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The US military’s cyber priorities
00:27:08
Cybersecurity has been getting bigger recognition…
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- [00:02]
A
Today on the Daily Scoop Podcast from the Scoop News Group, the US Military's top cyber priorities. Principal cyber advisors from each of the services discuss how cyber is evolving. It's Tuesday, February 24, 2026. Welcome to the Daily Scoop Podcast where you'll hear the latest news and trends facing government leaders. I'm the host of the Daily Scoop Podcast, Billy Mitchell. Thanks so much for joining me. And now let's dive into the day's top headlines. The Department of Energy is rapidly building out multidisciplinary teams to support the Genesis Mission as it prepares to unveil a minimum viable product later this year, according to a senior agency official. The format for that demonstration is to be determined, but progress is palpable. Dario Gill, DOE's undersecretary for science and Director of the Genesis Mission, said in an interview with fedscoop that the department is going to show quite a lot of results this year and will show results on the progress of building AI supercomputers, the software and the agentic framework. The agency also plans to showcase the efforts behind the data curation used to train the next generation AI and the results tied to the application of AI in science and engineering, he added. The Genesis mission launched in November 2025 by way of an executive order that tasked the Energy Department with leading a national coordinated effort to accelerate innovation and discovery with the latest advancements in AI, quantum and high performance computing. As part of the initiative, the agency is working to build an integrated platform that draws on federal scientific data sets and expertise from public and private sectors. A demonstration of the Genesis platform's initial capabilities is required by mid year, according to the deadlines outlined in the presidential directive. Even sooner, by the end of March, the Energy Secretary will need to lay out plans for a risk based cybersecurity strategy that will protect the data sets powering the platform. There's much more to unpack regarding the Genesis mission, and you can read More in Lindsey Wilkinson's exclusive story on FedScoop.com in other news, a pullback of educational requirements for federal contracting jobs, including in technology work, moved one step closer to reality. On Monday. The Skills Based Federal Contracting act sailed through the House and now awaits Senate consideration. The bill from Representatives Nancy Mace, Republican of South Carolina, and Raja Krishnamoorthy, Democrat of Illinois, would ban minimum education requirements for personnel in some contracts. Introducing the bill on the House floor ahead of Monday's vote, Representative William Timmons, Republican of South Carolina, said the legislation ensures federal contractors can hire who they want to hire without additional red tape. Mace who chairs the House Oversight and Government Reform Subcommittee on cybersecurity, Information Technology and government innovation, recounted January 2024 testimony from an IBM executive who said federal contractors are rarely able to place an individual without a four year degree on a technology services contract ra regardless of their qualifications. Mace said the issue goes beyond technology and service contracts affecting work across the federal government. Eliminating four year degree requirements would do away with a paper ceiling that blocks talented Americans from pursuing opportunities in the billion dollar industry that shapes the entire labor market, she said. For more news at the intersection of the federal government and technology, make sure to visit fedscoop.com. CyberSecurity has been getting bigger recognition as an integrated enabler in key US Military operations recently in Iran and Venezuela. That comes on the heels of the Pentagon last year introducing a new cyber mission force generation model as part of the larger Cybercom 2.0 effort. So who better to discuss the growing prominence of cyber in the defense space than the principal cyber advisors of the various branches overseeing cyber kinetic integration at cyber talks? I got the opportunity to lead a panel with those leaders and a representative from industry to hear the latest on this emerging space. Joining me on the panel were the PCAs from each service Ann Marie Schumann of the Department of the Navy, Wanda Jones Heath of the Department of the Air Force, and Brandon Pugh of the army, as well as Dave Galapo, Senior Director for Full Spectrum Cyber@GDIT. Let's go now to that conversation from Cybertalks. So we have a lot to unpack because there's a lot going on in this space, as you all well know. But I think a place to start is we've heard so much recently with different military operations that have unfolded over the past six to 12 months that cyber, whether it's new or not, is now being named as a key enabler to some of those missions. So whether it's the operation in Venezuela or Iran or other places, we're seeing cyber attribution as an enabler. So let's talk about that. How has this integration played out more from your perspective across your services as not just a enabler but in those kinetic missions as a sort of opportunity to get to that point. So maybe Wanda, we can start from you and come back down this way.
