they’re trying to create or using their access or position physically, to help enable some of our effects,” Lt. Gen. Kevin Kennedy, commander of 16^th Air Force/Air Forces Cyber, told DefenseScoop at the AFCEA TechNet Cyber conference.

He noted that these access-enabling capabilities could be across the services, but primarily from an Air Force perspective, “I’m looking at looking within the Air Force, from aerial platforms down to ground-based airmen, as well about how we would do that,” he said.

Officials have described how the services are seeking to build their own forces separate from Cybercom.

“There was a lot of language that came out the [National Defense Authorization Act] that talked about force design in general. All the services to one degree or another are really — I’m not going to say rethinking — but evaluating what their contribution to the joint force is, as well as what their own … service-retained cyber teams are,” Chris Cleary, principal cyber advisor for the Department of Navy, told DefenseScoop at the AFCEA conference.

Last year’s NDAA directed the Pentagon to develop a strategy for converged cyber and electronic warfare conducted by deployed military and intelligence assets, specifically for service-retained assets.

As electronic warfare and cyber capabilities are expected to be a big part of the battlefield in 2030 — a key waypoint the Army has been building toward — it recognizes those capabilities can’t be held from remote sanctuary, Maj. Gen. Paul Stanton, commander of the Army Cyber Center of Excellence, told DefenseScoop in an interview on the sidelines of the AFCEA conference.

In fact, the Army’s principal cyber adviser has tasked the Cyber Center of Excellence with clarifying certain authorities and capabilities.

“How do you execute electronic attack to achieve effects? How do you differentiate a cyber-delivered capability that benefits from proximity based on owning the land, owning the ground?Because that’s what the Army does. The principal cyber advisor, Dr. [Michael] Sulmeyer is tasking me with conducting a study to clearly define and delineate where those lines are,” Stanton said. “This study is going to help us be able to clearly define that. I expect to be tasked to kick that off here in the very near future with about 90 days to complete.”

When it comes to service-retained forces and capabilities, the Army has built the 11^th Cyber Battalion, formerly the 915^th Cyber Warfare Battalion, which provides tactical, on-the-ground cyber operations — mostly through radio-frequency effects — electronic warfare and information ops. The unit will help plan tactical operations for commanders and conduct missions in coordination with deployed forces. It consists of several expeditionary cyber and electromagnetic activities (CEMA) teams that are scalable and will maneuver with units and conduct operations on the ground for commanders.

The Navy, meanwhile, is building what it’s calling non-kinetic effects teams, which will augment afloat forces with critical information warfare capabilities. Cleary has previously noted that the service is still working through what cyber ops at sea will look like.

“As we continue to professionalize this, [information warfare commanders within carrier strike groups] will become more and more important as it fully combines all aspects of the information warfare space, the electromagnetic spectrum, command and control of networks, eventually potentially offensive cyber being delivered from sea, information operations campaigns,” Cleary said.

“That job will mature over time, and then the trick is to get the Navy and the Marine Corps to work together because we are back to our roots of being an expeditionary force. Even the Marines through [Commandant] Gen. [David] Berger’s new force design is really about getting the Marines back to being what the Marines were designed to be, which is an expeditionary fighting force that goes to sea with the Navy. We work together to achieve our objectives as a team, and we’re getting back to our blocking [and] tackling them.”

For the Marine Corps’ part, officials have been building Marine Expeditionary Force Information Groups (MIGs), which were created in 2017 and support each MEF within the Corps, integrate electronic warfare with intelligence, communications, military information support operations, space, cyber and communication strategy — all to provide MEF commanders with an information advantage.

The service has also recently established Marine Corps Information Command (MCIC), which was designed to more tightly link the service’s information forces — including cyber, intelligence and space — in theater with the broader joint force across the globe.

Mission elements the Marines have created and sent forward with Marine expeditionary units are “right in line with [Joint Publication] 3-12,” Maj. Gen. Joseph Matos, deputy commander of Marine Corps Forces Cyberspace Command, told DefenseScoop at the AFCEA conference.

“How do we take what we do at the fort, or back at Fort Meade [where Cybercom is headquartered], and be able to extend that out to the services? That’s what we’re in the process of doing right now … We started about two years ago doing that. That capability is starting to mature pretty well,” he said. “It’s to extend Cyber Command out to those forward units.”

Matos said the recently created MCIC will act as the integrator for a lot of these capabilities throughout the force, acting as a bridge of sorts.

