The House Armed Services Committee adopted a measure to its version of the next defense policy bill directing the Pentagon to study the potential creation of a U.S. Cyber Force.
Rep. Morgan Luttrell (R-Texas) offered the amendment during HASC’s fiscal year 2025 National Defense Authorization markup on Wednesday, with the proposal adopted by voice vote.
“The FY ‘25 NDAA focuses on enhancing military lethality and readiness, as it includes my provisions to evaluate the need for a Cyber Force…this legislation is a win for our national security and our district. I look forward to this coming to the floor in the House of Representatives,” Luttrell said in a statement following the panel’s approval of the NDAA markup.
Following 12 hours of debate, HASC voted 57-1 late Wednesday evening to advance its $883.7 billion FY ‘25 NDAA for full consideration on the House floor (Defense Daily, May 23).
Luttrell’s amendment, approved by unanimous consent as part of a larger amendment package, directs the Secretary of Defense to enter into an agreement with the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine to conduct an evaluation on the potential creation of a U.S. Cyber Force and to submit a report on its findings.
Ahead of the NDAA markup, Luttrell had offered his thoughts on why DoD may require a Cyber Force to take the lead on cyber operations, rather than having Cyber Command (CYBERCOM) and “four independent military services to perform the functions of one service.”
“This is not an indictment of the immense effort expended by CYBERCOM leadership over the years. In fact, quite the opposite. CYBERCOM has been an incredibly well-led organization that has made the best of the hand it’s dealt. But the limitations of the current structure – with cyber officers and enlisted personnel spread across the Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marine Corps – are more apparent and the implications are more dangerous than ever before,” Luttrell wrote in a Defense News op-ed published on May 21. “To succeed, there must be a single entity that can be held accountable and responsible for the ‘Organize, Train, and Equip’ functions that are performed by the uniformed services today. No different from the Army for ground combat or the Navy for global maritime operations. It would be a mistake to believe that a combatant command can perform the functions of both a combatant command and a service.”
Under the directive, the National Academies report would evaluate the efficacy of establishing a separate military branch dedicated to cyber operations or whether it may make sense to follow a Special Operations Command model, and refine CYBERCOM’s organizational structure to meet a Cyber Force-like approach.
The amendment notes the National Academies should also take into account lessons learned from the creation of the Space Force that could be applied to establishing a Cyber Force, as well as looking to the organization constructs of other countries’ mature cyber forces to inform the evaluation.
If adopted in the final FY ‘25 NDAA, the report on establishing a U.S. Cyber Force would be due to the congressional defense committee no later than 270 days after the Pentagon has established a formal agreement with the National Academies to conduct the study.