US developed ‘non-kinetic’ cell ahead of Venezuela mission to push cyber operations

In the months leading up to an unprecedented operation that captured Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro from the capital of Caracas, the U.S. military developed a “non-kinetic effects cell” that has helped push cyber operations to the forefront of specialized U.S. missions, a top official told lawmakers Wednesday.

Testifying before the Senate Armed Services Committee’s cybersecurity panel, Joint Staff Deputy Director for Global Operations Brig. Gen. R. Ryan Messer said the cell is “designed to integrate, coordinate and synchronize all of our non-kinetics into the planning, and then, of course, the execution of any operation globally.”

Non-kinetic effects are military actions that influence or disrupt an adversary’s systems without using physical force or causing direct destruction, rather than weapons like missiles or bombs. They often include cyber operations, electronic warfare and influence campaigns.

The operation that ousted Maduro from Caracas included cyber effects that targeted radar and internet, as well as the city’s power grid, which caused a temporary blackout. 

Multiple U.S. spy agencies stood up crisis action teams that provided intelligence to Special Operations Command and Southern Command throughout the operations, a U.S. official with knowledge of the matter previously told Nextgov/FCW. The NSA oversaw geolocation support to gather intelligence that aided the operation and monitored other signals that help operators determine if a foreign adversary orders troop movements or seeks to activate radar, the official added.

The development of the cell helps highlight a broader shift toward integrating cyber and other non-kinetic tools into U.S. military operations. 

“The reality is that we’ve now pulled cyber operators to the forefront,” Messer said.

Lt. Gen. William Hartman, acting director of Cyber Command and the NSA, and Katie Sutton, the Pentagon’s cyber policy chief, also testified, describing how the cell would operate alongside efforts to increase the number of U.S. cyber warriors under a new Cyber Command structure announced last November.

The revised Cyber Command model — dubbed “Cyber Command 2.0” — is aimed at fixing longstanding problems hiring and keeping skilled military cyber specialists, though it represents a scaled-back version of a broader restructuring effort initially planned for the digital combatant command. The command was established around 15 years ago.

The approach focuses on better recruiting and managing cyber personnel across the armed forces, improving access to specialized training through partnerships with industry and universities, and speeding up the development of new cyber tools and techniques.

“Our intent as part of CyberCom 2.0 is, if you’re a young person — a hacker — and you want to come serve your country, when you show up at your recruiting station, we want you to be administered a cyber aptitude test,” Hartman said. “If you score well on that test, we would like you to be offered a contract to become a cyber operator” and enter a pipeline to join CyberCom, he added.

“I would tell you not just Absolute Resolve, but Midnight Hammer and a number of other operations, we've really graduated to the point where we're treating a cyber capability just like we would a kinetic capability,” Hartman also said, referring respectively to the Venezuela operation and a U.S. bombing run last year that targeted key nuclear sites in Iran. 

Sutton also highlighted the CyberCom 2.0-backed Cyber Innovation Warfare Center, which is meant to quickly design and deploy various cyber tools, including new software and tactics used to disrupt adversary networks and defend U.S. military systems. The private sector would play a major role in this.

“It’s not just about acquiring a tool or a technology, there’s a lot of non-material aspects that will need to be successful,” she said. “It’ll be our tie to industry. It ties our operational force directly to industry to allow this to happen at the speed at which we’re seeing the capabilities come out.”

The 2.0 model was initially endorsed during the Biden administration and accelerated under Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, albeit with various rewrites and examinations penned over the last year. Many of the initiatives in the 2.0 framework are expected to be fully integrated later this decade or in the early 2030s.