U.S. Cyber Command is ready to become a fully independent combatant command, and gaining that status would allow it to more quickly respond to crises and strengthen its role in the budgeting process, the head of the organization said Tuesday.
As part of its Goldwater-Nichols-style organizational review, the Defense Department is currently assessing whether to transition CYBERCOM—currently subordinate to U.S. Strategic Command—to an independent combatant command (COCOM). During a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing, Adm. Mike Rogers, who leads both CYBERCOM and the National Security Agency, said the command is mature enough to make that evolution.
“I realize this is a much broader input than just Adm. Rogers, and there are many opinions that will be factored in,” he said. “But my input to the process has been, combatant commander designation would allow us to be faster, which would generate mission outcomes.
“I would also argue that the department’s processes—the budget priotorizations, strategy, policy—are all generally structured to enable direct combatant commander input into those processes,” he added. “I believe that cyber command needs to be a part of that direct process.”
Rogers explained that when the department considers whether to elevate an organization to an independent combatant command, it thinks in terms of whether the mission rises to a global level and is of “sufficient priority” to merit coordination across the entire Defense Department-wide enterprise. CYBERCOM falls under those parameters, he said.
However, CYBERCOM should still remain collocated with NSA to take advantage of the security organization’s infrastructure and capability, Rogers said, noting that the country didn’t have to invest in a large military construction program for Cyber Command because it was able to use NSA facilities.
“But we need to continue to assess that decision over time,” he said. “We need to make it a conditions based assessment, as to in some point in the future does it make more sense to do that?”
Defense Secretary Ashton Carter in February said CYBERCOM’s current alignment under STRATCOM has been effective but is not necessarily optimal. However, he would be loathe to elevate it to an independent command if that means increasing its headquarters staff (Defense Daily, Feb. 25).
“One of the things that we’re doing in this budget is cutting headquarters staff, so we’ll need to be careful about that,” he said.
Carter is slated to roll out the first of his Defense Department reform proposals Tuesday afternoon.