- [05:21]
B
I always get the first stop. So first of all, thank you to Goldie and her team for today's event and certainly love being on stage with my colleagues. I will start by talking about the National Defense strategy. How many of you have read the strategy, whether the unclassified version or the classified version. Okay. I mean, you really need to take a look and it will reveal why cyber is important. When we talk about integrated deterrence and how non kinetic and kinetic elements are used. Cyber is in there. You heard about Venezuela. You heard. You know, you're watching Russia and Ukraine. There's a lot of activity that may not get the press, but I tell you, cyber is part of it. We are in a cultural shift where cyber is at the table. We involved in operational plans, and it's very important that we are now doing exercises. I'm not talking about tabletop. That's okay, we get white carded, but. But we're trying to change that culture to where we are integrated into the operational plans. They understand and they know what cyber brings to the table. We have more work to do, but I'm very confident because we're having conversations like this in the building all the time.
- [06:38]
A
Want to go down the line, Brandon?
- [06:39]
C
Yeah, happy to. Well, first, thanks for having me today. I'm relatively new to the role, obviously the newest one on stage. I've been the role since June of last year after I was fortunate to be appointed by the President. So thrilled to be in the role. I would say cyber is really a central focus in the US Army. So starting at the top with Secretary Driscoll, my boss, and General George, we're on a really unique time in the army, what we call continuous transformation, and that is preparing and transforming the army for that future fight. You know, Secretary Hegseth was very direct. There's five key investment areas for the Army. Cyber and electronic warfare were two of those five areas which both fall to our office. So we're very excited to be a key part of that. But something that you had mentioned, I just want to kind of chime into. I think it's essential to see cyber in two ways. How could it be a standalone capability? And there might be times where we want to leverage cyber for defense or offense, but how is it also enabling traditional military activities like Kinetic Effects? I think having both mindsets in mind is critical that way. This is not seen as a capability that just sits in our case at Fort Gordon or Fort Meade. That's, I think, been a more legacy mindset of where cyber has been. But I'm thrilled to see we're really shifting well beyond that with both of your leadership as well.
- [07:51]
D
Yeah, absolutely. So also thank you for having me. But to double down on what you're talking about, about cyber as standalone versus cyber as a joint function, you know, and to your point about this might not be new. It's not. This goes all the way back to the Dow's 2018 cyber strategy that gave us the imperative to integrate our kinetic and non kinetic operations. I think what you're seeing now is public acknowledgement of all the work that has happened from 2018 until now. And this is really critically playing out in the Department of Navy with our distributed maritime operations. The CNO's recently released fighting instruction acknowledges that both communications and tailored forces are critical to supporting kinetic and non kinetic operations. And those tailored forces absolutely include cyber forces in the mix. We have to do this not only in a joint fashion, but also as individual services as well. Navy, Marine Corps, Army Air Force. I think there is a growing realization of not only the joint importance, but the importance for our unique service missions as well. And that has been a huge leap forward and is driving a lot of innovation that I see across the services.
- [09:15]
A
And Dave, as our industry leader on the panel, give your thoughts too. As you see this sort of become more mainstream and based on what your co panelists just said, the role that an industry member like Gdit can play in supporting that.
- [09:29]
E
Yeah. So first of all, I think that it's awesome that you're so in kinetic and non kinetic together. The Department of War, U.S. cyber Command and the service cyber components have been working for a long time to make that happen. And it's not as simple as a cyber effect along with kinetic. It is the policy, the planning, the tests and evaluation of these things and how that all has to come together to make something like this occur. So it's great to see that the two of them are coming together.
- [09:57]
C
Can I add one thing on to what you just said? I think it's a good point is, you know, not only we just talked about kinetic versus non kinetic, it's also blending other capabilities. So how does cyber electronic warfare as well as information operations come together? In our case at least, army cyber has been collectively and jointly considering those elements. I mean that was one of the reasons people ask, well, how did the army pca, why is EW and IO in your portfolio? It's in recognition of the fact that these, yes, distinct legal authorities, but also like they should be used together when it comes to an actual operation potentially.
- [10:27]
A
So I think a key point, and largely when we talk about this, it sounds like it's more of an offensive cyber, but from a defensive standpoint. And I think when we hear about this, it's a lot of operational technology that is targeted and that's a key part of Cyber defense for each of your services as well. So how have you been placing added emphasis on the protection of that operation technology? Because that's often the first target in these military operational scenarios. Dave, I could come to you first just because I know this is also a key focus for gdit and maybe we'll take it back the opposite way. Sure.
