According to a US Navy statement, both the Fleet Cyber Command and the 10th Fleet will be located at Ft. Meade to take advantage of preexisting infrastructure at the base, including trained support personnel. Both units will be commanded by Vice Adm. Bernard J. McCullough III, whose appointment was announced by Roughead during the late-January event. The Navy expects the Fleet Cyber Command to be up and running by this coming October.
The goal of the Fleet Cyber Command – coordination of the Navy’s cyberspace operations – is simple, even if the execution is anything but.
“This initiative will help raise information to the forefront of the Navy’s 21st century arsenal”, noted a statement from the US Navy. As commander, McCullough will be responsible for Navy cyber force functions, which include network operations, potential cyber and electronic warfare, information operations, and signal intelligence capabilities.
The 10th fleet was disbanded in 1945 after successfully completing its mission of protecting Allied merchant and war ships from German U-boats in the Atlantic. Its 21st-century duties will hearken back to its World War II information and intelligence gathering functions, while also providing synergistic support and advice for fleet commanders in dealing with cyberwarfare issues.
Adm. Roughead acknowledged the ever-changing digital age threat landscape facing the US and the military. “We recommission this fleet to confront a new challenge to our nation’s security in cyberspace”, he said during the announcement ceremonies. “It is a mission for which, even more so than before, victory will be predicated on intelligence and information rather than firepower. “
“To execute our defined mission we must be able to exercise command and control over our networks with dynamic, real-time defense and information assurance enabled by intelligence collection”, said Adm. McCullough, the Cyber Command’s newly appointed chief. He would also subsequently call for increased cooperation among the information and intelligence gathering community, including those from academia, intelligence agencies, similar units in other branches of the armed forces, and industry partners.
The establishment of the Fleet Cyber Command comes on the heels of similar efforts by the US Air Force and Marines. In addition, as previously reported by Infosecurity, a comprehensive U.S. Cyber Command was created in June of this past year with the mission of safeguarding military networks.