The organization will help tactical forces understand the authorities and capabilities that cyber can provide to help them conduct their missions.

“You kind of hit a glass ceiling of the capability [of] the lower elements being able to reach out and do cyberspace operations,” Matos said of the process prior to establishing that entity. “We’re able to say, OK, here’s a team, trained, capable,’ understand the capabilities that we can bring, give them to the deployed forces to say, ‘OK, you want to do cyber operations, here’s how we can help you do that.’ We know who to talk to, the authorities and so on so forth, and we can do that. I think it’s right in line with what the [Joint Publication] 3-12 is trying to do.”

That command essentially acts as the glue between the high-end cyber forces and the tactical elements, bridging the gap between Cybercom forces and the deployed forces.

“The genesis of the Marine Corps Information Command to tie all these elements together is to address that concern, is to be that integration point between the forces below the tactical edge who have these requirements to operate in a rapidly changing environment. But also tie that to the Marine Corps Information Command knows who to talk to at Cyber Command, or at NSA, or at Space Command. To be able to be that touchpoint between the two organizations so you don’t have to have an infantry battalion going all the way to” a combatant command, Matos said during a presentation at the AFCEA conference.

“I think as we operate in this rapidly changing cyberspace world, that Marine Corps Information Command’s going to be a tremendous benefit to the [Marine Air Ground Task Force], but also to the joint world and the intelligence and cyber world,” he added.

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These organizations are envisioned to be aligned to theater Armies and coordinate with other theater-level organizations such as the Multi-Domain Task Force and Expeditionary Cyber Teams, according to an Army spokesperson.

These expeditionary cyber teams, part of the 11th Cyber Battalion, are scalable and will maneuver with units and conduct operations on the ground for commanders. The Army anticipates a total of 12 teams by 2026 that will help plan tactical cyber operations for commanders and conduct missions in coordination with deployed forces.

The Army in October formally approved its new warfighting doctrine for multi-domain operations, which directs the service to combine and integrate land, air, maritime, space and cyber in all facets of operations.

Similarly, the force has been on a multi-year path to develop doctrine for what it calls information advantage with the ultimate goal of providing commanders decision dominance to better sense, understand, decide and act faster.

All the services have done some level of reorganization under the banner of information warfare, with information advantage being the Army’s approach. Information has become a more prominent aspect of modern military operations. Adversaries have attempted to exploit the information environment on a daily basis short of actual conflict, in what many experts refer to as the “gray zone.”

As such, the Defense Department has sought to play catch up as many aspects of its information warfare prowess atrophied after the Cold War and during the 20-plus years of counterinsurgency operations against a technologically inferior and less resourced adversary.

Army officials have begun incorporating the core tenets of information advantage during operations as a means to test it out and tweak it as they go. The concept outlines five core tasks, which include enabling decision-making, protecting friendly information, informing and educating domestic audiences, informing and influencing international audiences, and conducting information attacks.

The Army is planning to implement the TIAD detachments over the next few years, according to a spokesperson, and it is assessing requirements for detachments in select Army Service Component Commands for 2030. It is awaiting force structure approval from the Army.

Key skillsets within the detachments include cyberspace and electronic warfare operations, civil affairs operations, psychological operations, information operations, military deception, operations security and public affairs.  

Officials have also stated that the Army is working with other similar organizations across the military such as the Navy’s Fleet Information Warfare Command and the Marine Corp’s Marine Expeditionary Force Information Groups to ensure effects are synchronized across the joint force.

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Last June, the Corps published Marine Corps Doctrinal Publication-8, Information (MCDP-8), which sought to describe the purpose and mechanics of information as a warfighting function for the entire service. Now, it is in the process of developing a new document, titled Marine Corps Warfighting Publication 8-10.

The new publication is meant to follow “on the MCDP-8 momentum to continue this discussion and help the [Marine Expeditionary Force] commanders and regimental commanders, division commanders, company commanders, squadron commanders, etc., on how we’re going to best use information,” Lt. Gen. Matthew Glavy, deputy commandant for information, told DefenseScoop in an interview at the WEST 2023 conference in San Diego.

MCWP 8-10 is more of a cognitive discussion that breaks away from the lexicon into what information is and isn’t, Glavy said.

“The Marine Corps Warfighting Publication 8-10, now gets into the practical application phase, building on what MCDP-8 was going to do,” he said, adding it’s “the more theoretical into, ‘OK how are we going to do this? How are we going to execute planning according to this information warfighting function and how do we turn it into outcomes?’”

