Fort Gordon commander talks success in cyberspace

Fort Gordon, soon to be the site of U.S. Army Cyber Command Headquarters, has been actively embracing cyber in the military, but there is still progress to be made.

During an address to soldiers and industry professionals at AFCEA’s TechNet Augusta 2019 on Thursday, Maj. Gen. Neil Hersey laid out how the military can best optimize cyberspace operations.

Fort Gordon's commanding general said the military must find holes in its capabilities, review existing concepts and determine where education and training need to be improved. The ultimate goal, he said, is to prevail over competition in the information environment.

“We need to look inside our institution and across our operational force and determine where we need to improve education and improve training to drive a culture that thinks ahead of conflict,” Hersey said. “We need to identify where and how to improve our scenarios across individual and collective training at the combat training centers and war fighting exercises.”

Academic and industry partnerships are also integral to remaining competitive, he said. To recruit skills such as software engineering, data science and security engineering, Fort Gordon’s Cyber Center of Excellence has partnered with the University System of Georgia and throughout South Carolina to hire people directly into the Army as officers.

“The cyber branch’s Direct Commissioning Pilot Program, which hires people directly into the Army as officers, led by the cyber school complements other talent acquisition approaches and has brought seven new cyber officers into the cyber branch so far just in about a year and a half to provide critical skill sets,” Hersey said.

He said the Army is directing resources not just to physical combat, but to competition in the information environment even beyond cyberspace operations.

“To exert influence we must achieve desired effects beyond the physical dimension and account for the informational and cognitive as well to achieve those effects in a manner that influences not just the adversary but friendly neutral populations in order to enable our operations,” Hersey said. “Expanding our competitive space in the information environment enables deterrents and enhances our ability to set conditions to rapidly transition to conflict if necessary.”