According to two former senior defense officials, the disclosure advocacy community welcomes those directives. However, they’re also calling for further policy changes to impel improved reporting and transparency from the government on unidentified anomalous phenomena — or UAP, the modernized term for UFOs and associated transmedium objects — that could threaten U.S. national security.

“More can — and should — always be done,” Christopher Mellon, former deputy assistant secretary of defense for intelligence, told DefenseScoop. 

The legislative text targeting Defense Department and military-led efforts on UAP in the massive bill include:

• Sec. 1555 — to require briefings on UAP intercepts by North American Aerospace Defense Command and U.S. Northern Command 
• Sec. 1556 — to require a consolidated security classification guidance matrix for programs relating to UAP 
• Sec. 1561 — to require the consolidation of reporting requirements applicable to the Pentagon’s All Domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO)

In separate discussions last week, Mellon and a former senior military officer provided analyses of the NDAA and their latest recommendations to Congress in response to those proposals. 

‘Low-hanging fruit’

The Pentagon has a storied but complicated history confronting technologies and craft that insiders have reported performing in ways that seem to transcend the capabilities of contemporary assets. At a high level, the DOD’s mechanisms to study what it now refers to as UAP have taken different forms over the decades. 

The most recent iteration — known as the All-Domain Anomaly Resolution Office, or AARO — was officially launched under the Biden administration in 2022 to fulfill a mandate in that year’s NDAA. 

The office achieved full operational capacity in 2024. Although its establishment largely stemmed from mounting calls for Pentagon transparency on UAP, government officials have been mostly secretive about AARO’s projects and caseload of dozens of open investigations. 

Still, AARO’s responsibilities have expanded as the organization matures, and particularly as it has been charged with helping the department resolve the recent uptick of mysterious drone incursions at military bases and other sensitive national security sites. 

Building on those tasks, the Senate Armed Services Committee’s NDAA draft includes requirements that would require Northcom and NORAD to alert AARO and Congress about any time they intercept a potential UAP.

Mellon — a longtime UAP transparency proponent who served as deputy assistant secretary of defense during the Clinton and Bush administrations, and later, an influential Senate staff member — said he’s been advocating for such a directive for years.

“NORAD’s historical failure to inform AARO of UAP incidents is inconsistent with the intent of Congress when AARO was created as the central repository and conduit to Congress for all UAP data in the U.S. government. Currently, by the time AARO learns of these intercepts — if it does at all — NORAD’s critical sensor data is often no longer available. But Congress clearly needs this information to determine, among other things, how effective the U.S. air surveillance network is,” he said.

He said this section would mark a “welcome step” towards oversight, if passed. But in his view, more needs to be done. 

“In many cases, for instance, Navy ships report UAP sightings from areas where Air Force radars and aircraft operate but, strangely, these systems appear to report no UAP. At the same time, many official UAP reports refer to U.S. fighters chasing UAP over or near the continental United States … Where is that data? If the Air Force fully and properly reported to AARO, then Congress — and the American people — may even learn of UAP in space or in orbit,” Mellon said. “At a time of rapid advancements in drone and aerospace technology for America’s adversaries, better domain awareness, including in the space domain, is critical for ensuring the nation’s security.”

Elsewhere in the legislation is a provision that would result in a consolidation of all the disparate reporting requirements applicable to AARO. 

“While we appreciate that the [Intelligence Community] and Pentagon often face redundant reporting requirements to Congress, the matter of UAP — where Congress has only lately begun to extend its oversight — is not one of those areas,” Mellon said. 

He also raised concerns about one change to an existing law that currently requires all UAP data to be delivered “immediately” to AARO. 

“The proposed provision appears to restrict AARO’s now-immediate access right by requiring UAP data to be delivered to it ‘in a manner that protects intelligence sources and methods.’ But who makes that determination? AARO is independently empowered elsewhere by statute to receive all UAP data and should retain unfettered access to it. It knows how to protect intelligence sources and methods. There should not be provisions of this sort that could be interpreted to create impediments to AARO’s access rights under law,” Mellon said.

Beyond those inclusions, the bill would require AARO to issue a consolidated security classification guide relating to UAP investigations and events.

“Since I provided historic gun camera footage of Navy warplane encounters with UAP incidents to The New York Times and The Washington Post in 2017, the release of additional footage by the government has all but stopped. In fact, shortly after that footage was aired, the Pentagon cloaked under order of secrecy virtually everything about its UAP investigation,” Mellon noted. “That was wrong, and it’s past time for the current draconian classification guide to change.”

