PerspectiveArmy Cyber Lobbies for Name Change This Year, as Information Warfare Grows in Importance

Army Cyber Command has been lobbying for a name change to better reflect its growing mission, one in which its cyber professionals are increasingly focused on operating below the threshold of armed conflict every day.

Lt. Gen. Stephen Fogarty, Army Cyber commander, says his staff is providing a proposal to change their command’s name to Army Information Warfare Command.

“We are operating in the information environment, maneuvering in the information environment, every single day,” Fogarty said at an event previously reported in mid-September. “And sometimes, the best thing I can do on the cyber side is actually to deliver content, deliver a message. … Maybe the cyberspace operation I’m going to conduct actually creates some type of [information operation] effect.”

Kyle Rempfer writes in Army Times that Army Chief of Staff Gen. James C. McConville said in a late-August interview that he has talked with Fogarty about the change, though they haven’t yet decided what exactly the new name should be.

He adds:

Information warfare is mentioned more than 40 times in the Army’s Multi-Domain Operations doctrinal pamphlet issued in December 2018. The document describes the information warfare environment — which includes social media, false narratives and cyber attacks — as one that China and Russia seek to exploit in order to achieve their goals without resorting to armed conflict.

Army Cyber says that the fight below the level of actual violence is already occurring and has also stressed a need for greater authorities to better combat threats, including fighting disinformation from sockpuppet accounts on social media. These are online identities used for purposes of deception.