AUTHOR Ian Bowers Senior Research Scientist, Norwegian Institute for Defence Studies
THE NATO & US APPROACH MULTI-DOMAIN OPERATIONS
APREVIOUSLY
published In-Depth Briefing explored some core attributes common to Multi-Domain Operations (MDO) concepts, doctrine and force development initiatives worldwide. This follow-up examines in further detail the status of MDO in the United States and NATO.
The Centre for Historical Analysis and Conflict Research is the British Army’s think tank and tasked with enhancing the conceptual component of its fighting power. The views expressed in this In Depth Briefing are those of the author, and not of the CHACR, Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, Ministry of Defence, British Army or US Army. The aim of the briefing is to provide a neutral platform for external researchers and experts to offer their views on critical issues. This document cannot be reproduced or used in part or whole without the permission of the CHACR. www.chacr.org.uk
Among NATO members, the United States stands out as the pacesetter in terms of MDO concept development, the acquirement of capabilities and the integration of both into the fighting force. Other member states are in the process of developing their own indigenous, nationally-driven approaches, however, many, if not most, remain in a conceptual phase with little hope that they will be implemented coherently.1
In truth, most member states are waiting for NATO to introduce MDO across its various commands while simultaneously looking to the US for inspiration and guidance as to how to pursue force modernisation and remain interoperable with NATO’s most powerful and influential force.2 Hence, the US and NATO are the most consequential examples for Alliance members as they
seek to implement MDO-related doctrine and capabilities.
THE UNITED STATES AND MDO
The United States military is undoubtedly the most advanced state when it comes to developing and implementing MDOinfluenced concepts. In China, America now has a pacing adversary that is likely able to hinder or even deny the US freedom of operations at a time of crisis or war in the Indo-Pacific.
Hence the US Department of Defense is prioritising the implementation of new operational constructs and capabilities that can overcome Chinese capabilities and ensure that the US maintains the military superiority that it has enjoyed since the end of the Cold War.
The US is seeking to leverage what it views as its current advantages in terms of a superior technological base, long experience in joint warfare and a military of sufficient size and capability that it can experiment with such capabilities systematically. Concept and doctrine development are well underway but remain in flux with ideas and capabilities frequently being discarded or replaced.
Each service branch has its own force development plan, all of which contain elements inherent to MDO. They are also in the midst of procuring capabilities including system architectures, platforms and weapons with which to operationalise these concepts.
The United States Army is the only service which doctrinally uses the term MDO. However, the term multi-domain often appears in official press releases concerning exercises and capabilities across the services and combatant commands. The United States Air Force’s MDO-related efforts are encapsulated in its Agile Combat Employment concept. The United States Navy uses the term Distributed Maritime Operations, and the United States Marine Corps is introducing its Expeditionary Advanced Based Operations Concept. Each of these approaches is by
1For an analysis of these efforts see: Davis Ellison and Tim Swijs, Breaking Patterns Multi-Domain Operations and Contemporary Warfare (The Hague: The Hauge Centre for Strategic Studies, 2023).
2As an example, the United Kingdom initially pursued a concept called MultiDomain Integration. This has now been archived and replaced by the NATO approach to MDO.
necessity influenced by servicespecific needs and priorities and individually has significant merit. But this stove-piped, servicecentric approach to implementing MDO-enabled concepts reflects the difficulty of enacting a coherent cross-service approach and is arguably contrary to the core ideas of MDO.
THE JOINT APPROACH
3These are for the US Army – Project Convergence, the US Navy – Project Overmatch and the US Air Force, the Advanced Battle Management System.
Hence the US military as a joint force is also pursuing a version of MDO with an emphasis on integrated, alldomain C4 [Command, Control, Communications, Computers] ISTAR [Intelligence, Surveillance, Target Acquisition and Reconnaissance].This effort is currently captured in the Combined, Joint AllDomain Command and Control (CJADC2) concept. CJADC2 is the primary system architecture being developed at the joint level in the United States. It is an initiative aimed at leveraging the inherent perceived advantages of multi-domain operations for the joint force and integrating those in a coherent command and control network. This entails an ambitious technological and doctrinal effort to unify the various C4 ISTAR systems of all the services and the development of personnel that can exploit it fully.
4Bryan Clark and Dan Patt, “Joint Integration Emerging as the Solution for CJADC2”, Real Clear Defense (September 30, 2023); John D. Rosenberger, “If CJADC2 is to Ever Happen, Let INDOPACOM take the Lead”, Breaking Defense (May 02, 2024).
