House and Senate defense committees agree on independent cyber force assessment

The House and Senate Armed Services Committees moved forward a provision paving the way for an independent study assessing the potential creation of a sixth U.S. military service focused on cyber.

Both houses of Congress passed nearly identical provisions in their respective versions of the fiscal 2025 National Defense Authorization Act earlier this year, and they were incorporated into the final conferenced bill that was reconciled between both chambers and released Saturday evening.

The House passed a similar provision last year that was axed during this conference process for the annual defense policy bill, effectively killing it until it was revived this year.

Despite some in the Biden administration and the Defense Department voicing opposition to a cyber service, there has been growing support in Congress and among interest groups. The provision calls for an independent assessment by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine to “conduct an evaluation regarding the advisability of either establishing a separate Armed Force in the Department of Defense dedicated to operations in the cyber domain or refining and further evolving the current organizational approach for United States Cyber Command.”

The issue of creating a sixth military service that is focused solely on cyber operations, while not new, has gained steam over the last year as threats have grown, the landscape is becoming more dynamic and readiness issues have plagued the military services’ forces that they present to U.S. Cyber Command.

Each of the military services is responsible for providing personnel for a set number of teams to Cybercom, which then employs those forces in operations for the other geographic combatant commands. But detractors believe the services are too siloed in their approach, leading to incongruent models for presenting forces to Cybercom and forces maintaining their unique service identities, which leads to readiness issues, according to skeptics.

Cybercom and DOD owe their own set of studies back to Congress through previous legislative asks, after requesting more time to make their assessments and implementations.

Lawmakers have grown frustrated with how long this process has taken, and thus, have begun to take matters into their own hands, requesting independent assessments.

Members of Congress recognized in language accompanying the policy bill Saturday that agreeing on the optimal structure of cyber forces and operations “continues to be a work in progress,” but noted that an evaluation is more challenging when those forces are constantly engaged in demanding training and competition with the private sector for a limited worker pool.

“We believe that an independent, outside examination of these challenge may provide valuable insights to inform decision makers on future force design concepts,” the explanatory statement accompanying the bill states.

Congress is imploring the National Academies to take into account several analyses to include lessons from the creation of the Space Force in 2019. Members also acknowledge challenges with such a study with the National Academies given some might not have deep expertise in military cyber missions.

Lawmakers listed a series of areas they hope the National Academies cover, which include, among others:

• What is the optimal force size of qualified cyber professionals to satisfy existing and projected requirements of the Defense Department, and how are these variables most likely to change?
• Is the department’s current understanding and definition of cyber operations adequate to future challenges and opportunities?
• What options exist to improve training requirements, outputs, and programs in support of cyberspace operations?
• How could the DOD improve recruiting and retention of qualified officers and enlisted members of the armed forces in cyberspace operations and related and supporting fields?
• How might the department better utilize reserve component forces in support of cyberspace operations?
• What approaches could improve force readiness?
• How should the DOD structure itself for acquisition and provision of cyber capabilities in support of cyberspace operations?
• How could the department improve professional military education content and curricula focused on the cyber domain?
• Does increased optimization for cyberspace operations incur cost, risk, efficiency, or other tradeoffs to other missions and responsibilities of the DOD, or elsewhere within the national security community?

The bill now heads to the full House and Senate to be passed before going to the president to sign into law.