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The head of U.S. Cyber Command told Congress on Tuesday that his command should be elevated to become its own unified combatant command, a move that would make it one of the most powerful institutions in the Defense Department.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The idea of upgrading CYBERCOM has been discussed inside the Pentagon for months and the comments from Adm. Michael Rogers, the CYBERCOM commander, signals that senior military leaders may be nearing a final decision on the matter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“A combatant commander designation would allow us to be faster, which would generate better mission outcomes,” Rogers told the Senate Armed Services Committee.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“I would also argue that the department’s processes of budget prioritization,\u00a0strategy and policy are all generally structured to enable direct combatant commander input into those processes. That’s what they’re optimized for. I believe that cyber needs to be a part of that direct process,”\u00a0Rogers said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n
Created in 2009, CYBERCOM\u00a0is subordinate to U.S. Strategic Command, which oversees the nation’s nuclear arsenal.\u00a0There are nine unified combatant commands, many of them based on geographical areas, which form the basic structure for how the president executes command and control over military forces.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Defense Secretary Ash Carter may make a formal recommendation about elevating CYBERCOM as part of his review for broader\u00a0reform of the 1986 Goldwater-Nichols law which delineates\u00a0key aspects of the military’s chain of command, said Sen. Jack Reed, a Democrat from Rhode Island.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The military services are more than halfway through their effort to man, train and equip 133 operational teams and a total of about 6,200 cyber warriors by September 2018.<\/p>\n\n\n\n