6. Department of State · Minor
Have State assist the Defense Department in going on cyber offense
Printed page 196 6. Department of State
“The State Department should also assist the Department of Defense to go “on offence” against adversaries.”
What has happened
- Attempted
President Trump's Cyber Strategy for America directs a whole-of-government offensive posture - "We will deploy the full suite of U.S. government defensive and offensive cyber operations", "use all instruments of national power to raise the costs for their aggression", and "We will not confine our responses to the 'cyber' realm" - naming diplomacy as one of the instruments. A directive without a documented State role in Defense offensive operations: a Federal Register full-text search for the quoted phrase "offensive cyber" since 2025-01-20 returns 0 documents, and the Bureau of Cyberspace and Digital Policy's own description of its offices assigns it bilateral and multilateral diplomacy, technology policy and investment work, not operational support to the Department of War. State's own contribution in the window runs through its own tools - Rewards for Justice offers for ransomware actors, sanctions and visa restrictions on DPRK and other cyber actors - rather than through Defense operations.
Research log
What was searched, and what didn’t count as evidence
Research notes
Every source this Status rests on is allowlisted and was read in full; none of it was off the allowlist or unreadable.
- Action
- other
- Object
- Offensive cyber operations with the Department of Defense
- ID
- 527