Lawmakers backing separate cyber force see opening with Trump’s return

U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during the United Nations General Assembly seen on a laptop computer in Hastings on the Hudson, New York, U.S., on Tuesday, Sept. 22. 2020. (Tiffany Hagler-Geard/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — The Pentagon has long pushed back against the establishment of a new military service dedicated to cyberspace, but with President-elect Donald Trump on his way back to the White House, a separate cyber force has a real shot at becoming a reality, according to experts and to lawmakers who support the move.

“This change in administration potentially could give more impetus to the creation of a separate cyber service,” Quentin Hodgson, formerly the Pentagon’s director of Cyber Plans, told Breaking Defense. “[Trump] did that with the Space Force. It was something that the Department of Defense didn’t want, but he decided he wanted it, and it’s possible that that could also happen with cyberspace.”

Hodgson was hardly alone in connecting Trump’s then-controversial move to stand up the Space Force in 2019 to visions of what his second term could bring to the cyber realm. Among those who made the comparison to Breaking Defense was Rep. Pat Fallon, a Texas Republican and vocal supporter of the cyber force idea.

“As the past half century has shown us, there will be naysayers and contrarians within the Pentagon who will do everything to slow-roll major changes. However, only six years ago, we had the same issue in the space domain,” Fallon said in an email. “We need concrete progress and limited stagnation in cyber, something I know the Trump Administration will emphasize throughout the next four years.”

Fallon and Rep. Morgan Luttrell, another Texas Republican, authored an amendment in the 2025 National Defense Authorization Act that called for an independent third-party study to help lawmakers and DoD leaders determine if a separate cyber force is necessary. The study is being conducted by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine.

“Incumbent on the results of the commission, which I think will affirm the need for a cyber service, I believe there’s a good chance we will see [a cyber service] come to fruition in soon. The Trump administration has shown that they will not put up with the status quo, and will opt for bold action, if necessary, especially when US national security is at risk,” Fallon said. 

Luttrell, like Fallon, said in an interview that he thought that if the third-party study came back recommending an independent cyber force, Trump would likely be on board, but ultimately, it is “most certainly the president’s call.”

“As a congressional member, if I want to know the advancements in AI, technology, name any given space, where do I get to go to that? Do I have to go talk to the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, or go talk to [Cyber Command]?” Luttrell told Breaking Defense. “Or could I go to cyber force, talk to the leadership, like, ‘Hey, where are we?’ And then they could say, ‘This is where we stand. This is what we implemented.’”

‘These Guys Like To Build Things’

Outside experts agreed that a Trump administration would, as the Foundation for Defense of Democracies Mark Montgomery put it, “look more favorably” on a separate cyber service. Montgomery, the senior director for FDD’s Center on Cyber and Technology Innovation, said such a service could “address our poor cyber force generation efforts over the past decade.”

Emily Harding, vice president of the Defense and Security Department at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told Breaking Defense that the possibility of a cyber force under Trump’s second term is a “big shrug” and that she has “zero evidence” it’s in the works. But, she said, “I also know these guys like to build things, and you know they were the ones responsible for Space Force, so why not?” 

She added that Trump’s seemingly close relationship with SpaceX founder and technology innovator Elon Musk — who was recently tapped by Trump to co-lead the new Department of Government Efficiency — is another factor that could lead to a cyber force. 

“You could see somebody like Elon Musk understanding this in a way that you know other people might not. So I don’t know. I think there’s a decent chance that they pursue it. I think they should pursue it,” she said. 

Harding said she primarily supports a cyber force because she believes an independent service will allow the military to find the most cyber-capable fighters. 

“The kinds of skills that you’re recruiting for in a cyber service or in a cyber role are very different from the kinds of skills you’re recruiting for in what you consider the other branches of the military,” she said. 

“I think you would want a different setup for recruiting and for training. In the other services, each one of them has a cyber skill set. They have a cyber specialty, but there’s not necessarily the same path to advancement. So I think it’s worth it to create the separate service, to create the talent pipeline and the specific structures that you would need for reserve,” she added. 

The Pentagon disagrees, arguing that the creation of a separate cyber force could create new challenges for the DoD in terms of understanding warfighting needs within each service. 

“A cyber service might have some benefits in ease of administrative management, but we have a variety of …military services in the Department of Defense who perform a variety of missions,” Mieke Eoyang, deputy assistant secretary of defense for cyber policy, said last year. “Having a cyber service that is divorced from those particular mission sets may pose some challenges in understanding the warfighting needs of the services to provide cyber to enable that fight.” 

“I think the question is that for people who think the cyber service is the answer to our … current challenges in cyber personnel management: be careful what you wish for,” she said.

Related: ‘Be careful what you wish for:’ DoD official warns separate cyber force could pose new challenges

Furthermore, at the end of September, the department formally requested that lawmakers shut down Fallon and Luttrell’s proposal for the independent assessment. DoD leaders contended that Congress had already called for an assessment of the current cyber landscape within the Pentagon, which included the potential for creating a cyber service in the 2023 NDAA. 

Jacquelyn Schneider, a fellow at the Hoover Institution where she serves as the director of the Hoover Wargaming and Crisis Simulation Initiative, is also against the creation of a new cyber service. She argued that rather than consolidating cyber expertise and infrastructure, it would lead to information silos that would make the military less effective in the cyber domain.

“In a world in which warfare is inherently joint, every time you create these different organizations, you create information stove pipes,” said Schneider, who also previously served as a senior policy advisor to the Cyberspace Solarium Commission.

Right now it’s unclear where exactly Trump stands, and his transition team did not respond to a request for comment. 

But Scneider, too, said she could see a new cyber force taking shape under a Trump administration.

“Trump likes to make services,” she said.