Profile of General Paul Nakasone, the four-star general who is in charge of both Cyber Command and the NSA, one of the most powerful roles in intelligence
Meet General Paul Nakasone. He reined in chaos at the NSA and taught the US military how to launch pervasive cyberattacks. Tweets: @ericgeller , @dnvolz , @zcohencnn , @dnvolz , @vermontgmg , @mruiz12 , @vermontgmg , and @wired Tweets: Eric Geller / @ericgeller : Really enjoyed @vermontgmg's profile of NSA director and Cyber Command chief Paul Nakasone, a quietly competent Trump administration leader with “unparalleled, historic power” to shape and conduct the future of warfare. https://www.wired.com/... https://twitter.com/... @dnvolz : The director of the NSA is so boring the most interesting thing about him is that he really likes #2 pencils and has an oversized pencil gift sitting in his otherwise spartan office https://www.wired.com/... https://twitter.com/... Zachary Cohen / @zcohencnn : “A quiet beneficiary of Donald Trump's details-be-damned leadership philosophy, Nakasone has found himself with unparalleled, historic power ...” Really good profile of @CYBERCOM_DIRNSA by @vermontgmg. https://twitter.com/... @dnvolz : “Not surprisingly, the NSA's public affairs office would not make Nakasone available for an interview.” https://www.wired.com/... https://twitter.com/... Garrett M. Graff / @vermontgmg : My new profile of @NSAGov Director Paul Nakasone, the head of @US_CYBERCOM — aka @CYBERCOM_DIRNSA — the nation's foremost cyber warrior and how he's been unleashed by Donald Trump: https://www.wired.com/... Monica M. Ruiz / @mruiz12 : Fascinating read by @vermontgmg— “@CYBERCOM_DIRNSA became one of the nation's founding cyberwarriors” and led an “elite group that basically invented the doctrine that would guide how the US fights in a virtual world.” Oh! And he prefers to write with a pencil :) https://twitter.com/... Garrett M. Graff / @vermontgmg : Donald Trump's White House came in with three goals in cyberspace: “Stop the bleeding, stop building things that bleed, and make the other guy bleed.” And so they let @CYBERCOM_DIRNSA loose. My @WIRED profile of the nation's leading cyber warrior: https://www.wired.com/... @wired : Meet General Paul Nakasone. He reined in chaos at the NSA and taught the US military how to launch pervasive cyberattacks. And he did it all without you noticing. https://www.wired.com/...
Context & Ripple Effects
This profile sits at the midpoint of a long arc. In 2018 the US elevated Cyber Command to independent unified command status and handed its new chief, Paul Nakasone, the NSA directorship as well — a deliberate dual-hat consolidation that put one officer over both the signals-intelligence agency and the military's offensive cyber force. Months later he confirmed he had stood up the Russia Small Group to counter Russian cyber threats, and the Trump administration granted him expanded authority to conduct operations without case-by-case approval.
First-order effects
- Nakasone personally holds what the reporting calls unparalleled, historic power: one four-star directing NSA collection and Cyber Command's offensive operations simultaneously, with the White House having loosened the approval chain for cyberattacks.
- Inside the NSA, his immediate effect was managerial — stabilizing an agency the profile describes as previously chaotic, though the public affairs office declined to make him available for interview.
Second-order effects
- Concentrating both roles in one officer feeds the interagency friction captured in the related profile of Anne Neuberger, where control over cybersecurity policy is contested among US agencies — a structure that depends heavily on who occupies the dual-hat seat.
- The person-dependence cuts both ways: when the White House later rejected DOD's proposed successor to the NSA/Cyber Command head after firing the sitting director in April 2025, the result was an extended leadership vacuum across both agencies.
Third-order effects
- Nakasone's post-retirement path — joining OpenAI's board and its Safety and Security Committee in 2024 — points toward former cyber-intelligence leadership becoming embedded in frontier-AI governance, a crossover visible in the OpenAI board appointment.
- If the dual-hat model keeps producing leaders whose departure leaves both agencies rudderless, pressure will grow to either institutionalize succession for the combined command or split the roles again.
The trend: US cyber power is consolidating around individual dual-hat commanders whose influence now extends beyond government into frontier-AI oversight, while the succession machinery for that consolidated role lags behind.