“Wherever [Army forces] are deployed, particularly those in Europe and the Pacific, they’re under just constant, constant assault,” Lt. Gen. Stephen Fogarty, chief of Army Cyber Command, says.
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.Autonomy changes everything about combat engineering
Sending robotic vehicles into the breach saves lives by removing humans from one of the most dangerous places on the battlefield.
In wargames at Fort Benning, troops used radio sensors to detect “enemy” forces long before patrols stumbled across them.
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr. The new high-tech operations center at Fort Gordon lets Army Cyber Command spend less time defending US networks and more time attacking adversaries.
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.
As old-school Sergeant Rock types give way to NCOs with advanced degrees, ARSOUTH Command Sgt. Maj. William Rinehart is helping build up both US and allied cyber forces.
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.
The Army is already struggling to man its new cyber units — and now it wants to expand their ranks and responsibilities for a new mission.
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.
AUSA: The Army is giving its electronic warfare force more troops, more training, and a more prominent role in combat headquarters, senior officers said here Thursday, pushing back on criticisms that the service neglects EW even as Russia and China pull ahead. The number of EW troops has increased from 813 (both officers and enlisted)…
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.
This internal budget battle in the Army could cede the actual battlefield to high-powered Russian and Chinese jammers, electronic warfare advocates fear, with the same lethal consequences for US troops that Ukrainian forces have suffered since 2014.
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.
Display screens are the eyes for maneuver forces needing to command and control
The Army is upfitting vehicles with big 24 or 32-inch displays that present multiple sources of data for a full operational picture.
ARLINGTON: Outgunned in the airwaves by Russian jammers, the US Army has a new plan for electronic warfare. The Army hopes to rebuild the long-neglected EW branch more quickly — in part, paradoxically, by partially submerging it in other branches, namely military intelligence and cyber. There’s both an equipment aspect and an organizational one. First…
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.
PENTAGON: Army Chief of Staff Mark Milley, has ordered a review of service’s longstanding shortfalls in electronic warfare, officers told me in an exclusive interview. The ultimate goal: give commanders from platoon to corps the ability to shut down enemy radio and radar as readily as they now call in airstrikes and artillery. It’s a critical…
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.
WASHINGTON: The US Army is rushing to stand up cyber forces but its progress shows both how far we’ve come, and how far we have to go. “From an initial start of six officers in 2014… today we have 397 officers, 141 warrant officers, and 560 non-commissioned officers and soldiers” in the Army’s recently created cyber…
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.
ARLINGTON: The Army is reinforcing its combat brigades with cyber soldiers. In 18 months of wargames with a wide range of units — tanks, Strykers, infantry, Airborne, Rangers — Army Cyber Command troops have brought hacking and jamming to bear on the (simulated) battlefield alongside guns and bombs. The exercises have already revealed cybersecurity shortfalls…
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.
ARLINGTON: “We needed to learn to speak infantry,” said Col. William Hartman, commander of the Army’s first offensive cyber operations brigade. That’s not easy. When one of Hartman’s teams joined a brigade of the 25th Infantry Division for an exercise this spring, the colonel recounted, the 25th’s commanding general told Hartman that his cyber operators…
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.
WASHINGTON: In an Army budget outlook that’s otherwise as grim as television tuned to a dead channel, there is one bright spot: cyberspace. “You know, we say that ‘flat is the new growth’ in DoD,” Vice-Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Adm. James “Sandy” Winnefeld, said at yesterday’s Bloomberg conference. “[Even] special operations forces”…
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.
Technology is moving too fast to keep track of everything, but there’s one overarching trend that policymakers must not miss in 2015. Call it “convergence.” Cybersecurity is no longer its own specialized function for tech geeks to take care of off to one side while the rest of the organization gets on with the real…
By Michael Warlick