Bottom Line Up First
U.S. DoD and NATO aim to build Multi-Domain Operation capabilities after successfully deploying Joint Operation capabilities during Desert Storm 1991. The chosen approach seems a logical and natural next step from a force and defence industry viewpoint. Unfortunately, from an adversary viewpoint, the best Armed Forces with Multi-Domain Operations capability constrained by the perception of war and peace is vulnerable to flanking manoeuvre through information, cognitive and social realms. A textbook example of Sun Tzu's lesson is "To subdue the enemy without fighting is the acme of skill."
Striving after Multi-Domain Operations Capabilities
The U.S. DoD has been developing the concept of Joint Operations since the Goldwater-Nichols Act 1986 and used it masterly in Desert Storm 1991 so well that at least the Chinese PLA launched their reform.
Contemporary militaries are evolving their operational concept from Joint Operations towards Multi-Domain Operations. NATO defines the approach as the "push for NATO to orchestrate military activities across all operating domains and environments. These actions are synchronised with non-military activities and enable the Alliance to create desired outcomes at the right time and place." The Domains NATO names as "Maritime, Land, Air, Space and Cyberspace".
Figure 1: A Poster of Multi-Domain Operations Symposium, AUSA 2024 © Greater Los Angeles Chapter Association of the U.S. Army
The U.S. DoD's next step in evolution is called Joint All Domain Operations. "JADO shifts the focus from 'multi-domain', which individual services have been operating in for decades, and places it back on tackling the challenges of joint operations." The U.S. aims at a combined, connected arms (without the Service structure) force that senses and effects as one through all domains and can host combined units from other nations. The concept has also been called "Mosaic warfare". It is enabled by the emerging technology experimented on in The Project Convergence exercises . DARPA is promoting mosaic warfare as "combining weapons we already have today in new and surprising ways, introducing manned-unmanned teaming, disaggregating capabilities, and allowing commanders to seamlessly call on effects from sea, land or air depending on the situation and no matter which of the armed services is providing the capability."
Where did We Come and Where to Go with Multi-Domain
The Multi-Domain concept is not new. Guderian joined close air support from the Luftwaffe with his Pantzer-formations since horse-towed artillery was too slow to support mechanised armies. The electromagnetic environment has been an established fighting domain since the introduction of radars, navigation and radio during the II WWW. The U.S. DoD has been coordinating three Services capabilities towards one Joint objective. With the spreading of the Internet, the cyber environment has become a viable avenue, first for espionage and later for attacks like the Russian attack against Estonia in 2007 and the U.S.-led coalition Stuxnet attack against Iran in 2010 . Currently, at least the UK MOD and U.S. Army are promoting the doctrine of Cyber and Electromagnetic Activities as combined arms effects.
Space has been used to support military capabilities since the Gold War. After the development of anti-satellite weapons and their testing since 1958, Space has become a battlefield. See the evolutionary path illustrated in Figure 2.
Figure 2: Evolution of domains in military conflict
Multi-Domain or Joint, All Domain Operational capabilities are in a linear evolutionary path for the Armed Forces to aim. Furthermore, the defence industry is promoting technologies enabling connectivity, plug-and-play integration of platforms, and automation for faster reaction, robust survivability, and combined effects from all domains.
In the future, the strategic advantage will be based on improved connectivity, faster OODA-loop, and combined effect over the entire adversary system. Does everybody follow the evolutionary rules or play the same game?
How is the Multi-Domain Approach Doing in the Contemporary Continuum of Conflict?
Since the 2010s, the U.S. military planners have recognised the continuum of conflict from low to high intensity rather than black-and-white peace and wartime in the Westphalian system . Continuum models illustrate a variety of dimensions along the line of cooperation – competition – confrontation – conflict, including non-state, hybrid and state conflicts or narrative, a zero-sum and non-zero-sum in Joint Concept for Integrated Campaigning 2018. Militaries globally have been studying how to engage U.S. Military Power with other means and ways, as stated by Hoffman and Mattis 2005:
"Our conventional superiority creates a compelling logic for states and non-state actors to move out of the traditional mode of war and seek some niche capability or some unexpected combination of technologies and tactics to gain an advantage."
