THE MULTI-DOMAIN OPERATIONS APPROACH TO INTERMEDIATE PME

EDITOR’S NOTE: This is the sixth installment in a multi-part series that examines how professional military education should be designed. This and subsequent articles will look through the lens of the competencies required of officers as the global security environment changes once again. The collection of articles can be found in a collection here once they have been published.

One needs to rethink professional military education in fundamental ways. A significant portion of successful innovation in the interwar period depended on close relationships between schools of professional military education…One may not create another Dowding and manage his career to the top ranks, but one can foster a military culture where those promoted to the highest ranks possess the imagination and intellectual framework to support innovation [and adaptation].

Williamson Murray, Military Adaption in War

Professional military education (PME) is unprepared to meet the magnitude of changes in complexity, speed, and precision evolving in maneuver warfare. This turbulence is being driven by an exponential growth of computing power where the pace of cyber, directed energy, nanotechnology, and hypersonic systems are eclipsing the normal capacity to predict their effects. The consequences of these changes are directly affecting the ability to effectively synchronize maneuver in multiple domains through joint operations alone. Evidence supporting this statement is clearly evident in the unfolding tragedy of the Ukraine War. The war has demonstrated an unforeseen capacity of advanced technology to exploit air, land, and maritime operations through use of unmanned aerial vehicles, Magura drone boats, anti-armor fires, and precision artillery strikes. Additionally, the war has provided a subtle hint of the importance of control of and access to the electromagnetic spectrum to jam enemy communications, use thermal and hyperspectral imagery for targeting, and vector friendly cyber effects. The most salient lesson from the war, however, is what happens when opposing forces cannot maneuver without catastrophic casualties. In light of these dynamic trends in warfare, it is clear that PME has an inherent responsibility to invest in reimagining maneuver warfare. Based on 18 years of experience in teaching the underlying principles of multi-domain operations (MDO), this article examines MDO and PME’s role in shaping advanced maneuver competencies. It begins by articulating why PME should approach MDO as a maneuver construct and how MDO affects the efficacy of planning and execution skill sets. The article then transitions to an analysis of MDO’s impact on interagency and multinational coordination and concludes with recommended PME considerations.

Why Should PME Invest in MDO?

In December 2017, General David Perkins, Commander of the U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command, unveiled the concept of Multi Domain Battle which later transitioned into MDO. Despite being explored by the U.S. military for over seven years, MDO is one of the most misunderstood concepts in the entirety of military operations. Part of this is because MDO is nothing new. Maneuver in multiple domains has existed since at least 1175 B.C. when Ramesses III, Pharaoh of Egypt, defeated the Sea Peoples in the battle of the Nile Delta using the maritime and land domains. What is new is the expansion of additional domains and the complexity of domain interdependencies. Since the battle of the Nile Delta, technology has given us access to the domains of air, space, and the electromagnetic spectrum. As a result, MDO is much more than simply operating in multiple domains. MDO is the deliberate configuration of sophisticated combinations of domains to destroy an adversary’s interdependencies between the domains and collapse the adversary’s entire system.

Another misconception is that MDO is simply joint by another name. When the U.S. Congress enacted the 1986 Goldwater-Nichols Act, the intent was to improve cooperation and collaboration between the services; in effect, joint was a mode of organizational cooperation that had be imposed on the services. Joint was never intended to be a maneuver concept. Today, however, services believe that if they are operating in multiple domains and use other services’ additive capabilities, they are conducting MDO. This unfortunately is not true because there is a tremendous difference between a service component operating in multiple domains and MDO, because service components, in general, principally operate at the high tactical level of operations. In contrast, MDO is not responsible solely for the component levels, or just coordinating components as in a joint operation. MDO provides an overarching maneuver strategy intended to create converging effects across five domains. This intrinsic factor has an enormous impact on the planning and execution competencies taught by PME institutions.

Crucial MDO Planning and Execution Competencies

For decades, René Descartes theory of reductionism has been an integral PME competency for addressing the ambiguity and complexity surrounding planning and execution. Reductionism analyzes complex systems by reducing a system into smaller parts to explain the system as a whole. This theory, however, loses sight of understanding of the interconnectedness of the system and how smaller parts function within a system.Consequently, PME students need a forward-looking MDO educational framework that prepares them to plan and operate in an environment that will eclipse traditional maneuver constructs. Three intrinsic elements of this framework are: understanding maneuver as a holistic system; using design to distill vision from complexity; and harnessing data to drive decision making in compressed planning, decision, and execution (PDE) cycles.

Systems theory is an interdisciplinary study of complex systems that recognizes a system is more than the sum of its parts. It is also important to emphasize that when you conduct an action within a system, it may influence the totality of the system. This is especially true for systems that learn and adapt. Teaching PME students the application of systems theory empowers them to develop a much more comprehensive approach to MDO maneuver. At the operational level, systems theory does this by allowing planners to see the domains as an interconnected continuum and understand the requirements for protecting and exploiting domain interdependencies. Additionally, systems theory provides operators with a vital comprehension of how to execute MDO maneuver through changing structures in the operational environment to guide an adversary’s anticipated behavior.

Design generates the vision required to distill clarity from complexity for decisive action.