At the same time, even if the requirement passes and a new declassification guide were enacted, he said AARO would still retain ample discretion to keep many UAP records from the public. So instead, Mellon suggested, the office should be mandated by law to routinely submit unclassified videos through the Defense Office of Prepublication and Security Review for secure dissemination.

“Despite the earlier pledge to Congress by the Department of the Navy to release more records, it appears that the Pentagon, AARO, and the IC don’t view Congress and the public as having a legitimate ‘need to know’ about the wealth of UAP footage the government has within its clasp. That is low-hanging fruit for Congress to fix,” Mellon said.

‘The big picture’

Retired Navy Rear Adm. Timothy Gallaudet previously led Naval Meteorology and Oceanography Command and served as Oceanographer of the Navy. He deployed on multiple tours afloat during his career in uniform, and later served as the Senate-confirmed assistant secretary of commerce for oceans and atmosphere after retiring from the military in 2017, during the first Trump administration.

During his retirement, Gallaudet has opened up about his experiences on active duty observing now-verified video footage of UAP and unidentified submerged objects (USO) captured by colleagues — and his efforts to help destigmatize this previously taboo topic across the U.S. military.

When asked about his views on the UAP inclusions in the NDAA legislation, Gallaudet pointed to the UAP Disclosure Act (UAPDA), which was first introduced in 2023. That bill has seen continued support in the Senate, but has not been passed to date. It seeks to enable much deeper congressional oversight on UAP-related activities and operations.

“In my opinion, these UAP provisions are all good individually, but the bigger picture is that they dilute, distract, and compete with the authorities and priority of the UAP review board in the UAPDA. I do not think the fragmented approach which they represent is the best path forward, and what is needed is a whole of government approach that the UAPDA will bring us closer to,” Gallaudet told DefenseScoop.

Mellon also mentioned the UAPDA in a separate discussion, noting that the UAP Disclosure Fund — a civil society organization dedicated to protecting whistleblowers and promoting government accountability, on which he serves as chairman of the board — fully supports its passage.

“We hope to see that transparency measure included in the next version of the NDAA by way of a manager’s amendment on the Senate floor. We also hope that the House takes commensurate action to ensure that this vital legislation is enacted into binding law,” Mellon said.

He partnered with two other members of the UAPDF’s leadership team, Hunt Willis and Kirk McConnell, to co-author an upcoming policy brief for Congress, policymakers and potential whistleblowers that addresses a misperception they’ve encountered among possible sources of confidential information that they can’t disclose classified details to Congress behind closed doors. 

Notably, Rep. Eric Burlison (R-MO) recently expressed frustration at the hesitancy of potential witnesses to step forward as the House Oversight Committee’s task force plans for hearings in the coming months.

The new policy brief, viewed by DefenseScoop ahead of its publication, spotlights legal reasons to demonstrate that lawmakers are “fully authorized to receive classified information and endowed with a clear ‘need to know’ given their oversight responsibilities.”

More broadly, regarding the proposals that have made it into the fiscal 2026 NDAA draft so far, Mellon noted that the UAPDF’s hope is that they’ll help to pave the way for a virtuous cycle, where “more information leads to greater understanding of, and interest in, UAP, impelling further legislation to obtain the release of still more UAP information.” 

“This cycle will help to build consensus across Congress — not within a few pockets of a few committees — for broader reforms in this centrally important issue, leading to greater transparency for the American people,” Mellon said.

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Reps. Pat Ryan (D-NY), and Rob Wittman (R-VA) set up the caucus in early 2024 to strategically inform legislation to improve the Defense Department’s adoption of modern software and warfighting capabilities.

“This is what happens when you get industry, academia, and members of Congress who refuse to maintain the status quo together in a room. We’re going to keep pushing as hard as we can,” a senior member on Ryan’s team told DefenseScoop on Friday.

Early this year, Ryan and Wittman formally solicited policy proposals and focus areas from stakeholders across industry and academia to puzzle out the reforms. The caucus also set up a unique portal for modernization-related recommendations.

“We need to put disruptive technologies in the hands of warfighters, we need more competition in the defense industrial base, and we need to cut down pointless red tape and bureaucracy. Congress must be relentlessly focused on providing the U.S. military with the capabilities and capacity necessary to deter our adversaries — we cannot afford complacency,” Wittman said in a statement.

The senior House staffer previewed some of the caucus-inspired inclusions and amendments that made it into the massive defense package.

