PENTAGON — Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis announced that one of the president’s general officer assignment nominations on 19 JUNE 2017 is Marine Corps Lieutenant General Vincent R. Stewart for appointment and assignment as deputy commander, U.S. Cyber Command (CYBERCOM). General Stewart is currently serving as the director, Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), Washington, District of Columbia.
CYBERCOM’s mission is to plan, coordinate, integrate, synchronize, and conduct activities to: direct the operations and defense of specified Department of Defense information networks. CYBERCOM also must prepare to, and when directed, conduct full spectrum military cyberspace operations in order to enable actions in all domains, ensure US/Allied freedom of action in cyberspace and deny the same to our adversaries.
Since 2009, CYBERCOM has been co-located with the National Security Agency (NSA) at Fort Meade, Maryland, sharing personnel, tactics, tools and a director. Congress recently directed CYBERCOM to become a full unified combatant command. Both organizations, while often times conducting similar activity, are defined under different statutory terms.
CYBERCOM, as a military organization under the chain of command of the secretary of defense, is governed by Title 10 of the United States Code (USC). NSA is an intelligence organization under the scope of Title 50, with Title 10 combat service support (CSS) duties performed when necessary. These two legal distinctions help define and refine specific roles and responsibilities for the organizations that govern them.
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