5Joseph Clark, “Hicks Announces Delivery of Initial CJADC2 Capability”, U.S. Department of Defense (February 21, 2024).
6U.S. Department of Defense, Defense Budget Overview: United States Department of Defense Fiscal Year 2025 Budget Request, Revised April 04, 2024, 4-22.
7An example of this is the Assault Breaker II initiative. See: The House Armed Services Committee, Statement by the Honourable Heidi Shyu Before the United States House of Representatives Armed Services Committee on Outpacing China: Expediting Innovation to the War Fighter (February 15, 2024).
8Jackson Grey, “Project Convergence Capstone 4 Works to Integrate Joint, Multinational Defense Systems”, US Department of Defense (March 01, 2024).
9Sydney J. Freedberg, “How GIDE grows: AI Battle Network Experiments are Expanding to Army, Allies and Industry”, Breaking Defense, (February 29, 2024).
10Sydney J. Freedberg, “Ultimate Example of JADC2: Can the Pentagon Keep a Carrier Connected on a Long-Range Voyage?”, Breaking Defense (August 06, 2024).
One of the major issues with CJADC2 is that each service is developing its system architectures for MDO-enabled command and control, and also has projects for integrating them into the joint force.3 This has complicated efforts to integrate effects across the services and efforts that were focused on top-down implementation have proved bureaucratically and technologically cumbersome with seemingly little output.4
More recently, progress seems to have accelerated with the development of CJADC2 shifting to a more bottom-up approach focused on the more short-term needs of the joint combatant commanders. Indo-Pacific Command, which is not a service but rather a combatant command, has become the focal point, with Congress mandating
that its needs be prioritised over service or joint staff needs. An ongoing series of experiments and exercises under the Pentagon’s Global Information Dominance Experiment (GIDE) reportedly enabled a minimum viable capability in early January 2024, with Deputy Secretary of Defense Kathleen Hicks confirming this a month later.5
One of the results of this was the testing of a Joint Fires Network in Indo-Pacific Command’s June 2024 Valiant Shield exercise. This joint C4 ISTAR network is still a prototype but is a strong indication of what the US military is aiming for when combining the new systems of the Navy, Army, Air Force and Marines. In doing so, it is hoped that it will fuse data from multiple and diverse sensors, provide a common understanding of the area of operations for multiple commanders and provide targeting for weapons systems across the services.6 The US military and Department of Defense are also working on developing new operational constructs and testing environments to fully extract the advantages of this new type of C4 ISTAR network.7
A further example of the intended outcome of an MDO-
enabled force was revealed after the US Army’s 2024 Project Convergence Capstone 4 experiment. One element of this experiment was seamlessly and rapidly connecting a US Marine Corps F-35, which acted as a sensor, to a US Air Force battle management system, which then sent the targeting data to a US Army missile unit for execution.8 Such efforts remain experimental and significant hurdles remain in ensuring that legacy and new platforms and systems can communicate seamlessly. It remains to be seen how long it will take or if it will be possible to fully realise this potential connectivity in a peer-warfighting environment.
The addition of the C (combined) to the CJADC2 acronym was a recent event and signals a willingness to integrate certain allies into this network. This has been initially confined to close allies such as those in the Five-Eyes Agreement who have been allowed to participate in the GIDE series.9 Evidence of further allied integration will be seen in 2025 when the US Navy intends to sail a carrier battlegroup through various theatres while keeping it connected to at least three combatant commands. Press releases suggest that the United Kingdom and Australia will be involved in this exercise.10
However, as multiple experiments and exercises have shown, states beyond the Five Eyes are also being introduced to elements of this developing US capability.11
MDO-enabled force development is more than an exercise in force development and hence joint operational concepts and doctrinal development are ongoing at a joint level. Approved in late 2023, the Office of the Joint Chiefs of Staff issued the third iteration of its Joint Warfighting Concept. In the words of the vice chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Joint Warfighting Concept “serves as a roadmap to the future, challenging the joint force to make a fundamental shift in the way we think about competition, deterrence, and conflict”. Elements of the concept have now been integrated into doctrine with the August 2023 iteration of Joint Publication 1 –Volume 1
However, a recent US Defence Commission report stated that as of yet, the Joint Warfighting Concept is a high-level concept focused on the attributes needed for a future joint force. Hence, the report stated there was little evidence “that the JWC is influencing how the services level build their operational concepts or staff, train or equip their forces”.12
Taking this into account, on a joint level the introduction of a joint, MDO-enabled operational concept is challenging for the US military. However, as described above, the series of exercises and experiments driven not only by
“MULTI-DOMAIN OPERATIONS ARE ONE ELEMENT OF A WIDER TRANSFORMATION EFFORT... [WHICH] INCLUDES ALTERATIONS IN FORCE STRUCTURE, THE INTRODUCTION OF MORE THAN 30 NEW OR UPGRADED SYSTEMS AND THE FORMATION OF NEW UNITS CRITICAL TO SUCCESSFUL OPERATIONS ON THE CONTEMPORARY BATTLEFIELD, SUCH AS BATTALIONS CAPABLE OF DEFENDING AGAINST A RANGE OF THREATS INCLUDING UNMANNED SYSTEMS, CRUISE MISSILES AND ARTILLERY.”
