WASHINGTON, D.C. — Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., proposed a markup amendment to the Senate’s 2027 National Defense Authorization Act to create a Cyber Force as a new armed service branch under the Army. The proposed structure would mirror how the Space Force operates under the Air Force and the Marine Corps under the Navy.

"New and escalating cyber threats on the battlefield demand a change to our current approach. The status quo and years of incremental changes are not meeting the current threat and are insufficient as that threat grows," Gillibrand told Defense One in an emailed statement. "I believe, and many experts agree, that the creation of a dedicated Cyber Force will ensure the United States is ready to fight and win on the modern battlefield and protect our national security."

The amendment follows broader momentum for cyber reorganization. In the 2025 National Defense Authorization Act, lawmakers commissioned the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine to study alternative organizational models for military cyber forces. That study’s findings have not yet been released. Separately, in August 2025, the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and the Center for Strategic and International Studies announced a commission on Cyber Force Generation, with a report scheduled for June 2026.

Mark Montgomery, a retired Navy rear admiral and senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, supports the proposal. "Timing-wise, you need to do this in the beginning or middle of an administration, not at the end of an administration," Montgomery said. He added, "The president says, ‘We've got to be more offensive’ but then you got to better generate forces to be offensive, and we don't generate enough forces to do both offensive cyber and defensive cyber operations."

A former military official expressed concern that placing the Cyber Force under the Army could marginalize its priorities. "The Army is the largest service by far. Manpower-wise, it's like half the department, and it's like, ‘we'll put it under because it'll be easy for the Army to just put in another force.’ It's already hard enough to run the Army as it is," the official said.

Katie Sutton, assistant defense secretary for cyber policy, addressed the proposal during a January 2026 Senate hearing. "I think this is a really important debate for us all to be having about the future of the cyber warfighting domain," she told the Senate Armed Services Committee. She emphasized that Cyber Command reforms and a new Cyber Force are not mutually exclusive, noting, "I do think one of the most common misconceptions about Cyber Command is that it is a debate between Cyber Command 2.0 and a cyber force, and they are actually separate debates that I believe both need to be had, and we need to look closely at the pros and cons of both."