- [11:03]
E
So GDIT is putting added emphasis on operational technologies now. So recently this year, we kicked off our internal R and D with what we call our Vennon Full Spectrum Cyber Group. So Full Spectrum Cyber is taking what we've done in the past in defensive cyber operations, Zero Trust, the traditional defensive it, and adding some offensive cyber operations mindset to that. So what can you take from the offensive side and assist the defensive side? So think blue team defensive Cyber Protection and adding a red team offensive scope to that, making a purple team that can share the mindset of both offense and defense and use that to look at operational technologies.
- [11:46]
A
Fantastic.
- [11:47]
D
I think that blending into a purple team mindset is really critical. One area where in the Department of Navy we're looking at this is with the rollout and the build of Golden Fleet. And in my conversations with the Secretary of the Navy, we've discussed how that investment has to come along with cybersecurity by design, not only for the it, but for the OT afloat because. Because we know that's what our adversaries are going after. So as we look at that and how we get after that, cybersecurity by design, afloat and expanding that as well to incorporate what we've learned from applying Zero Trust to OT in our installations, comes an imperative to really unify our afloat and ashore infrastructure as well. Because we can't treat these as two separate and siloed things and hope to achieve cybersecurity there. This is especially on the installation side. That's something that is, I think, a mutual emphasis for all the PCAs. We've discussed that before too.
- [12:50]
C
No, you're very right. I mean, they both touched on both installations and OT. I'll broaden it a little bit. So DCI, or defense critical infrastructure is one of the top four priorities for my office and why there's 288 camps per posts and stations in the army. And depending on who you ask, that number might vary, but we'll go 288. And it's critical for two reasons, both Homeland defense, which is a key priority of the administration, but then also force projection. So if a military base is disrupted, think they don't have Power, electric, gas, how can we move soldiers and their equipment like tanks to the fight? That's a real concern for us. So what we've been doing is we have two pilots underway right now to prioritize our installations and say which ones are most critical, where can we divert resources, and more importantly, how do we work with the interagency? We do a really good job, I think, of protecting what's inside of our bases, inside the wire, like we like to say. But how do we work with other federal partners to harden what are largely private operators? That is critically important for us. And I'd say it's probably shared not only by the services, but really across the department too.
- [13:55]
B
And certainly I want to brag on the Department of Air Force, right. You know, we followed a lot behind the army because they led in this space for a while. We are now, after three years of advocating for more money, more time talking about operational technology. We have an entire organization that stood up that is solely focused on that called CROCs, the cyber resiliency of Control Systems. And that organization is funded, it has people now. And we have a palm in action. Huge amounts of money being allocated to this space. And we did survive first contact of, you know, hey, they saw that target of money in the palm and it survived. So we are really putting a lot of effort in making sure that our defense critical infrastructure is protected, that we understand where it is, what it, how it applies to the mission. So we, we are right in line with the rest of the services.
- [14:53]
D
I think one challenge that we're all facing here, including in industry though, is the low density of the skill set when it comes to OT cybersecurity. I mean, this is a really unique thing, something that we don't necessarily have a lot of across the Dow. And so therefore it's very important for us to partner with industry, share those best practices and lessons learned from really not as sort of a customer client mindset, which is I think, the old way of doing acquisition, but acquisition reform is really pushing us to partner from the beginning, and that's going to be critical to success here.
- [15:32]
A
So I realize I have the three PCAs on stage and I think it's a rare opportunity as well as industry representative who can kind of give the context of the role and how this has evolved. I think it's a good opportunity because this is a relatively new role. It hasn't been been around that long. So maybe we could start with Wanda and Anne Marie and sort of since you both have been in the role for A few years in each of your roles, how the role has evolved in your time there. And then hear Brandon's perspective on how he sees it as a newcomer. And then Dave's perspective from the outside on how the element of cybersecurity has really gotten more attention within the departments. But Wanda, let's start with you.