Closely linked to systems theory is operational design. It is one of the most valuable tools in the development of a MDO maneuver concept. Design generates the vision required to distill clarity from complexity for decisive action. It does this by providing an analytical framework to understand the environment, identify problem sets, and develop a cognitive map for executing MDO. Although not a recognized doctrinal process, a key operational design competency for planners is the ability to bifurcate the environment into an observed system and a desired system. The observed system represents a “best estimate” of how the environment functions. The desired system is an analysis of the observed system and how to change the environment to meet political objectives. This process identifies problem sets, assists in the development of lines of operation, and provides a vision for synchronizing MDO maneuver. Additionally, design provides a mechanism for identifying key decision points along lines of operation and formulating constructs to ensure data supports compressed planning, decision, and execution (PDE) cycles.

Although planners and operators do not necessarily need to know how to construct algorithms, they do need to understand how data affects the agility required in MDO maneuver. MDO will be conducted on the backbone of an extraordinarily complex digital ecosystem. Future planners and operators at both the operational and tactical levels must be knowledgeable in the development, transfer, and analysis of data. This foundation is imperative for platforms operating in different domains to maintain custody of and engage high-value targets that would normally have escaped traditional, single-domain maneuver. An illustration of this is an F-35 tracking a target and passing the targeting data to an Aegis Cruiser or ground-launched missile battery for engagement. Another essential reason is the era of large static headquarters has ended. Large headquarters today emit tremendous amounts of electromagnetic energy and are easily targeted by long-range artillery, missile systems, hypersonic weapons, and weapons from space. This change in the character of war necessitates smaller mobile headquarters capable of computing complex fires and maneuvers at the edge in extraordinarily compressed PDE cycles.

Global Asymmetric MDO Operations

It is also important to emphasize that the PME planning and execution competencies related to MDO do not stop at the operational level. There are distinct responsibilities inherent in interagency, political, and multinational coordination, especially in the realm of global asymmetric strategic responses. In the past, joint planning and execution primarily focused on a defined, often limited, geographic joint operations area. Under the current conditions, however, that type of focus is no longer a feasible option because of the speed and operational reach of advanced weapons systems and global supply chain requirements. MDO offers the means to develop strategies that incorporate interagency, political, and multinational collaboration, across five rather than the traditional three domains, to achieve alignment at a scale that the world has never seen. To do this, PME has a responsibility to educate planners and operators beyond a simplistic understanding of basic capabilities and limitations of sea lines of communication, maritime choke points, and space orbits. Planners and operators require education on how a deliberate multi-domain operation in one theater of operations may be intended to create a more favorable conditions in another theater. This necessitates a comprehension of how to coordinate unique forms of maneuver in five domains with agencies, intergovernmental organizations, and allies. Illustrations of this include sharing data through obfuscation, prioritizing dynamic bandwidth allocation, using the electromagnetic spectrum to offensively vector exquisite cyber tools, and creating effects on terrestrial-based space object and surveillance identification platforms that are essential to space operations.

Conclusion

Many individuals sense the changes advanced technology has already imposed on the strategic, operational, and tactical environments. However, very few individuals comprehend the implications for how those changes dramatically affect PME’s ability to prepare planners and operators for the impact of advanced technology on maneuver warfare. To change this, PME institutions need to ensure their curricula balances the theory and application of MDO based on where advanced technology is today and where it will be in the next five years. Students should also be grounded in the systems theory surrounding MDO. They should have a full comprehension of how to develop sophisticated combinations of domains designed to break the interdependencies between domains and collapse the adversary’s system. In addition to this, students should be equipped with the means to employ design theory to create the vision for MDO. Lastly, PME institutions must realize the significance of data on MDO maneuver. The ability to develop, transfer, and analyze data is a core requirement for synchronizing domain maneuver and creating lean, lethal headquarters capable of operating at the edge in time compressed PDE cycles.

Although the above recommendations focus primarily on the operational and tactical levels of war, there is also a strategic/high-operational MDO competency requirement. This requirement resides in how to coordinate and collaborate MDO actions with agencies, intergovernmental organizations, and allies to generate global asymmetric advantages outside their geographic area of operations. This is exemplified in using space and cyber means to create strategic non-kinetic effects.

In summary, advanced technology has changed the complexity, speed, and precision required for success in maneuver warfare. PME has a direct responsibility to comprehend this and make a significant intellectual investment in developing intrinsic MDO competencies. It is imperative PME institutions reimagine maneuver warfare or we will be forced to accept the consequences that evolved in August 1914.

Katrine Lund-Hansen is a Special Advisor at the Royal Danish Defence College, leading the College research project on Multi-Domain Operations.

Jeff Reilly, PhD is the Director of Air University’s Joint All Domain Strategist (JADS) program. He has served as a theater level plans division chief and member of the Secretary of Defense’s Two Major Theater War plans team. Additionally, he has received numerous awards for innovation in professional military education at the Air University, Air Education and Training Command, and Secretary of the Air Force levels.

The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the U.S. Army War College, the U.S. Army, or the Department of Defense.

Photo Description: An MC-130J Commando II from the 9th Special Operations Squadron airdrops a Maritime Craft Aerial Delivery System over the Gulf of Mexico during a training exercise, Nov. 12, 2015. This was the first time aircrews from the 9th SOS successfully completed an MCADS airdrop.

Photo Credit: U.S. Air Force photo/ Staff Sgt. Matthew Plew