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Cyber Command Repurposing Counterterror Task Force to Face China The Joint Task Force-Ares will be focusing on 'great power competition' in the Indo-Pacific
Following the trend of the US military, US Cyber Command is repurposing a counterterrorism task force to focus on so-called “great power competition” with China in the Indo-Pacific region.
The Joint Task Force-Ares was created in 2016 to go after ISIS online and was expanded in 2018 to focus on other groups and global counterterrorism as a whole.
Gen. Paul Nakasone, the head of US Cyber Command, told Congress in written testimony in March that the command is “shifting JTF-Ares’ focus (though not all of its missions) from counterterrorism toward heightened support to great power competition, particularly in USINDOPACOM’s [Indo-Pacific Command’s] area of responsibility.”