While the force is actually in operations, Glavy said it is looking to pull lessons from the real world and document lateral integration of best practices.

In an extremely dynamic environment such as information, Glavy noted that the commandant called for the document to be living, as concepts change to adapt and keep up, explaining they need a baseline. MCWP 8-10 is that baseline.

He said the Marine Corps is aiming for it to be published sometime in the early summer.

Since the initial MCDP-8 was published, Glavy said the Corps has been on an education campaign around the force going to all the MEFs, Marine Forces commands and others to do in-person briefings with all the staff and professional military education personnel.

Veterans of the information-related disciplines have been highly critical of the Department of Defense as a whole since the conclusion of the Cold War, claiming the department has neglected and even atrophied its information warfare prowess. Despite recent pushes – to include a revision to Joint Publication 3-04, Information in Joint Operations – some are still concerned about the emphasis and degree to which information will be integrated into operations despite being termed the seventh warfighting function in 2017.

The Marine Corps has been at the forefront of the information space, according to sources. Prior to a joint lexicon being more thoroughly fleshed out, the Corps came up with its own doctrinal term dubbed “operations in the information environment,” or OIE.

Now, with the Joint Staff catching up, the Marine Corps signed a memo in January, doing away with the term OIE and instead adopting “information warfighting function.”

“We’ve evolved, for lack of a better term. Information environment is a good term, we like that term. The joint world’s going to define it more and more, we’ll have to pay attention, use it according to the joint terminology,” Glavy said. “We stepped back and said we’re going to use the joint term — they got a document, they’re the higher headquarters, we’re going to use the joint defined term and we’re going to now focus on this idea of information as a warfighting function.”

Glavy said the notion of information as a warfighting function is the baseline along with the joint publication and that’s how the Corps is proceeding.

The Corps is continuing to build annual force design efforts in that direction. One such effort is building signals intelligence, electronic warfare and cyber teams.

The notion behind these teams is they’ll contribute to that stand-in force mentality the Marine Corps provides to the joint force, which essentially means they are stationed forward close to the enemy at all times to gain intimate knowledge of capabilities and environmental aspects and get a jump on operations, should they need to. The concept is also part of the larger paradigm of competing with adversaries on a day-to-day basis below the threshold of armed conflict.

“The ground combat element, our infantry companies and battalions, they’ve seen the need for this and being able to create capabilities that can be pushed down to that level to be used accordingly,” Glavy said of the SIGINT/EW/cyber teams. “The whole idea of the stand-in forces is dispersed forces throughout various places. Can be anywhere from the first island chain to across any other [combatant command]. But having the ability to sense and make sense, having the right capabilities, authorities, tradecraft forward in unique places, these teams provide that all the way down to the company, infantry company level.”

The continued build-out of the MEF Information Groups, or MIGs, is also part of how the Corps is proceeding in the information sphere. Created in 2017, these tailorable organizations support each MEF within the Corps and integrate electronic warfare with intelligence, communications, military information support operations, space, cyber and communication strategy to provide MEF commanders with an information advantage.

As part of continuing to build these forces, Glavy said they’re still working on meeting requirements for manpower as well as organizing, training and equipping.

The Corps is already playing a big role in deterrence and campaigning, Glavy said, a key pillar in the recently released National Defense Strategy, which emphasizes the importance of integrating more tightly and consistently with partners and allies by exercising.

Within the MIGs, the Corps is working on a concept of what it calls multi-domain effects teams. These teams came about as part of how MEF commanders organize their teams and deploy capabilities from the MIG.

“We got more of a journey on how all that operationalizing is going to go and how the MEF commander is going to project power, so to speak, from an information warfighting function, and those multidomain effects teams are certainly part of that,” Glavy said. “Then there’ll be more of a reconciliation as we determine what is going to be the service position as we get closer to force design coming to be and what is going to be the enduring way we want to do this.”

The I Marine Expeditionary Force has been successful in experimenting with this concept to date.

“One of the things that we’ve been working on in the past year … is multi-domain effects teams. Long gone are the times where we’ve had very discreet and functionally oriented collection teams and operational elements that can put effects into the battlespace,” Col. Kevin Root, commander of I MEF Information Group, said at the same conference. “Now we’re looking at putting multi-domain effects teams out there, which come from these subordinate battalions. But now they’re task-organized and purpose-built to provide capability — both collections and effects — across the battlespace.”

