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3 months ago
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The US Space Force won't be the only new military branch Donald Trump has created if forthcoming recommendations from a group of retired military and civilian leadership end up being adopted. They want the President to form a US "Cyber Force" too.
Public policy think tank the Center for Strategic and International Studies, along with the Cyber Solarium Commission 2.0, announced on Monday their plans to form the Commission on Cyber Force Generation. The Commission plans to deliver a report to the Trump administration, detailing how best to operate the new military branch.
It's not clear what new roles the branch would have, if any, that existing military cyber roles don't already fill. Current military cyber jobs run the gamut of private sector roles, from user support to cybersecurity, as well as offensive work in support of other military operations.
"When [implementation] is neglected or rushed, the result is enduring organizational friction with inefficiencies, confusion that can persist for years, and degraded mission effectiveness," said retired Lieutenant General Ed Cardon, the former head of US Army Cyber Command and Committee co-chair.
To prevent that from happening (not that Cardon was actually referring to anything … cough), the Commission plans to provide "foundational details" for a Cyber Force, including its organizational structure, core functions, roles and responsibilities, and necessary authorities the branch would need.
The Commission's work will kick off in September, and there's no indication of when it intends to deliver its recommendations to the administration. The Center said that the process of developing the report will include discussions with stakeholders from within the government and civilian industries.
Moreover, the Commission is made up of experts. Cardon is co-chairing the Commission with Josh Stiefel, a former staff member on the House Armed Services Committee, and it includes former commanders from other US military cyber units, corporate leadership from companies like Dragos and Anduril, and academics.
Is this a redundant effort?
The Center admitted in its press statement that its work won't be the only project studying the establishment of a Cyber Force - and the other project even has government funding.
The 2025 National Defense Authorization Act included language requiring the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine to conduct a consensus study on the future of the organization of cyber forces in the US military. That study is currently looking for experts to contribute, with the window closing at the end of this week.
Per the Academies, the study will look at refining the current organization of US military cyber forces, but it won't necessarily conclude that forming a new branch is the best approach.
As the Center noted in its release, the Commission won't be "litigating the decision to create a Cyber Force but instead addressing the critical—and often overlooked—questions of implementation." Cardon believes that's enough to distinguish its work from that being done by the Academies.
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"This project takes a different approach: it invests in implementation planning up front to generate momentum, reduce downstream risk, and accelerate outcomes if and when there is a decision to create a Cyber Force," Cardon said.
Whether that "if and when" will even include input from the Commission is up to the White House. Ultimately, there's nothing to suggest that the government commissioned the Center to conduct this study, unlike the Academies' study, and no reason the administration even has to consider it.
It's also worth noting that the Trump administration hasn't been the most cybersecurity-friendly in its seven months at the helm. Trump fired the director of the NSA and US Cyber Command in April, proposed to cut the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency's 2026 budget amid accusations it was censoring conservatives, and generally made a mess of the state of US government cyber operations.
We reached out to the White House to get its take on the future of America's next possible military branch but didn't hear back, leaving the most critical question of this story unanswered: We desperately want to know what Cyber Force members will be called. ®
