All warfare can be reduced to time and resources available. From large units to small teams the ability to affect the battle space and achieve the results desired are a function of time and resources. The time and resources necessary to enter, clear and maintain a security presence in area are on a different timeline and require different resources than a small team mission focused on capturing a high value individual. In each case there are tools in the military inventory that are likely readily available to support the mission, artillery, air support, transportation, etc.
Supporting the first mission with cyber likely will not require physical affect. Thereby focusing the cyber element on influencing a population, setting conditions for entry, and positive reinforcement of the value of our involvement. If there is a request for a physical affect there is time to research the options, look at the second and third order affects and work the plan.
In the case of short duration missions like HVI captures and the follow on missions resulting from sensitive site exploitation, SSE the likelihood of using cyber is possible for the first mission and unlikely for all follow on missions as the set runs its course. RF systems that jam cell and radio transmissions are easier to acquire and apply.
An example is, I might use cyber to affect alarm and video systems at a lab/plant and have a plan to affect systems between the lab/plant and my exfiltration site. All good until the team makes a call that takes it out of the plan. In books and movies not a big deal, they research and attack systems they have never seen in mere minutes if not seconds. In real life, planning cyber missions that require physical effects can take weeks and months as the team recons the systems, engineers covert entry, and then surreptitiously tests its control in prep for the real mission.
The reality is there is little in the way of off the shelf cyber tools that can be applied to a specific problem like streetlights or the power grid in a section of countryside. Most cyber tools are custom built against a specific target or set of targets like industrial control systems for oil or gas production plants.
An example of how hard it is to coordinate physical and cyber affects is the problems the Russians are having in Ukraine. The Russians are at the top of the cyber pyramid but yet we see them struggling to converge BTG tactical movements with cyber in any meaningful way.
We are lucky as authors, with your suspension of belief, we can write cyber affects that are not achievable in the timelines we portray.
A final note: Drug Cartels and Cyber, the cartel’s are ramping up their cyber capabilities to both influence populations, affect campaigns and voting, and to achieve physical affects against their enemy cartels and governments. The next decade will see them buy cyber services as if buying an Office 365 subscription and build out some level of organic capability. Integrated with cyber intelligence this will become another battle space in the war on drugs.