The NDAA includes language that would:

• Accelerate the DOD’s counter-unmanned aerial system operations and authorities to protect military operations and other specific locations around the U.S.
• Add additional reporting requirements to the Authority to Operate (ATO) process and streamline timelines for such approvals
• Require the Pentagon to develop and maintain a virtual sandbox environment for operational testing and development
• Require the secretary of defense to brief Congress on the integration of AI and machine learning across the department
• Empower the Defense Innovation Unit (DIU) to expand outreach and create additional onramp hubs domestically and internationally
• Direct DOD leadership to submit a plan to accelerate the accreditation, construction, and operational use of commercial Sensitive Compartmented Information Facilities (SCIF) accessible to industry
• Seek to streamline and simplify the requirements for a modular open system approach to the design and development of a major weapon system.

“This didn’t happen overnight,” the senior official said. “This was a collaborative process over the course of many months, and it’s truly only just the beginning of what we can accomplish in the future.”

Beyond Ryan and Wittman, they said other members of the caucus who serve on HASC and helped champion these and additional efforts include: Reps. Seth Moulton (D-MA), Chrissy Houlahan (D-PA), Chris Deluzio (D-PA), Don Bacon (R-NE), John McGuire (R-VA), Pat Fallon (R-TX), George Whitesides (D-CA), Maggie Goodlander (D-NH), Wesley Bell (D-MO) and Mark Messmer (R-IN). 

“Stay tuned, because we’re only just getting started,” Ryan said in a statement.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

How cyber operations are conducted

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

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

Cyber, however, is different.

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

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

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

None of the these entities were designed to be identical.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Questions and resource constraints

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Setting priorities

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

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

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

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

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The Combat Action Recognition and Evaluation (CARE) for Remotely Piloted Aircraft (RPA) Crews Act seeks to establish a “status identifier” for pilots of uncrewed systems who participate in combat operations to increase their access to services they earned.

In the context of military officials, status identifiers help track, classify, and communicate aspects related to their combat training, qualifications and readiness. 

The proposal was introduced by Sens. Jacky Rosen, D-Nev., and Kevin Cramer, R-N.D., who represent states with military bases where personnel operate multiple types of remotely piloted drones.

A Senate spokesperson from Rosen’s office shared a copy of the legislative text with DefenseScoop, as well as the language for a provision along the same lines as the bill that they confirmed was approved as an amendment in the SASC-passed version of the National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal 2026, which is now up for review by the full chamber.

“Not later than 180 days after the date of the enactment of this Act, the Secretaries of the military departments, in consultation with the Secretary of Veterans Affairs, shall establish a status identifier or equivalent recognition to denote the combat participation of remotely piloted aircraft (RPA) crew members who conduct operations in direct support of combat missions,” the NDAA language states. “The identifier shall be designed to enable appropriate consideration by the [VA] in the administration of benefits and services that account for combat-related service, consistent with how traditional combat designators are treated.”

Veterans’ eligibility for benefits after they complete their military tenure is typically tied to certain discharge conditions and specific requirements they fulfilled during their service.  

The lawmakers’ hope is that drone pilots — who increasingly conduct high-stakes, real-world operations — will gain proper support and care that matches those given to other types of combat fighters and pilots, once they transition out of military service.

Rosen and Kramer proposed similar legislation during the last congressional session. The introduction of this text comes as the second Trump administration is placing a strong, strategic emphasis on reducing administrative and acquisition barriers for the military’s use of drones. 

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The language appears in the SASC-passed version of the annual defense policy bill for fiscal 2026. While the committee approved the legislation last week, the full text was only released Wednesday.

Specifically, if it becomes law, the legislation would require a report from the Pentagon on the integration of reserve components, namely the National Guard, into the cyber mission force. It would also mandate an implementation plan.

The cyber mission force is comprised of 147 teams — including offensive, defensive and support teams — that the military services provide to U.S. Cyber Command to employ for operations.

Guard units have been used to support or supplement active units in various capacities. In fact, at the outset and creation of the cyber mission force nearly 15 years ago, the Air Force decided to initially take a total force approach to build its contribution, meaning its teams were made up of a mix of active component and Guard members.

Other assistance, most notably, includes Task Force Echo, the biggest Guard cyber mobilization to date with soldiers from 32 states having supported it over a number of years.

Little public information is known about the task force other than it aids full-spectrum cyber operations for Cybercom’s Cyber National Mission Force. While not so-called “trigger pullers,” sources have also indicated the task force provides infrastructure support.

