Speaking before an audience of military cyber professionals, government leaders and industry partners at HammerCon 2026 on Sept. 24, Army Lt. Gen. Paul T. Stanton, Department of War Cyber Defense Command commander and Defense Information Systems Agency director, stressed that the advent of super intelligence does not eliminate the need for technical discipline and warfighting fundamentals.

Participating in the Commander's Panel alongside senior leaders from across the service cyber components at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, Stanton argued that while frontier SI models and autonomous capabilities are revolutionizing the battlespace, their military utility depends entirely on the human mastery underpinning them.

"We can't lose a focus on the foundation," Stanton said. "We can't see the shiny object of artificial intelligence, which by the way is pretty awesome when leveraged appropriately, but we can't let it supplant a requirement to actually understand."

Stanton noted that emerging capabilities like prompt engineering still require foundational technical knowledge to be meaningful in combat.

"If you're executing prompt engineering, you have to know what to ask the model to do," Stanton explained. "And then the model is going to produce results. If you don't understand what those results are in context, then the results aren't meaningful to you. You still have to know how to read the map before you can do land navigation, even if the GPS is going to help you get there faster."

Addressing the dynamic nature of modern conflict drawn from observations in global theaters, Stanton framed cyber operations not as technical support functions, but as core maneuver warfare designed to support combatant commanders.

"Cyber operations is maneuver warfare, and we support maneuver warfare," Stanton said. "We are warfighters executing and supporting warfighters. In my seat as director of DISA, responsible for designing, building, operating and securing the network and data platforms, and as Cyber Defense Command maneuvering to defend all of them, you recognize that the network moves."

Stanton emphasized that digital architecture must dynamically align with a commander's operational phases across theaters like U.S. Central Command, U.S. European Command and U.S. Indo-Pacific Command.

"Setting the conditions inside of your next-generation firewall and configuring it isn't going to defend you against the adversary's new TTP and the vulnerability that he discovered using a frontier AI model," Stanton said. "It's maneuver, and you must think of it in the context of maneuver."

When moderator, retired Vice Adm. TJ White, challenged the panel on why force generation in cyberspace is fundamentally different from conventional platforms, Stanton pointed to the immense technical depth required to defend modern architectures, comparing cyber operators to specialized medical doctors.

"Last time you went to the hospital, how many different clinics were there?" Stanton asked the audience. "An oncology clinic, a podiatry clinic, a pediatric clinic. The list goes on and on. Every single one of those individuals is referred to as a doctor. How long did it take them to train to become a doctor? And how long did it take them to train in their residency before they became the professional inside of a specialized area of expertise?"

Stanton applied the comparison directly to the cyber domain, noting that general certifications are no longer sufficient against sophisticated threats.

"What are you an expert at in the cyber warfighting domain?" Stanton challenged. "Are you an expert at routing in BGP, or OSPF, and SD-WAN, or a Cisco IOS Tier-1 router? They don't look remotely the same. Are you an expert in operating systems? iOS, Linux, Windows? What's the difference between the Linux file system and the Windows file system? They don't look anything alike."

Because the threat terrain shifts constantly, Stanton urged service members to become self-directed learners rather than waiting on bureaucratic schoolhouse cycles.

"We have a responsibility of presenting you with a training environment that allows you to train and qualify on a weapons platform," Stanton told the junior operators in the room. "You have a responsibility to be self-directed learners, to go out and stay ahead of the curve. No one is going to send you back to school to learn how to employ GPT-5.6. That's on you. You've got to study it, you've got to figure it out. It's on us to put GPT-5.6 onto the range so that you can qualify."

During the panel's concluding reflections on leadership and career development, Stanton offered a personal tribute to the power of deliberate mentorship, recounting how senior leaders shaped his transition from the infantry into the cyber branch.

Stanton recognized retired Col. Greg Conti, who was honored earlier in the conference, for recruiting and guiding him throughout his military career.

"Plant a seed, and then nourish it and water it," Stanton said. "Lt. Col. Greg Conti recruited Capt. Stanton into the electrical engineering and computer science department at West Point. Col. Conti mentored Maj. Stanton into the faculty, coached, taught, mentored, supported and educated him into a PhD program. Col. Conti recruited Lt. Gen. Stanton into Army Cyber Command, ultimately into the cyber branch."

Stanton credited that sustained investment with building the foundation for his leadership today, urging current commanders and senior noncommissioned officers to cultivate their subordinates with the same long-term dedication.

"You can make an argument about how the tree has grown or not," Stanton joked to laughter from the crowd. "I'd like to say congratulations to Greg Conti, and personally say my professional thanks."