Offensive cyber capability now sits at the center of military strategy, and with it come hard questions about accountability, transparency, and whether democracies risk mirroring their adversaries. Former Army Cyber Command leader Ed Cardon and retired Joint Special Operations Command leader Stanley McChrystal took those questions up with Cybernews at the SimSpace Summit in Florida, weighing how cyber, AI, and information warfare change the battlefield, from blackouts to contested narratives. Holding that conversation on a cyber range floor was deliberate. Cyber command digital power gets decided in the same place readiness does, in critical infrastructure cybersecurity choices made under pressure, and a cyber defense exercise is where commanders and defenders can test the consequences before anyone lives with them.
