The conduct of U.S. military cyber operations has significantly shifted—particularly in the last year. The Department of Defense’s newest cyber strategy, issued in September 2018, emphasizes a “persistent engagement” approach that moves the Department from a reactive state into a more proactive, assertive stance against national security threats in the cyber domain. This is also consistent with the Trump administration’s new classified directive for streamlining the review and approval process for cyber operations. NBC News reported back in January that “the military’s elite cyber force has conducted more operations in the first two years of the Trump administration than it did in eight years under Obama.”

Yet, as the details of these cyber operations are becoming publicly available, I believe there are a set of incorrect assumptions that may be impacting the U.S. government’s ability to produce optimal long-term strategic effects.

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