The Guard has also conducted experiments with Cybercom in years past to test what was called the Cyber 9-Line, a tool that allows participating Guard units from their respective states to quickly share incidents with the Cyber National Mission Force, which can provide analysis of discovered malware and offer feedback to the states to help redress the incident, while also potentially taking action against the threat outside U.S. borders.

The Senate Armed Services Committee’s fiscal 2026 policy bill would require a report that provides an assessment of different authorities in each status of the reserve components, with particular focus on the National Guard and authorities under title 32, and how the DOD can use those personnel in such statuses within the cyber mission force.

It should also include an analysis of current and planned efforts to work with the military departments, the National Guard and the adjutants general of each state to develop unique cyber capabilities that address identified operational requirements — and a description of methods to work with those entities to track and identify key skills and competencies that aren’t part of primary military occupational specialties.

Moreover, senators want to see an evaluation of what types of authorities would be most beneficial to maximize the activation and support of the reserve components to cyber operations as well as an evaluation of the existing barriers to or impediments for integration of the reserve components into the cyber mission force.

The Guard has been lauded as an under-tapped and potentially vital resource for the nation in cyberspace. Many of its members work in cybersecurity as their full-time jobs when they’re not in uniform, meaning they oftentimes possess unique skills not always found in the active component.

There have been big pushes in recent years to more tightly integrate these Guard and Reserve forces into the larger DOD cyber enterprise to be able to act as surge capability in the event of a major cyber incident against the nation.

Legislation has also been introduced previously to help clear hurdles — real or perceived — to allow the Guard to respond to cyber threats.

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A provision in the committee’s version of the annual defense policy bill, of which an executive summary was released Friday, would require the secretary of defense to review future force employment concepts for cyber operations. The full text of the bill has yet to be released.

Senior congressional officials that briefed reporters Friday pointed to the fact that to date, cyber operations and forces have largely been focused on the strategic level. More and more, there are other avenues to conduct digital actions, officials said, to include tactical cyber.

In fact, the DOD updated its cyber doctrine at the end of 2022 to include for the first time a definition of what it called “expeditionary cyberspace operations,” defined as “[c]yberspace operations that require the deployment of cyberspace forces within the physical domains.”

That recognition was significant given authorities to conduct cyber operations were held at the highest levels of government for many years due to fears that such activities could have unintended consequences or spread into networks beyond the intended targets.

Cybercom owns the offensive cyber capabilities within DOD, and the services conduct offensive cyber operations through Cybercom and the cyber mission forces that each service provides to the command that operate from static, remote locations, mostly focused on IP-based networks.

However, increasingly, there are targets that either aren’t reachable through IP networks or remote access might not be possible. And as DOD has matured its cyber policies, doctrine and capabilities, the reins have begun to loosen up.

Certain factions have sought to use more proximal effects conducted through radio-frequency, which require fewer levels of approval to conduct operations at the very tactical level.  

Several of the services have begun investing in capabilities and forces for their own offensive activities. However, that is mostly in the blended electronic warfare or RF-enabled sphere at the tactical level.

While individual services have started developing and even deploying such forces, all cyber operations must still be connected through Cybercom.

For example, the Army created the 11th Cyber Battalion — which stemmed from the 915th Cyber Warfare Battalion before it — a unit that provides tactical, on-the-ground cyber operations (mostly through RF effects), electronic warfare and information ops. It consists of four companies with over 300 personnel total and five expeditionary cyber teams, which are scalable formations designed to augment units upon request. The Army was recently approved to create another unit called the 12th Cyber Battalion.

The Air Force in the last year or so has developed a concept called Cyber Enabled Air Superiority (CEAS), that aims to use organic Air Force cyber assets to protect its critical missions, such as safeguarding fighter jets from cyberattacks. While the concept is still emerging, the Air Force re-missioned a National Guard unit to initially take charge of the effort.

The Navy has been building what it calls non-kinetic effects teams that are afloat assets to provide cyber, electronic warfare and other similar capabilities for commanders at sea.

The Marine Corps has developed information units for its Marine Expeditionary Forces that include cyber, intelligence, EW and information-related capabilities.

Cybercom has recognized these capabilities, and command officials have begun exploring ways to utilize them, especially as they can serve as entry points for its high-end operators to access hard-to-reach networks that might not be connected to the internet.

These efforts also fit into the concept of the modern triad, which consists of combining the capabilities of space, cyber and special operations forces to create military packages greater than the sum of their parts. SOF are located in some of the hardest places on earth, giving them the opportunity to get close to targets and potentially providing access and entry points for cyber effects.

