A new cyber and electronic warfare directorate within the Army staff held a kickoff meeting Dec. 1 and its new leader plans to have a force staffed, trained and able to deploy within two years.
Brig. Gen. Patricia Frost, former deputy commanding general for operations at Army Cyber Command, now leads the new directorate overseeing integration of electronic warfare and cyber capabilities.
She has established an ambitious timeline for staffing and training the soldiers that will become career cyber warriors. Equipping them with offensive and defensive cyber weapons is a secondary concern.
“I think we can achieve a lot in five years. I know that sounds aggressive, but it’s doable,” Frost said at the annual Association of Old Craws electronic warfare conference in Washington, D.C. “If we put some limits on saying we have objectives, and we are going to shoot for a five-year operational and integrated capability I don’t think that’s a far-off reach.”
The Army is in the process of building a total 62 cyber teams – 41 in the active component and 21 Reserve teams. Those teams are being constructed under the auspices of the Army Cyber Command, which was made a component command under a three-star general with 200-plus personnel. The service’s dedicated electronic warfare force is scheduled to be up and running by October 2018, she said.
“That’s tremendous combat power that we did not have,” Frost said. “Within one to two years we are going to have an operational capability that we are going to deploy to a theater to practice what we preach. I believe that is a realistic timeline based on the priorities that the secretary of the Army and the chief of staff of the Army have given.”
Electronic warfare and cyber capabilities are top of the list of priorities at the Army’s new Rapid Capabilities Office (RCO), which seeks non-developmental technologies that can be fielded within five years.
“I would tell you we are on a very good path,” Frost said. I am not concerned about the resourcing today. I am concerned about the resourcing and training of the personnel. My concern is you can … deliver a material solution and a capability to a theater but if you don’t have the people and the training behind that that materiel is just going to sit somewhere.”
Nearly all of the Army’s weapons, vehicles and gear requires some connection to a communication network, which means it operates within the electromagnetic spectrum. Previously, when the Army identified gaps in its EM capabilities, there was no one place in the Pentagon responsible for finding solutions, Frost said. The new cyber and EW directorate is now that place.
The Army has gotten serious about cyber and has built a component force from scratch because it saw potential enemies Russia and China outpacing its own capabilities in those domains.
“Our adversaries are not fighting this in stovepipes,” she said. “They are using all the capabilities to their advantage and bringing them to bear. We should go forward, I don’t believe, in acquisition looking at stovepipes. We need to look at multi-purpose platforms, how can we get the most efficiencies.”
Within five years, the Army needs to integrate a space element into its cyber directorate and the Army staff needs to have a direct hand in its operation, Frost said. It also must decide what echelons need what capabilities within the EM spectrum.
“Before it was just a concept that was Powerpoint-deep,” she said. “Now we are looking at timelines, how do we actually get to achieving that objective and how to get the people and organization and training by this summer. … I’m not as concerned about the materiel.”