The Pentagon Is Working on Its Cyber Strategy and Action Plan

Katherine Sutton, the Pentagon’s assistant secretary of war for cyber policy, and her team are leading an effort to develop the 2026 Department of War cyber strategy and its action plan. Sutton spoke during an April 28 U.S. Senate Committee on Armed Services hearing.

“The singular objective of this strategy is to deliver the most capable, lethal and agile cyber force in the world,” Sutton said in her opening statement. “This force will provide the president and the secretary of war with a full range of options to deter conflict, achieve strategic advantage, defend our critical networks and, if necessary, defeat adversary aggression decisively.”

Sutton, who assumed her current role in September of last year, said the strategy will be aligned with the 2025 and 2026 National Security Strategies, as well as the president’s Cyber Strategy for America.

Notably, the department announced the creation of Cyber Command 2.0, designed to identify and foster cyber talent. Sutton spoke on the matter during this year’s Cyber Workforce Summit in Washington, D.C.

“The cyber domain is incredibly diverse, so a one-size-fits-all training path is not adequate to get after the diverse set of missions that we’re seeing,” she said during the conference.

During the senate hearing, Sutton also commented on the department’s offensive cyber capabilities against adversarial actors.

“As was articulated in the president’s Cyber Strategy for America, we need to be very clear that malicious cyber actors in the space have and will feel the consequences of their action,” she said. “We need to look at how we leverage all tools of national power, whether it be military offensive capabilities or other interagency efforts, and that is something we are going to be posturing with the new Department of War cyber strategy to make sure we have those capabilities.”