The leader of Army Cyber Command (ARCYBER) is looking to expand his command’s role beyond ‘cyber,’ to include greater electronic warfare and information operations capabilities, with a planned summit next week to begin drafting a new operational statement for the next one to three years.
Lt. Gen Stephen Fogarty, who assumed the helm of ARCYBER in April, told attendees at a Thursday AUSA event that the summit would bring together top Army EW and signals & intelligence officials to ensure his command has operational flexibility to respond to adversarial cyber threats with a greater range of tactics.
“As we sit down and go over our vision for 2025 or 2028, there’s a chance that in three or four years from now we’ll no longer be called Army Cyber Command. We’re going to be Army Information Warfare Operations or Information Dominance Operations. We’re going to be something else that’s actually going to reflect the totality of the capabilities, the challenges, the opportunities of operating in this environment,” Fogarty said. “We’ve got to be careful about boxing ourselves in by the term ‘cyber.’”
The meeting next week is set to take place over four days at ARCYBER’s headquarters in Ft. Belvoir in Virginia, with a plan to start putting together draft vision statements on changing the command’s role.
“The intent is, probably within two weeks after the meeting, to publish the mission, vision and priorities we’ll operate off of for the next one to three years,” Fogarty told reporters at a press briefing.
Fogarty, who took over for Gen. Paul Nakasone, who was tapped to lead NSA and Cyber Command, said ARCYBER has to take into greater account its potential for enhanced EW and information operations to give his commanders more options for responding to threats.
ARCYBER has also added new commanders for its cyber operations, cyber protection and information operations brigades, which Fogarty told reporters gives him a chance to set a new vision for near-term and midterm operational goals.
“This really gets us the ability very early on in my command tenure to be able to have this discussion. Now this is not prescriptive. We’re going to lay this out, then we’re going to discuss it. And what I expect is each area will bring their views into this, work on a draft vision and then we’ll refine this,” Fogarty told Defense Daily.
Officials at the summit will unpack each of their respective areas’ programs to ensure greater visibility and alignment to ARCYBER priorities. Then a smaller group of senior leadership will meet to go over more specific mission and vision statement.
“Over the last two years, in particular, as we’ve conducted operations at a very high tempo, we’ve been given enough information to understand what we got right when we started [Army Cyber Command] eight years ago and what we need to change,” Fogarty said. “We didn’t get it exactly right. But we have operated and accelerated our understanding and we’re actually evolving faster and that’s critically important.”
The upcoming summit will also address improvements to designing and building integrated ARCYBER capabilities, with specific attention to tools needed to assist in the Army’s ongoing tactical network modernization effort, according to Fogarty.
“There’s some criticism of how we’ve combined and integrated intel and electronic warfare capabilities. We’re going to continue to evolve. If we don’t get it right on the first turn, then we’ll make the changes that are required,” Fogarty said. “Whatever the most capable system or most capable tactic is, that’s what we’re going to employ. It doesn’t necessarily have to be cyber vs. cyber.”
Fogarty said the leadership summit could include revising ARCYBER’s mission statement and more accurately reflect priorities for future industry partnerships.
“We’re under persistent attack from increasingly capable and aggressive adversaries. And I can’t do this alone. I don’t want to do it alone. And it’s not just about cyber,” Fogarty said.
