Army gets new principal cyber adviser

Brandon Pugh has been selected as the Army’s principal cyber adviser, according to a LinkedIn post.

Pugh, who will be the third person to hold that role, most recently was director and a resident senior fellow for the R Street Institute’s Cybersecurity and Emerging Threats team. Additionally, he is an Army reservist serving as a national security law professor at the Judge Advocate General’s Legal Center and School, having previously been a paratrooper as well.

The PCA position had been vacant since March 2024, when the last occupant, Michael Sulmeyer, was tapped to serve as the inaugural assistant secretary of defense for cyber policy.

The principal cyber adviser is a congressionally mandated position created in the 2020 defense policy bill for each service. It aims to serve as the top adviser to the service secretary and chief, providing insights on recruitment, training and readiness of cyber forces and acquisition of offensive and defensive cyber capabilities, among other responsibilities.

In addition to growing its cyber mission force contribution to U.S. Cyber Command, the Army is also expanding its own service-retained cyber forces that combine electromagnetic spectrum capabilities. It’s growing an additional unit, the 12th Cyber Battalion, after creating the 11th Cyber Battalion in 2022. Those forces consists of expeditionary cyber teams that provide on-the-ground cyber operations (mostly through radio-frequency effects), electronic warfare and information ops. Those forces are scalable and designed to augment units upon request while being expected to maneuver with units, plan tactical operations for commanders and conduct ops in theater.

The Air Force is the only service that has retained its original principal cyber advisor from the start, Wanda Jones-Heath. Anne Marie Schumann was sworn-in as Navy principal cyber advisor in April 2024, making her the second official to hold that role.