Lawmakers have largely expressed what they see as a need to restructure national cyberdefense by more clearly delineating lines of authority and elevating the status of Cyber Command in the Pentagon. However, pushback from the White House is casting doubt on whether such a move would be viable this year, much to the frustration of Congress.
“The premise is simple. To succeed against our present and future challenges, we need flatter, faster-moving and more flexible organizations,” Senate Armed Services Chairman Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., said at a recent hearing. He added that the administration’s opposition to change was “bizarre.”
McCain was speaking, in part, to the idea of raising the seven-year-old U.S. Cyber Command to the status of a unified combatant command. Advocates say the evolution is necessary to defend against increasingly sophisticated adversaries like China and Russia, as well as the Islamic State.
Adm. Mike Rogers, who heads both Cyber Command and the National Security Agency, said during a hearing of McCain’s committee that he favored the idea with some reservations.
“A combatant commander designation would allow us to be faster, which would generate better mission outcomes,” Rogers said. He added one caveat, that it would take time. “I agree in the long run. But the reality is we’re just not ready to do that today.”
Current combatant commands include Central Command, which oversees joint operations in the Middle East, Northern Command, which is in charge of homeland security, and Pacific Command, with oversight of Asia and the Pacific. Cyber Command is subordinate to Strategic Command, which oversees the U.S. nuclear response mission.
Yet the administration has objected to the proposal out of principle, saying that making the change through Congress would remove authority from the executive branch.
“The secretary of defense and chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff should retain the flexibility to recommend to the president changes to the unified command plan that they believe would most effectively organize the military to address an ever-evolving threat environment,” the White House said in a statement.
The issue is growing in urgency as congressional negotiations loom over the fiscal 2017 National Defense Authorization Act, the annual legislation to cover defense policy. McCain’s version of the bill, passed by the Senate in June, omitted any major organizational restructuring with the combatant commands.
But lawmakers in the House were quicker to the draw, and in May passed their own version of the bill that would require Cyber Command to be elevated in stature.
The more aggressive House version also passed with 237 Republicans and 40 Democrats voting in favor, a fair deal of bipartisan support. And even some who voted against it expressed sympathy for the Cyber Command component, including Washington Rep. Adam Smith, the ranking Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee.
“Does McCain have the exact right formula? Is the White House completely wrong in the criticism? No and no. But I think we have to move in that direction,” Smith told reporters in July, adding that he admired the model of the Joint Special Operations Command in combating al Qaeda.
House Homeland Security Chairman Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas, expressed a similar sentiment in an interview. “It’s an interesting question,” McCaul said. “There have been discussions about [a] sort of … joint special operations center [focused on] cyber. I think Cyber Command has the offensive capabilities, but again, standing up in the event there’s an act of cyberwarfare, are they capable of doing that is a question.
“But in a time of warfare, the military obviously has to stand up, and the question is if Cyber Command is capable of doing that, or should we think about the idea of a joint special operation center that’s cyber?”
