Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has ordered a reduction in mandatory cybersecurity training across the Department of Defense (DOD) – which the Trump administration has rebranded as the Department of War – in an effort to restore what he called “mission focus” for military personnel.
In a Sept. 30 memo, Hegseth directed military departments to streamline or eliminate training not directly tied to warfighting. He said the goal is to allow service members to concentrate more fully on combat readiness without administrative distractions.
Among the changes, the memo directs military departments and the DOD’s chief information officer to relax the mandatory frequency for cybersecurity training.
“The Department of War is committed to enabling our warfighters to focus on their core mission of fighting and winning our Nation’s wars without distraction,” Hegseth wrote. “Mandatory Department training will be directly linked to warfighting or otherwise be consolidated, reduced in frequency, or eliminated.”
However, the move comes at a time when cyberattacks are increasingly targeting U.S. military and infrastructure systems. For instance, last week, the U.S. Air Force reported a data breach that affected personal and healthcare information of service members and forced the shutdown of several IT systems.
Hegseth also called for narrowing the scope of records management training based on service member roles and allowing more flexibility in how the training is delivered. The memo encouraged the use of automated information management systems to potentially eliminate some training requirements entirely, signaling a possible future shift toward increased reliance on AI and automation.
Additional directives in the memo include relaxing the frequency of training on controlled unclassified information, removing Privacy Act training from the Common Military Training list, and eliminating recurring “Combating Trafficking in Persons” refresher training once related legislation is enacted. Hegseth also called for a consolidation of mandatory training topics and the development of an integrated training plan across the services.
“These critical efforts to eliminate, reduce, and consolidate focus topics advance my emphasis on warfighting,” Hegseth wrote. “The Department will prioritize these actions and execute with urgency to strengthen the lethality of our Nation’s fighting Force.”
The changes are to be implemented expeditiously, according to the directive, though it remains unclear what the new frequency of the cybersecurity and other affected training requirements will be.