The Service however is increasingly ossified. It increasingly wants to ossify. And Cyber is of course the perfect example.
The Navy was charged with building something like ten Cyber Mission Teams and instead of doing that they just battle-rostered the key individuals to whatever team was being externally inspected. For years; and Navy leadership is totally unrepentant.
The Army? Not much different. The Army cannot keep talent in the ranks. So Congress mandates incentive pay for key workroles. If enlistedmen demand their Congressionally mandated pay the 22-year veterans get pissed off at the 'mercenary' young people who don't adapt to the all-consuming Mission.
Despite the fact that the DoD Civilians earn twice as much for the Exact Same Role.
Specifically, I was very nearly a fatal failure to adapt (suicidal attempt), and am speaking from that perspective.
There is much they could do to address this from the services side.
The Army tried to recruit me to the cyber warfare side towards the end of my career, and after taking one look I ran. I wanted nothing to do with that structure.
It’s getting harder and harder to get young people in with the capability to adapt to the demands. I don’t know that this is good or bad (it’s a pretty unreasonable lifestyle); it just is.
Couple this with the cutting of recruitment incentives that are motivating, and retention incentives being gutted (retirement was cut almost 20%), and we’ve known that there was going to be a failure to meet manpower needs for a while now.
That’s even leaving aside the points brought up in the article, which are all relevant. I, personally, recommend against anyone joining unless they really don’t have an alternative.