The Chinese (PRC) PLA's recognition and understanding of the current form of war is one of "informatisation" and "intelligentization", where battlefield dominance is achieved through information technology and networked forces, increasingly assisted by automation and artificial intelligence. They see that patterns of warfare have changed from attrition-based warfare (although the fact in Ukraine) patterns carried out at the front to information firepower strikes and network-electronic integrated confrontations that occur throughout the battlefield or even globally. The PLA concept of operations includes three lines:
- "Collective operations refers to the need to develop a range of interconnected operational systems that can work cooperatively, coordinate the combination of military and non-military measures outlined above, and achieve the PRC's desired war outcomes." Possibly, the PLA's definition of the Multi-Domain Operations concept.
- "Asymmetric strikes are enabled by a thorough understanding of the enemy's operational system and focused on attacking key vulnerabilities, weakening the enemy's operational strength, capabilities, and potential by applying resources as efficiently as possible." Possibly refers to ways to project power other than through contemporary military domains.
- "Paralysing the enemy's systems centres the tailored application of force to reduce key areas of an enemy's functionality and gain initiative and control of battlefield developments." It possibly indicates more innovative avenues of effect and centres of gravity.
These three lines of operation are combined with "war control", which may refer to controlling the scope, scale, and pace of war.
The PRC also has a more holistic view of the competition over Diplomatic, Information, Military, Economy, Technology, Infrastructure and International relationships through the Belt and Road Initiative, the Global Development Initiative, and the Global Security Initiative. Beijing is pursuing "efforts short of armed conflict by expanding coercion to new fronts, violating principles of sovereignty, exploiting ambiguity, and deliberately blurring the lines between civil and military goals", as described in the U.S. National Defense Strategy of 2018.
Russia, on the other hand, was relatively successful in launching operations in Georgia, Ukraine, Syria, and Middle Africa, manoeuvring within the continuum without crossing the red line of war. Only the 2022 intention to launch a coordinated "blitzkrieg" to capture Kyiv and change the government exposed their main incapability at strategic, operational and tactical levels of warfare. Nevertheless, the Russian ability to wage information operations supported by cyber-attacks and salvos of hundreds of missiles and drones are impacting NATO and Ukrainian political decision-making and structures.
Russia has long been preparing the foundation for their influence operation among domestic and European populations. After the first three months of Russian "Special Operation", some Ukrainians still believed in the de-Nazification of Kyiv. Over 2.5 years of war, the majority of Greece, Bulgaria, and Italy citizens do not want to send more weapons to help Ukraine win. Most of the citizens of Hungary, Slovakia, and Bulgaria do not perceive Russia as a threat. Armenia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Georgia, Moldova, and Serbia are torn between Russian influence and willingness to become members of the European Community.
It appears that all countries and militaries are not capable or willing to follow the Multi-Domain competition but play a different game around the military strong points. While Western militaries are building Joint Multi-Domain capabilities in physical and cyber realms, China and Russia are joining their efforts over cyber and information realms to bypass the Multi-Domain militaries waiting behind the war threshold and target both political and population cognitive and social structures with information and kinetic means for terror.
Figure 3 illustrates the confrontation between two entities. BLUE is an open society and economy with 4th industrial supporting advanced military force but constrained by Westphalian Peace-War definitions. RED is projecting its power more flexibly through the entire spectrum of realms: Physical, information, Cognitive and Social without breaching the line of War. RED operates in the information realm, using available channels to plant perceptions, beliefs and memes in the cognitive sphere (human perception). The planting is harvested at the social level where opposing sides spread xenophobia, media bubbles are enforced, and wildly spreading memes are faster than any truth. Cyber attacks and physical destruction support the main information operation of the critical infrastructure in the physical realm. The RED Multi-Domain approach differs from BLUE militaries space, air, land, sea and cyber. The Jointness of RED hybrid operations is created by controlling information operations, cyber operations and kinetic actions of criminals and terrorists. The Joint impact is multiplied in BLUE media channels, affecting BLUE political and public opinion. The War Control targets soft spots, triggers a small impact and lets the adversary system multiply its effect. It sounds like Sun Tzu's optimum strategy to win the battle without fighting.
Figure 3: Difference of the game between some countries DIME power projection
It may be wise for the Western Armed Forces to consider more of the Total National Defence (Totalförsvaret in Sweden and Kokonaismaanpuolustus in Finland) besides getting finally rid of the legacy boundaries of different Services on the battlefield.
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