Despite a decade of reform and Congressional intervention, the military services continue to struggle to meet the operational requirements of cyberspace. Informed by my experience in both traditional Army and cyber units, this article argues that the root of the problem lies not in neglect or leadership resistance alone, but more prominently in structural misalignment. The services are optimized for their physical domains of warfare, not for the characteristics of cyberspace. My analysis utilizes Clayton Christensen’s Resources, Processes, and Values (RPV) framework to examine constraints on how the Army generates cyber forces. Although suitable for land warfare, the Army’s RPV is ill-suited to a domain characterized by interconnectedness, constant contact, dynamic terrain, and dual character as both weapon and battlespace. I highlight the friction that arises when an organization built for one domain is asked to generate forces for a different domain. Consequently, rather than continuously retrofitting existing services, I argue that the United States should establish a dedicated cyber service designed to maximize the unique capabilities inherent to the digital domain.
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