DOD Can No Longer Assume Superiority in Digital Warfare, Officials Warn

The Defense Department can no longer assume technological superiority over its adversaries and instead must prepare for persistent competition in the cyber domain, top DOD officials said last week at the 2025 HammerCon Conference in Laurel, Maryland.

“In reality, in the entirety of the department, we can no longer assume that we have the edge on anything that we do. We assume that we have competitors that are as good as, or getting as good as, we are,” said Rear Adm. Dennis Velez, acting deputy commander of USCYBERCOM.

Strengthening Cyber Defenses

Lt. Gen. Paul Stanton, commander of the DOD Cyber Defense Command and director of Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA), told the audience that “[Defense leaders] need to campaign when [there is] a technological weakness in the DODIN. We also need to campaign when we see a threat actor that is driving towards an intent of our enemy.”

While Cyber Defense Command’s designation as a sub-unified command in May 2025 was a “significant” milestone, Stanton stressed that it did not guarantee an influx of resources to support warfighting operations.

“Being the Cyber Defense Command didn’t translate into a whole bunch of resources. We’re optimistic in the future that we’ll be able to extend some enabling and supporting functions that we think are necessary in the command, but the mindset and the culture is to impose cost on the enemy,” Stanton noted.

Stanton emphasized that the cyber domain could no longer be ignored by commanders, and having good data and secure systems are just as important on the modern battlefield as fuel for tanks.

“Our internet access points that provide our defenses is a weapons system,” Stanton said, before referring to Thunderdome, DISA’s zero-trust architecture. “This is implementation of a zero-trust architecture. It’s a combination of weapon systems, and I’ll tell you what— we better think of it like that, because if we’re not trained and ready to use it, it’s not effective.”

AI in Defense Operations

Artificial intelligence will play a key role in shaping DOD’s success and laying the groundwork for future defense, Velez emphasized.

“AI is really changing. It is foundational to what they’re going to do today, and what they’re going to do in the future,” Velez told the audience.

“We see AI as foundational for the future success of the command,” he added. “We are using AI at the edge. Our partners are using AI on a daily basis. We are bringing AI into our business processes.”

Velez said CYBERCOM is working to scale commercial AI innovations within the DOD and expose its forces to the best emerging training programs.

“The way that we are looking to attack that is by engaging with industry and partnering closer and closer with industry,” he said. “Bringing those folks in to make sure that those technologies that are being developed on the outside, that are driving innovation on the outside, are also implemented in the command.”