Navy information warfare officers now eligible for sea command

New command opportunities are now available to Navy information warfare officers, according to service leaders.

In a message released to the MyNavyHR website recently, Secretary of the Navy Carlos Del Toro indicted that IW officers will transition from restricted line officers to line officers performing information warfare duties. The move means that these service members are now eligible for “command for sea,” Vice Adm. Mike Vernazza, commander of Naval Information Forces, which is responsible for training and providing information forces to the fleet, said in a statement.

The Navy has been integrating and elevating the role of its information warfare cadre in recent years. These personnel perform important tasks necessary to win both below the threshold of armed conflict and in war against sophisticated adversaries such as Russia and China. Such tasks — which include intelligence, electronic warfare, cyber, cryptology and networks, among others — are expected to feature much more prominently in future operations than they did in the Global War on Terror against technologically inferior adversaries.

Officials have maintained that the recently announced transition demonstrates the important role information warfare plays in naval operations today and more closely aligns information warfare officers with the broader warfighting community.

“The transition of Information Warfare (IW) officers from restricted line to IW line represents a pivotal evolution in how the Navy views and employs IW capabilities across all domains of naval warfare. The IW warfighting domain extends from seabed to space and is critical to our Navy’s success in competition, crisis, and conflict,” Vernazza, the Navy’s “I-Boss,” said. “This transition is a direct acknowledgment of the centrality of information as a warfighting discipline and underpins the importance of the Navy’s focus on IW readiness and lethality. IW line officers will continue to provide critical expertise in intelligence, cyber, electronic warfare, networks, oceanography/meteorology, cryptology, and space, however, the transition to line signifies an increased demand to operationalize IW and integrate these highly specialized capabilities to deliver warfighting effects.”

Top Navy officials have stated in recent years that information warfare personnel are in high demand and the force is struggling to keep up.

Several years ago, the service decided to include a captain-level IW commander along with its carrier strike groups to help integrate those functions into battle plans. More recently, the Navy has been experimenting with that concept aboard submarines as well.

Officials have also highlighted the critical role information warfare personnel have played in defending against a barrage of missile and drone strikes in the Red Sea originating from Yemen by the Houthis, a group backed by Iran that has controlled portions of Yemen, including the capital, since 2014.

The Houthis said those attacks have been in response to the U.S. support for Israel in the wake of Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack. Israel has been waging a months-long offensive in Gaza to oust Hamas.

Ultimately, the transition of information warfare officers reinforces NAVIFOR’s strategic alignment with the Chief of Naval Operations Navigation Plan, released by CNO Adm. Lisa Franchetti in September, in which information warfare is foundational to achieving integrated deterrence and delivering capabilities needed to win, Vernazza said.