Am I missing something? It is already possible for civilians to take roles in any of the military commands and sometimes to exercise line management of military personnel by joining that very secretive organisation known as the Civil Service. And people regularly join it directly at senior grades. There are many such people running programmes already, and even some acting as capability sponsors having never served a day in uniform. Surely a minister isn't wasting his time considering what is effectively a trivial administrative question of opening some posts in StratCom up to civil servants?