- [16:10]
B
It starts with this position, right? Coming to an an organization that is structurally based and they plop the PCA in the middle of the organization being one of the original PCAs. Definitely miss my colleagues. Terry Mitchell is the first Army PCA and Chris Cleary is the first Navy PCA. And I'm still here. And so figuring out the role and explaining the difference between the PCA and the CIO and maturing that organization, getting those policies into place, being able to advise when needed, advocate when needed, and then influence. And so those are the three lenses I use on a daily basis, no matter the topic. When it comes to cyber and it being, there are at least four to five key stakeholders. So you have to maneuver within those stakeholders. You have to be able to collaborate and partner, but you also have to make sure you're independent when it comes to being an advisor because you're looking across the entire organization, Department of Air Force, not just what the CIO wants or what the infrastructure team wants. So being able to do that, I would say that we are running now because we are solidified as an organization. We have palming actions, we're able to, we're invited to meetings without being asked. So we're not forgotten anymore. So I'm very pleased that we are now part of an institution that is many, many years old.
- [17:52]
D
And I'm really happy to be the second Department of Navy pca because in addition to everything Wanda talked about, my predecessor, Chris Cleary, had the unenviable task of writing the Department of Navy's first cyber strategy. And I think in the maturity model of PCAs, in addition to the role setting and just elbowing your way in the door and defining what those authorities are, in practice, there is a lot of emphasis up front of what is the vision, what is the strategy. That's one of the first things you have to set. I'm in a place where I came in, we already had a strategy strategy that had been approved by the Secretary of the Navy. And I get to implement that. And I would my personality much rather be in an implementation phase than a strategy writing phase. So that allows me to really run, hopefully not with scissors too often, but if necessary, quickly after the objectives of The Dawn Cyber strategy.
- [18:51]
C
Yeah, I would say obviously I'm the newest on stage and I think you both are. Actually probably one of the first meetings I had outside of army leadership just to see like how the other services are structuring their roles. But the role is new. I mean, we just surpassed the five year mark, I want to say. And I'm the third army PCA. My predecessor became the first assistant secretary of war for cyber policy. That Ms. Sutton does a great job leading now. So the role is kind of, you know, you have eight statutory responsibilities. Well, seven, plus your budget certifications. We'll say eight for the sake of argument. But absent that, it is like what does most value add to your secretary and your Chief of Staff? And that's how I came in. So I see kind of having three buckets of stakeholders working with everybody as a cyber equity. In our case, it's our G6, our CIO, our Army's G3, our operations and our commanding general of our cyber second bucket. How am I supporting our two most senior leaders, the Secretary and the Chief of Staff. And I'd say we lean very heavily as well into the Chief of Staff role because I, you know, that is something the statute is very keen on. We should support both senior leaders and the third. How are we as a team player across the Army? Secretary Driscoll and General George are leading a lot, if you haven't noticed. The army is going underway a lot of transformation, which is exceptional. We want to be value add there. One example of that is acquisition reform. Acquisition reform is well underway in the army right now. I think it's key for our office. How are we getting cyber and tech capabilities in the hands of soldiers quickly? Not in a matter of years, but as Secretary Driscoll will sometimes say, in a matter of 30 to 45 days. And let's actually get these capabilities in the hands of soldiers to early on. Rather than waiting until the end of the acquisition cycle to find out if this works or not. Let's see if it survives contact early on. If not, maybe it's not a good fit for us or maybe we can pivot and iterate. That is how like our officer tie into what is otherwise an army wide priority.
- [20:34]
A
Yeah.
- [20:34]
E
And what we're seeing in industry in the past, as an IT services company, we would take direction from a cio, implement that in the IT services. Now with the PCA stood up, we have much better opportunity to speak with them early, engage with them early. Anne Marie mentioned strategy and then the implementation plan. We work with her on strategy and what needs to be done, what we think needs to be done way before we get to implementation. So we have a lot of good discussions leading up to the actual implementation of cybersecurity. And that's kind of a new approach, different than what the old CIO IT services used to be.
- [21:07]
A
Fascinating. Brandon, you mentioned Katie Sutton. Her office recently introduce the new Cyber Force generation model, which I'm sure is trickling down to you guys in some way. So I'd love to hear from some of you how that new model has evolved the way you think about building your cyber forces that your services need and how that's progressing. I'm sure it's very early on, so maybe not much to report, but would love to hear just when that comes out or has come out, how that now impacts the job that each of you.