Given this growth in the concept, the Senate Armed Services Committee also wants the review to encompass the types of personnel DOD will require to conduct cyber operations of all kinds in the future. To date, that has only really included the cyber mission force. As referenced, this could include a much larger pool across the conventional and even special operations forces beyond the Cybercom enterprise.

The summary of the policy bill states the review would include an assessment of personnel policies that could be needed to support any such evolving cyber force, though committee officials clarified this has nothing to do with discussions surrounding the potential creation of a separate and distinct service, or Cyber Force.

“We have focused a lot of this around how we man, train and equip for very exquisite cyber mission forces. There is a bigger pool of people out there,” an official said. “How are we going to employ that full scope of people and how do we need to adjust the personnel policies to be able to keep that flow of people?”

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The provision is part of the annual defense policy bill. The committee released a summary Friday, although the full text of the legislation won’t be released until a later date.

The executive summary of the bill only offers that a provision mandates “a strategy to reestablish a credible deterrence against cyberattacks targeting American critical infrastructure using the full spectrum of military operations.”

A senior congressional official who briefed reporters Friday on the condition of anonymity described the provision as trying to identify a full scope using various methods and full spectrum options to more critically deter adversaries, particularly China, from conducting attacks on critical infrastructure, especially defense critical infrastructure.

An official noted the provision directs DOD toward what the department needs to be doing to more effectively establish a deterrent. Officials in open testimony have indicated a clear concern that Beijing, in particular, continues to attack critical infrastructure.

They singled out Volt and Salt Typhoon by name, noting they’re a growing and more aggressive threat in cyberspace to utilities and critical infrastructure that supports DOD.

Volt Typhoon is one of a number of cyber players from China that have been discovered in U.S. networks, troubling American officials. For its part, Volt Typhoon was discovered inside U.S. critical infrastructure using a technique in the cybersecurity world dubbed “living off the land,” which means it’s using legitimate tools organic to the systems for malicious purposes.

China has become more brazen in intrusions and probes into U.S. and defense networks, particularly in maritime or port environments to potentially limit an American military mobilization response if Chinese leaders decide to invade Taiwan.

Guam, a key U.S. military outpost, has been a top target for Beijing in recent years. Chinese hackers targeted critical infrastructure there, burrowing deep inside a couple of years ago and startling experts who referred to it as one of the largest cyber espionage campaigns against America.  

What has particularly alarmed officials regarding Volt Typhoon is the paradigm shift of Chinese threats moving from espionage and intellectual property theft to holding critical infrastructure at risk.

Salt Typhoon, by contrast, has been found inside networks of telecoms and other companies, likely for the purpose of espionage.

Cyber deterrence has been an elusive policy point for many years. While some academics have pointed to evidence cyber deterrence exists, such as U.S. hesitance to hit back against Russia following its malicious activity in the 2016 election for fear of America’s great digital vulnerability, current and past officials have noted the difficulties of deterrence and how adversaries don’t fear the United States in cyberspace.

Senators recently pressed the Trump administration’s nominee to be the top cyber policy official at DOD on the subject.

“There’s no price to pay for our adversaries. I hope in your counsels within the Defense Department and in the administration you’ll argue for a serious and substantial cyber deterrent stated policy. If it’s not stated, a deterrent doesn’t work,” Sen. Angus King, I-Maine, a fierce critic of perceived weaknesses in cyber deterrence, said at the May hearing.

For her part, Katie Sutton, President Donald Trump’s nominee to be assistant secretary of defense for cyber policy, wrote to senators as part of her confirmation process that a critical part of her role, if confirmed, would be to improve the nation’s defenses and digital deterrent.

“Deterrence is possible in cyberspace and can be made more effective through a combination of denial, resilience, and credible responses. If confirmed, I will review the capabilities we have in our toolkit, integrate military cyberspace capabilities with other tools of national power, and restore deterrence in the cyber domain. One of my core goals as ASD Cyber Policy will be to ensure the Department has the offensive and defensive capabilities and resources necessary to credibly deter adversaries from targeting the United States,” she wrote.

While Salt Typhoon was considered traditional espionage activity, which is virtually impossible to deter, especially given the United States does the same thing, officials are hoping to deter activity like Volt Typhoon in the future.

As Trump was coming back into power for his second term, officials associated with the transition and new administration vowed a top priority would be a more aggressive posture in cyberspace to respond to a bevy of activity against the U.S., namely from China.

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