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Blending electronic warfare tools may be required when old-school cyberattack methods can’t get the job done.

“Traditional cyber operations via hard-wired networks are increasingly challenged by adversaries using standalone networks that have an air gap between themselves and the broader internet, including mobile devices on private wireless networks,” Bryan Clark, senior fellow and director of the Center for Defense Concepts and Technology at the Hudson Institute, told DefenseScoop. “Gaining access to these networks may require physically connecting to them, but another way can be to use RF signals to enter via a radio antenna or wireless router. And against combat systems — such as on a ship, plane, or air defense site — a technique is to access it via a radar or jammer antenna and associated processing stack.”

While the services have been charting their own paths to converge such capabilities to meet their priorities, Congress is trying to push them harder, identifying gaps in their overall approach.

The Senate’s version of the fiscal 2023 National Defense Authorization Act directed the Pentagon to develop a strategy for converged cyber and electronic warfare conducted by deployed military and intelligence assets.

“Through detailed oversight of the committee, a gap was determined in the operational strategies for fielding emerging RF-enabled cyber capabilities,” Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., ranking member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said in a statement. “This provision is intended to ensure that the leadership of the Department, Combatant Commands, and military services mature the strategy and capability development processes for these emerging capabilities.”

Clark articulated the need for an integrated plan between the military branches.

“The reason why alignment between services is important is the Air Force and Army are working on a viable future EW approach, but which may not support RF-enabled cyber,” he said. “The Navy has a strong capability for now to do RF-enabled cyber, but may not have a viable future plan. By bringing the services together, the proposed strategy could address the need for U.S. forces to do more RF-enabled cyber in the future.”

These RF operations are a way to inject cyber effects wirelessly, Clark said. With the proliferation of sensors and electronic warfare equipment, the military is looking to better combine them on the battlefield.

“We’re seeing a lot of synergy between the electromagnetic spectrum, EMS, EW, cyber and [information operations]. We believe in the future, the integration of that to achieve the outcomes of cyber operations forces is going to be necessary,” Michael Clark, director of J9, acquisition and technology directorate at U.S. Cyber Command, told reporters in July.

Despite Cybercom conducting more of the traditional, remote type of cyber operations against networks, it has been investing in these types of electronic warfare capabilities for some time. The combatant command requested $16.7 million in fiscal 2023 for tools to “adapt EW technology and cyber-peculiar capabilities to gain aces to targeted enemy forces,” according to budget documents.

The Senate bill language charges DOD with developing requirements for service-retained tactical cyber forces for offensive and defensive missions, though some of the services have already invested in these types of assets. As these capabilities mature, it is expected that these proximal forces could actually gain access to adversaries’ systems and pass that off to high-end Cybercom operators remotely to exploit.

The Army has built its own tactical force to conduct these types of proximal RF-enabled cyber operations in support of commanders’ mission objectives with the 915^th Cyber Warfare Battalion.

The Army’s Cyber Center of Excellence (CCoE) along with Headquarters Army and Cybercom are collaborating on a cohesive strategy for tactical RF-enabled cyber operations, a CCoE spokesperson said.

Authorities to conduct cyber ops are notoriously onerous and held at the top levels of government, but these more proximal mission “effects” conducted through radio-frequency require fewer levels of approval. However, cyber operations should still be coordinated through Cybercom’s command-and-control mechanisms and capabilities, especially in the event Cybercom wants to use these proximal forces as an in to a network or vice versa.

“We acknowledge USCYBERCOM’s standing authorities to control and direct offensive cyber forces. Authorities and command/support relationships in future conflict will vary and be based on applicable higher echelon [execute orders],” the CCoE spokesperson said. “The Army will be ready to present and/or employ well-equipped and highly-trained expeditionary cyber forces and other multi-domain capable forces by 2030.”

The Marine Corps, from a ground perspective, has also invested in tactically focused cyber and electronic warfare capabilities, mainly through its Marine Expeditionary Force Information Groups, or MIGs, which support each MEF within the Corps by integrating electronic warfare with intelligence, communications, military information support operations, space, cyber and communication strategies to provide Marine Expeditionary Force commanders with an information advantage.

“There certainly is going to be a convergence of what we can do on the tactical edge with signals intelligence, with cyber-EW that’s going to be very enabling for the joint force and for the intel community,” Lt. Gen. Matthew Glavy, deputy commandant for information, said Tuesday during an event hosted by GovConWire.