- [21:39]
C
Well, I don't want to steal Ms. Sutton's thunder, but what I'll say is how the army is being implicated. So people and structures, we'll say, is one of the four priorities for my office. I mentioned DCI being a second one, but essentially that is how are we making sure we're training our soldiers in the correct way, how are we retaining them, how are we incentivizing them to go to higher level training? But equally important, how are we presenting the right forces to US cybercom and making sure we retain the right forces for our cyber? And that is one of the thoughts behind Cybercom 2.0 or the revised Cyber generation model, if you want to use the full term. I would say this has been a collaborative effort from the start. So RG3 in our office were very engaged with Ms. Sutton's office as well as Cybercom from the very start. Now we're in the hard part is the implementation phase and there's many efforts underway there, many of which are really reliant on the services.
- [22:29]
D
So.
- [22:30]
C
So I would say this requires a very collaborative approach and really almost daily contact, I would say, between the services or service cyber components with Ms. Sutton's office. But if you're not tracking this, at the end of the day, it is a question of how can the military departments better work with Cybercom in terms of on the force generation piece, making sure they get the right soldiers. In our case, they're retaining them and they're developing and we're not losing those soldiers because at the end of the day, we, we provide the forces to US Cybercom. In our case, we also provide all the civilians, 100% of the civilians at US Cybercom are army civilians. And it's always important to remember we're a people business at the end of the day, you know, we can have a lot of exquisite capabilities and a lot of technology, but at its core is that soldier and that army civilian that we can't forget that.
- [23:16]
D
And to your sort of trickle down comment, I would reframe that as this is not, not something that is slowly trickling down. This is a full speed ahead, all involved, all hands on deck effort. It is going to move very fast. It is going to involve a lot of changes to policy, process, resourcing and those are the core things that PCAs were created to do right. That man train equip policy and making sure the resources are there to support support it. But to double down on what you said about the emphasis behind Cybercom 2.0, really, when I think about the term mastery, what do we mean when we say we want to achieve mastery in the cyber domain or have more mastery of our operational personnel? I really think it is ensuring that our cyber operators are the pacing threat globally and that we don't lose that edge. That's something that we have to work through to ensure, as you said, the right incentives, the right career structures for them to maintain that. Creating masters doesn't happen by coincidence. It is a very deliberate process. And As I think Hon. Sutton often says, or I hear from Cybercom, we don't want to just create unicorns, we need herds of unicorn.
- [24:41]
C
One thing you said is being full speed ahead. If you didn't catch the press release that came out around Cybercom 2.0, it was very clear that department leadership is very supportive of this endeavor and sees this as a top priority for the entire department, all of our senior leaders. Matter of fact, Ms. Sutton was probably actually the most junior in that press release. When you saw undersecretaries on there, which is terrific to see a lot of support and people rallying behind cyber and I think rightfully so.
- [25:06]
E
Yeah, from an industry perspective, we're obviously a people business too. So we need to get people who are not the cyber operators, but provide support to the cyber operators. So that involves a lot of different things from training to retaining people. And especially in the cyber realm, there's a lot of clearance and classified information involved. So it adds a different element to what's already a fairly small cyber security staff. So we do things like intern programs in which we bring children in elementary school to teach them about what they're going to be doing in the future. How do you grow and live a life that ends up with a top secret security clearance. So starting at ridiculously young age to get them thinking about the mindset of what's needed to support cyber efforts, do
- [25:54]
A
you take five year olds? I have a five year old. Kidding. Maybe too early. Thank you all. Wanda, Brandon, Anne Marie, Dave, this has been fantastic. I think everybody learned a lot from this and there's so much more to explore. But just the opportunity to get all of you combined on the stage is just awesome.
- [26:11]
C
I think our first time, by the way. Look at that. You take credit for the first time.
- [26:16]
A
There you go. That's the power of cyber talks. Thank you guys. Let's give them a round of applause. That was fantastic. For more news at the intersection of the federal government and technology, make sure to visit fedscoop.com thanks so much for tuning in to another episode of the Daily Scoop podcast, available on all podcast platforms. If you've already rated the podcast on your platform of choice, thanks so much. High ratings and good reviews of the show help more people to find it. The Daily Scoop Podcast is a production of the Scoop News Group in Washington, D.C. adam Butler and Carlin Fisher helped put the show together and the entire Scoop News Group team team contributes. We'll be back tomorrow with more top headlines. Until then, I'm your host. As always, Billy Mitchell. Thanks so much for listening.