From the dawn of cyber operations elements within the US military, and continuing today, I think there has been a culture of trying to push them out to the "tac

From the dawn of cyber operations elements within the US military, and continuing today, I think there has been a culture of trying to push them out to the "tactical edge." Basically, senior leaders have always been wary of them becoming totally disjoint from the rest of the force. So I wouldn't assume that they don't deploy abroad. However, I would be skeptical that the people in uniform are the "actual good hackers." Unfortunately, uniformed career paths (set by law, in many cases, and certainly long tradition) are not conducive to anyone developing any deep, technical expertise. I think we have cyber operators in uniform largely to do the things that legally can't be done by someone who's not in uniform. I think they are backed by a lot of civil servants and contractors (including academics on loan or moonlighting) with the deeper expertise. I think this is true for a lot of the more technical military systems, by the way, not just a cyber thing, e.g. aviation, air defense, nuclear stuff.