Pentagon To Increase Cyber Warfare, S&T Efforts

The Pentagon will undergo a massive realignment to its intelligence arm and is stream lining its cyber warfare and science and technology efforts.

Part of the re-organization will include merging the Pentagon’s ISR Task Force into an ISR Operations Directorate, counterintelligence and security directorates have been merged together and HUMINT, sensitive activities and National Programs Directorates have been combined.

The initiative is part of Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel’s plan to initiative to reduce Pentagon headquarters manning by 20 percent over the next five years, according to Marcel Lettre, Principal Deputy to the Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence.

Due to Congressional direction to eliminate Deputy Under Secretary of Defense titles, offices within the Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence have been re-designated as Directors for Defense Intelligence. The new Director for Defense Intelligence, or DDI, is called Technical Collection & Special Programs, Lettre explained.

Science and technology and cyber warfare expertise within the Pentagon is expected to gain further importance in terms of “recruiting and retaining a capable cyber workforce”.

 “We looked across our organization and found pockets of expertise that were focused on these issues, particularly in the cyber arena. We are moving toward pulling them all together into this new DDI which we think will provide a sharper focus and a bigger critical mass to both conduct oversight and drive the development of new capabilities and new responses to strategic situations,” he explained.

“We want to think about where we want to be three, five, or ten years from now and help catalyze the development of technological capabilities. By having this fourth DDI in place with expertise, we’ll be able to better drive capability development for the future,” Lettre said.