The Department of Defense has released a memorandum to provide guidance for DOD components to develop standard metrics, terminology and policy to evaluate the readiness of the joint force in conducting assigned and designed missions in congested and contested cyber environments.
Ashish Vazirani, who performs the duties of undersecretary of defense for personnel and readiness at DOD, signed the directive-type memo issued Wednesday.
The document expands the readiness reporting policy by including a unit’s ability to operate in congested and contested cyberspace environments and directs the joint force to incorporate the risk of operating in such environments when evaluating and exercising their operational plans.
The memo outlines the responsibilities of the DOD component heads, undersecretary of defense for policy, directors of combat support agencies and secretaries of military departments.
According to the document, the secretaries of military branches should implement joint force standards in the Defense Readiness Reporting System, a.k.a. DRRS, incorporate the challenges of operating in contested cyber environments into training exercises and update doctrine to include how to achieve designed and assigned missions in such environments.
The directive states that the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff will be responsible for updating readiness reporting guidance and policy, supporting combatant commanders in joint training programs and exercises to perform missions in congested and contested cyber environments and implementing joint force standards and conditions in DRRS for operating in such environments.