Glavy noted that the forthcoming Marine Corps Information Command will essentially be the enabling function for converging these capabilities and navigating the authorities that exist between them.

“If you’re not sitting very close to where all these authorities reside and expertise and capabilities that we want to be able to push to the tactical edge, then you may get it wrong,” he said regarding what the new command — which will be stood up in fiscal 2023 — will do.

At the joint level, there are a lot of authorities that have to be coordinated, especially in the non-kinetic and digital realm as it pertains to intelligence collection — which is very heavily regulated under spying authorities known as Title 50 — and operations within cyberspace and the electromagnetic spectrum meant to disrupt adversaries’ operations, known as Title 10 or general warfighting authorities.

In many cases, the lines between these disciplines can be blurred given how closely related their actions are.

“Putting all those authorities together can get a little complicated. Some of its intelligence related, some of it’s more Title 10 warfighting focused, but the force that can bring them all together and can do it right, to do it in a responsible manner is going to be key,” Glavy said, noting the new command will act as that integrator.

The Navy, for its part, has organized all of its information warfare capabilities — which includes cyber and electronic warfare — under one organization, the deputy chief of naval operations for information warfare, or OPNAV N2N6.

Within that office, the Crypto-Electronic and Cyber Warfare Division works as the principal adviser to establish and validate requirements as well as direct overall planning and programming for cyber, cryptologic and electronic warfare tactical networks and capabilities, according to a spokesperson.

In the air domain, the military is looking to include advanced radar technologies that are not just passive, but can also inject capabilities into the environment.

For the Navy, it’s Next Generation Jammer system — its premier aerial electronic attack platform mounted aboard EA-18 Growler aircraft that will replace the ALQ-99 jamming pod — will provide some level of cyber capability.

“Now with the ability to do phased array, advanced jamming techniques, we really start to blur the lines, I think, between what we would consider traditional jamming with cyber warfare,” Rear Adm. John Meier, commander of Naval Air Force Atlantic, said last year. “I think that the capabilities inherent in the [Next Generation Jammer] jamming pod are going to open up a wide, wide array of not only jamming techniques, ranges, effective radiated power, but also taking us into other areas that we’ve never really had the ability to do before.”

Clark noted that the threats posed by advanced adversaries necessitate this push.

“As U.S. opponents become more sophisticated, U.S. cyber warfare needs to rely more on RF methods for access,” Clark said. “For the Navy and Air Force, this will mean building their next generation of EW systems in ways that allow them to inject cyber tools.”

Clark pointed to the Air Force’s Skyborg program and its envisioned Next-Generation Air Dominance platform, as well as the Army’s Air-Launched Effects — essentially small drones or payloads released in midair by larger aircraft — as unmanned examples of these types of capabilities. However, he questioned whether these systems will have the onboard processing and network capabilities to accommodate RF-enabled cyber tools like the much larger and more expensive EA-18G.

Similar to the Navy, from an operational standpoint, the Air Force created 16^th Air Force, the service’s first information warfare command housing cyber and electronic warfare forces, among others, under one commander.

“As you start to mix the capabilities together, you’ll find one segment of it that needs to grow. One of those areas is how we converge electronic warfare and cyberspace operations,” the outgoing commander of 16^th Air Force, Lt. Gen. Timothy Haugh, told reporters in July just before his departure to become the deputy commander of Cyber Command. “That is an area where our service is talking about it. It’s an area Congress is interested in. And now we think we can inform some of that based off of the expertise we have within our various wings. That’s one that’s now a discussion.”

Haugh indicated that 16^th Air Force created a combined detachment between the 55^th Wing, which does a lot of reconnaissance and ISR work, and the 67^th Cyberspace Wing. The 55^th Wing has expertise in the electromagnetic spectrum from a reconnaissance perspective while the 67^th is thinking about systems through an interconnected lens, he said.

“We have established a combined detachment between the two wings to allow them to bring that expertise together,” he said. “Our first step in doing that was we wanted to have an opportunity where they could come together under one roof and allow that synergy to begin.”

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A provision in the committee’s version of the fiscal 2023 National Defense Authorization Act is requiring the Department of Defense to develop a strategy for “converged cyber and electronic warfare conducted by and through deployed military and intelligence assets operating in the radiofrequency domain to provide strategic, operational and tactical effects in support of combatant commanders.”

The committee passed its version of the bill June 16 but did not release the text until July 18.

