Army Tries to Carve Out Cyber, Space Turf

The service veers into territory held by the Air Force and the joint Cyber Command.

The Army released an updated version of a key planning document  – the Capstone Concept – which reinforces the idea that boots on the ground wins wars.

It then veers into staking out a position for the Army in areas considered the turf of the joint Cyber Command and the Air Force.

The Army will need “a full range of cyberspace and electromagnetic spectrum capabilities” in the future to support all those ground troops and “must develop the ability to counter cyber threats successfully, mitigate degraded access to cyberspace, and take local actions against enemy cyber capabilities to achieve local effect.”

The same goes for space capabilities. The planning document said the Army “requires access to space capabilities to exercise effective mission command and support combatant commanders” and requires troops to manage space operations and deny enemy attempts to control space assets.

The document was silent on whether the Army needs a navy.