The Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in collaboration with the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD) has released a report on the establishment of a separate branch of the military in the US — Cyber Force.
Experts estimate the initial budget for the agency will range from $10 billion to $11 billion.
The document’s authors, including former military officials, believe the new structure will achieve initial operational readiness within 12-18 months.
The initiative gained momentum thanks to an amendment by Senator Kirsten Gillibrand to the defense budget law for the 2027 fiscal year.
According to the report, the project will not require a significant allocation of new funds. Approximately $7.7 billion is already allocated in the Pentagon’s budget for cyber operations, with an additional $2.8 billion earmarked for maintaining specialized personnel.
The task of Cyber Force is to consolidate these resources, which are currently distributed between Cyber Command (CYBERCOM) and other branches of the armed forces.
The proposed service will consist of 33,000 personnel, including 20,000 active-duty military members and up to 6,000 civilian specialists. The commission proposed a specific staffing model: the workforce will consist exclusively of officers and warrant officers. Experts believe the absence of enlisted personnel is optimal for a high-tech unit.
The report considers two integration scenarios:
- incorporating Cyber Force into the Department of the Army (similar to the Space Force within the Air Force structure);
- creating an independent Department of Cyber Forces.
The main argument for the reform is the current fragmentation of specialist training. At present, Cyber Command is forced to combine combat management with administrative functions. Cyber Force will take on the tasks of training and equipping troops, while the protection of local information networks will remain under the jurisdiction of existing units.
Senior Fellow at FDD Mark Montgomery emphasized that the creation of Cyber Force is inevitable and urged the approval of the service model before a major crisis occurs.
In May, the Pentagon signed agreements with Nvidia, Microsoft, Reflection, and Amazon Web Services to apply advanced AI tools in classified military environments.