U.S. Cyber Force: Building a Service for the Digital Battlefield

Turning to Erica, before we get into the specifics of what it would look like to stand up this service, can you help paint a picture for the audience of what the cyber threat environment looks like right now?

Yeah, Lauren, thank you so much for having us on this podcast to discuss this, uh, really important issue.

The cyber threat environment is something that experts and practitioners have been talking about for a really long time, and this sort of dynamic and evolving environment.

And a lot of times we tend to talk about cyber threats really in technical terms, about how the technology is changing, how TTPs are changing, how AI may be changing the nature of cyber threats.

But I like to think about the cyber threat environment from sort of a geopolitical and a strategic perspective because cyberspace is one, uh, domain and one environment where organized actors, especially nation state adversaries, like to project power, influence the course of events, achieve strategic objectives, undermine US advantages, and so on.

And so if we think about cyber threats from sort of more of that perspective, I think that really helps us focus on what are the most pressing strategic challenges for the United States.

And really, I see this through the lens of a great power competition with China in particular and how that competition is playing out in the cyber domain.

We've seen this recently with the revelations about the Salt Typhoon hack of US telecommunications providers, which is sort of traditional cyber espionage, but really done at a considerable scale.

Um, even more concerningly, especially for I think our perspective in terms of this commission's work is, you know, Volt Typhoon, right? The revelation that Chinese threat actors have gained access and have pre-positioned in US critical infrastructure with the understanding that it's likely to a planning on China's part to cause disruptive or even destructive cyber attacks in the event of a crisis or contingency with the US over Taiwan to make it harder for the US military to mobilize, to potentially cause coercive effects against the American public, and so on.

And so if we kind of look at cyber through the geopolitical lens, I think we can really see some concerning development.

And this all matters for the US military and how we think about how we generate capabilities in cyberspace because even though we've seen or we've been told about recent successful uses of military cyber power in the context of recent military operations, such as in Venezuela or in Iran, you know, with the integration and synchronization of cyber with other non-kinetic effects on the battlefield to shape the environment or during the course of a campaign, we need to be thinking about sort of how this might play out and our state of readiness in the event of a crisis or even hopefully not conflict with a nuclear-armed great power rival like China.

And so that is sort of what's been in the back of my mind as I'm thinking about how the threat environment is evolving and whether the US military is at a sufficient level of readiness to generate the capabilities needed to prevail in that fight.

fight.Absolutely.

I think that's a really helpful overview of some of the most pressing, you know, headline-grabbing cyber threats that we are hearing about on a regular basis today, and I think that you're already helping situate where those threats kind of meet the moment, or rubber meets the road, essentially, when it comes to the state of readiness for our, our cyber forces today.

So turning to Ed, um, as Erica was mentioning, our adversaries have proven that they're willing to operate without regard to law or norms in cyberspace.

Turning to Erica, before we get into the specifics of what it would look like to stand up this service, can you help paint a picture for the audience of what the cyber threat environment looks like right now?

Yeah, Lauren, thank you so much for having us on this podcast to discuss this, uh, really important issue.

The cyber threat environment is something that experts and practitioners have been talking about for a really long time, and this sort of dynamic and evolving environment.

And a lot of times we tend to talk about cyber threats really in technical terms, about how the technology is changing, how TTPs are changing, how AI may be changing the nature of cyber threats.

But I like to think about the cyber threat environment from sort of a geopolitical and a strategic perspective because cyberspace is one, uh, domain and one environment where organized actors, especially nation state adversaries, like to project power, influence the course of events, achieve strategic objectives, undermine US advantages, and so on.

And so if we think about cyber threats from sort of more of that perspective, I think that really helps us focus on what are the most pressing strategic challenges for the United States.

And really, I see this through the lens of a great power competition with China in particular and how that competition is playing out in the cyber domain.

We've seen this recently with the revelations about the Salt Typhoon hack of US telecommunications providers, which is sort of traditional cyber espionage, but really done at a considerable scale.

Um, even more concerningly, especially for I think our perspective in terms of this commission's work is, you know, Volt Typhoon, right? The revelation that Chinese threat actors have gained access and have pre-positioned in US critical infrastructure with the understanding that it's likely to a planning on China's part to cause disruptive or even destructive cyber attacks in the event of a crisis or contingency with the US over Taiwan to make it harder for the US military to mobilize, to potentially cause coercive effects against the American public, and so on.

And so if we kind of look at cyber through the geopolitical lens, I think we can really see some concerning development.

And this all matters for the US military and how we think about how we generate capabilities in cyberspace because even though we've seen or we've been told about recent successful uses of military cyber power in the context of recent military operations, such as in Venezuela or in Iran, you know, with the integration and synchronization of cyber with other non-kinetic effects on the battlefield to shape the environment or during the course of a campaign, we need to be thinking about sort of how this might play out and our state of readiness in the event of a crisis or even hopefully not conflict with a nuclear-armed great power rival like China.

And so that is sort of what's been in the back of my mind as I'm thinking about how the threat environment is evolving and whether the US military is at a sufficient level of readiness to generate the capabilities needed to prevail in that fight.

fight.Absolutely.

I think that's a really helpful overview of some of the most pressing, you know, headline-grabbing cyber threats that we are hearing about on a regular basis today, and I think that you're already helping situate where those threats kind of meet the moment, or rubber meets the road, essentially, when it comes to the state of readiness for our, our cyber forces today.

So turning to Ed, um, as Erica was mentioning, our adversaries have proven that they're willing to operate without regard to law or norms in cyberspace.