WASHINGTON, D.C. — The Commission on U.S. Cyber Force Generation published a report proposing a standalone military cyber organization. The proposal includes an initial budget of $10 billion to $11 billion and a force structure of up to 34,500 personnel.
The commission is a joint effort between the Center for Strategic and International Studies and the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. Its members consist of retired two- and three-star cyber commanders, former Pentagon cyber officials, and mid-level cyber personnel. The proposed budget would be funded through reallocations of existing military funds.
The recommended organization would focus on offensive and defensive cyber operations. The force would consist of 20,000 active-duty officers and warrant officers, 3,500 to 5,000 National Guard members, and 5,000 to 6,000 civilian and contractor personnel. The commission cited current pay scale inadequacies, lengthy training pipelines, and competing responsibilities as reasons for not including enlisted personnel, but it recommended establishing a managerial career track for officers and a technical expertise track for warrant officers.
Joshua Stiefel, report co-chair and government relations vice president, said the proposed force will unify and centralize existing defense cyber budgets to improve return on investment. Stiefel also addressed the exclusion of enlisted personnel by saying: "We value the enlisted cadre so much that we believe that if they can make it through the cyber pipeline, they more than have earned the credibility, the merit to wear a warrant officer's collar device."
Mark Montgomery, a Foundation for Defense of Democracies senior fellow and report commissioner, said: "When that go order comes, we have to be better prepared than we were for Space Force." The commission studied two potential organizational alignments: embedding the force within the Department of the Army or establishing it as an independent military department.
Retired Air Force major and cybersecurity expert Jeremy Thompson raised a concern regarding the report's approach to enlisted personnel. "I am surprised we would be talking about spinning up another military force that would eschew itself of that tradition because of what is realistically just a money issue," Thompson said. The report recommends that defense of the Department of Defense Information Network remain with the individual military services. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand plans to introduce an amendment to the 2027 National Defense Authorization Act to create a Cyber Force.