The U.S. government has spent years debating what the exact bureaucratic structure that governs America’s cyber agencies should be. Some people think there should be one person overseeing both the National Security Agency and the U.S. Cyber Command (the current situation), while others believe the agencies should have their own leadership and be more siloed. Now, as Donald Trump readies his second term, it is likely that those agencies will have yet another opportunity to shake up that bureaucracy.
The Record reports that advisors close to Trump’s transition team are drawing up a plan to “split up” the leadership position that currently oversees both the NSA and Cyber Command. Currently, the U.S. has what has been termed a “dual hat” arrangement, in which one official oversees both the NSA and CYBERCOM. That official is Lt. Gen. Timothy Haugh, who currently serves as both the commander of CYBERCOM and the director of the NSA. However, during his first term, Trump sought to end this leadership-sharing arrangement, and now, as he returns, he could make sure it happens.
America’s cyber agencies are obviously different yet similar organizations. There’s the NSA, the spooky signals intelligence organization that is also America’s largest spy agency. CYBERCOM, meanwhile, is an element of the U.S. Defense Department. The DoD has eleven “unified combatant commands,” or COMs, which are defined as distinct military units focused on particular missions. NORTHCOM, for instance, is dedicated to defending North America, while SOUTHCOM is focused on South America. We now also have a SPACECOM, and, yes, a CYBERCOM. The U.S. CYBERCOM is the second newest command and was created in 2010, the same year that the dual hat arrangement was enacted. Both the NSA and Cyber Command are headquartered at Fort Meade, Maryland.
In prior years, the NSA operated with distinct leadership from the DoD, though the creation of the dual hat arrangement in 2010 ended that. Folks are worried that the dissolution of the dual hat would create bureaucratic hassles that don’t need to occur. Lt. Gen. Timothy Haugh, who is the current leader overseeing both the NSA and CYBERCOM, previously expressed that “fracturing the current USCYBERCOM-NSA command arrangement would degrade flexibility, adaptability, and speed of action now provided through close and interconnected processes.”
So why do it? The Record quotes Sen. Mike Rounds (R-SD), who is likely to head the Senate Armed Services Committee’s cyber subcommittee next year, as saying he had “heard a few rumors, just from folks that it had been an item of discussion” within Trump’s transition team. “From what I’m understanding, it’s the guys who used to like silos that are pushing it,” Rounds said. “Sometimes it’s time to change those silos. I don’t like silos, necessarily.”
Apparently, it would not be particularly difficult for Trump to accomplish this, either. A certification process needs to occur for the longstanding inter-agency relationship to be dissolved, but that certification process doesn’t sound particularly arduous, at least not if Trump’s picks for top defense spots want to support his decision. Indeed, an anonymous source who formerly worked with CYBERCOM told The Record: “Trump could take out a piece of paper with the seal of the president on it, write ‘The dual-hat is over,’ slide it across his desk and have his leadership sign it. That could be it. That could be the certification.” They added: “People think of the dual-hat as being sacrosanct but it’s really not. It’s a precarious arrangement.”
