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The U.S. militarys cyber force and its premier spying agency have a new leader.

The Senate on Tuesday confirmed Timothy Haugh as director of the National Security Agency and commander of U.S. Cyber Command, a pair of roles that make him responsible for defending the country from foreign hackers and striking back against them.

Lawmakers voted by voice to confirm Haugh, an Air Force lieutenant general who has served as Cyber Commands deputy commander for the past year, and promote him to the rank of general. Haugh was one of many military officials whose promotions had languished for months after Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.) blocked their appointments to protest a Pentagon policy on abortions for service members.

Haugh will take over the reins of both elite cyber forces from Gen. Paul Nakasone, who dramatically expanded the two organizations public profiles and their relationships with foreign allies and private companies.

Under Nakasones watch, Cyber Command crippled ransomware gangs, protected Ukraine by hacking Russian forces and sent teams abroad to help other countries fend off digital attacks while returning with useful insights about how those adversaries operate. The NSA, meanwhile, created a program to share cybersecurity information and recommendations beyond defense contractors. The historically secretive organizations increasing openness about their work marked a dramatic shift, one that Nakasone and his team described as part of a deliberate effort to put their classified intelligence to better use.

Haugh will need to decide whether to continue, expand or restructure these NSA and Cyber Command initiatives, and hell have to evaluate Americas cybersecurity support to Ukraine and Israel as the two close U.S. allies fight major ground wars.

In the Middle East, Irans hacker army could jump into the war between Israel and Hamas at any moment, potentially unleashing a wave of attacks against critical infrastructure like Israeli hospitals and power plants in retaliation for Israels invasion of Gaza. (Iran-linked hackers have already breached several U.S. water facilities after targeting their Israeli-made equipment.) And in Eastern Europe, Russia could further intensify its steady barrage of cyberattacks against Ukraine in an attempt to break the stalemate between the two armies.

Haugh will also confront questions about the future of the union between the NSA and Cyber Command. When the Pentagon created Cyber Command in 2010, it chose the NSA director to lead the new organization, since Cyber Command would heavily rely on the spy agencys personnel and expertise. In the years since, there have been calls to separate this arrangement, but multiple administrations have rejected that idea.

Haugh has said that he supports the current structure because of the amount of overlap between the two organizations missions. But he has also promised to focus his attention on the NSA, whose morale and retention have sufferedin the decade since the embarrassing leaks by former agency contractor Edward Snowden.

My current leadership role with CYBERCOM and my familiarity and knowledge of its leadership, its mission, strengths and weaknesses means that I will be well positioned to comfortably delegate and direct its activities efficiently enabling time management and focus necessary to NSAs global enterprise, Haugh told lawmakers in July.

Haughs position overseeing the U.S.s electronic surveillance mission will put him on a collision course with privacy-minded lawmakers who are pushing for new limits on a key spying power, Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, that expires next April.

Haugh has called this provision, which lets the government spy on foreigners located outside the U.S. without a warrant, indispensable to national security. And as NSA chief, he could emerge as a more forceful critic of efforts to modify the law.

Before taking the No. 2 job at Cyber Command, Haugh led multiple Air Force organizations responsible for cyber warfare and intelligence collection, along with Cyber Commands main operational wing, the Cyber National Mission Force. He joined the Air Force in 1991 as a graduate of Lehigh Universitys ROTC program.

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Senate Confirms Biden's Pick To Lead NSA and Military's Cyber Force - The Messenger