There are significant similarities between cyberspace effects and electronic warfare, especially in the tactical sphere of battle. Some services, namely the Army, but the Marine Corps as well, have developed tactically focused forces to exploit these capabilities and similarities, primarily through what are known as radio-frequency effects.

This is essentially cyber effects that exploit Wi-Fi or other wireless electronic systems using proximal or close access forces. Contrast that with what U.S. Cyber Command does primarily, which is Internet-Protocol based cyber operations, conducted remotely.

While authorities to conduct cyber operations are notoriously onerous and held at the top levels of government, these more proximal effects conducted through radio-frequency require fewer levels of approval.

In fact, in a report accompanying the SASC’s bill language, the committee noted these “service retained” forces, a distinction from the cyber mission force, which each service presents to and is owned by Cyber Command.

“The committee believes it is essential for the Department to determine its requirements and roles for what are referred to as ‘service-retained’ cyber forces for both defensive and offensive support to combatant commands,” the report said. “The committee expects that these service-retained forces would become part of the personnel rotation through elements of the Cyberspace Operations Forces for career progression. These forces would also fulfill critical roles in protecting deployed and often disconnected weapons systems and platforms and supporting offensive cyber operations executed by military units and systems.”

The bill wants the DOD to develop recommendations regarding command and control, deconfliction and coordination relationships and processes between combatant commanders and the Cyber Command regarding tactical cyber operations and converged cyber and electronic warfare operations conducted prior to and during armed conflict.

Additionally, it charges DOD with developing requirements for service-retained tactical cyber forces for offensive and defensive missions.

As these capabilities and forces mature, it is expected that these proximal forces could actually gain accesses and pass that off to high end Cyber Command operators remotely to exploit. In fact, Cyber Command has budgeted for electronic warfare capabilities, requesting $16.7 million for tools to “adapt EW technology and cyber-peculiar capabilities to gain aces to targeted enemy forces,” according to budget documents.

The Army has created the 915^th Cyber Warfare Battalion, which will ultimately encompass a total of 12 expeditionary cyber and electromagnetic activities teams, or ECT, by 2026 that will help plan tactical cyber operations for commanders and conduct missions in coordination with deployed forces.

The Marine Corps, for its part, has also developed tactical cyber forces within its Marine Expeditionary Force Information Groups (MIGs), which integrate electronic warfare with intelligence, communications, military information support operations, space, cyber and communication strategy to provide MEF commanders with an information advantage.

Optimizing Cyber Command

The bill also revisits questions from a previous NDAA regarding how elements under Cyber Command are organized, citing dissatisfaction that the DOD did not address several of the elements required.

Specifically, the committee wants a study to determine the optimal strategy for structuring and manning elements of the various Joint Force Headquarters-Cyber (JFHQ-C), Joint Mission Operations Centers, Cyber Operations-Integrated Planning Elements and Joint Cyber Centers.

The services do not own offensive teams. Instead, these teams work through several organizations, each formally known as Joint Force Headquarters-Cyber, which in turn provide planning, targeting, intelligence and 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.

The Joint Mission Operations Centers are actually where the JFHQ-C commands and controls and executes cyber operations.

The Cyber Operations-Integrated Planning Element were created as a means of better integrating cyber operations into the overall planning process. Cyber planners, not actual operators, are physically embedded within various staff sections at the combatant commands to provide expertise on how cyber can be incorporated into their operations.

The Joint Cyber Centers are where combatant commands oversee all aspects of cyberspace operations.

The study must include:

• operational effects on the services if each of the entities listed above are restructured from organizations that are service component organizations to joint organizations;
• organizational effects on the services if the billets associated with the entities above are transferred to Cyber Command and designated as joint billets;
• operational and organizational effects on the services, Cyber Command, other combatant commands and the Joint Staff if the above entities are realigned, restructured, or consolidated, and;
• clarification of the relationship and differentiation between cyber operations–integrated planning elements and joint cyber centers of the combatant commands, among others.

The fiscal 2020 NDAA included a nearly identical provision.

However, Congress doesn’t appear satisfied with the information it was provided.

“The committee is frustrated that the previous report on this topic, as required by section 1656 of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2020 (Public Law 116-92), did not address many of the required elements,” the committee notes in the report accompanying the bill. “The committee encourages the Department to fully address all of the elements required by this study and to provide robust recommendations on an optimal strategy for providing cyber support to the geographic combatant commands.”

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