service need but also combatant command requirements seem to be a more realistic and efficient method of developing the coherency needed across the joint force.
US ARMY MDO
This paper now turns to the US Army’s approach to MDO. This has been chosen as arguably it is advanced in terms of integrating concepts, capabilities and doctrine development. Further, as a case study it is a good example of the extent of the transformation that all the US services are pursuing.13 MDO are one element of a wider transformation effort currently titled Army 2030. This includes alterations in force structure, the introduction of more than 30 new or upgraded systems and the formation of new units critical to successful operations on the contemporary battlefield, such as battalions capable of defending against a range of threats including unmanned systems, cruise missiles and artillery.14
Although still an operating concept that continues to shape
US Army force development, MDO formally entered into US Army doctrine with the October 2022 publication of FM 3-0. This does not mean that the US Army is now fully MDOenabled but rather it is on a long-term conceptual, doctrinal and platform developmental pathway with the intention of being capable of multi-domain large-scale combat operations after 2030.
The Army definition of MDO, “the combined arms employment of all joint and Army capabilities to create and exploit relative advantages that achieve objectives, defeat enemy forces, and consolidate gains on behalf of joint force commanders”, does not provide many clues into how the US Army intends to change how it fights but a number of key elements can be extracted from doctrine, leader statements and developmental papers.
Army MDO is a response to the proliferation of massed adversary
long, medium and short-range precision fires that are anticipated to dominate contemporary and future battlefields. Hence, the overarching conceptual and doctrinal emphasis is on enabling manoeuvre through constantly penetrating or disintegrating adversary anti-access/area denial bubbles. This in MDO parlance requires the convergence of multiple effects generated by both the army and the joint force.
The centrepiece of US Army MDO is the standing up of five Multi-Domain Task Forces (MDTF). These elements are flexible, scalable and modifiable to the needs of strategic-level and operational-level commanders. The primary wartime role of the MDTF is to interrupt adversary anti-access/area denial bubbles thereby creating manoeuvre space for other units. Three of the five MDTFs will be tasked to the Indo-Pacific region (with one already deployed), one will be tasked to the European theatre, and one is yet to be decided.
The MDTF is where the majority
11Deb Henley, “US, Allies and Partners Integrate for Dynamic Targeting Kill-Chain Automation Experiments”, US Air Force, (January 31, 2024).
12Jane Harman et. Al., Commission on the National Defense Strategy (Virginia: RAND, 2024), 34.
13It should also be noted that the US Army are more willing to share public data on their evolution in contrast to the US Navy which has released limited information on its MDO concept.
14US Army, Army White Paper on Army Force Structure Transformation
be deployed including longrange precision fires, air defence and units designed to integrate intelligence, information operations, cyberspace, electronic warfare and space operations (I2CEWS). These latter units are now being formed into Multi-Domain Effects Battalions (MDEB), which in the words of one battalion commander can “provide all-domain long-range sensing and non-kinetic effects delivery” and therefore support the use of long-range precision fires and converge effects from the MDTF.15 Importantly, reflecting the wider US military’s efforts to bring allies into their modernisation programme, officers from the United Kingdom and Australia were embedded with the 3rd MDTF in Hawaii.16
The MDTF is a theatre-level organisation and under the US Army’s ongoing reorganisation, corps commanders and their staffs will be responsible for delivering multi-domain effects.17 It is then intended for divisions to return as primary battlefield tactical formations. This will allow for better coordination and massing of specific effects such as artillery while freeing the brigade combat team commanders to focus on manoeuvring their forces in wartime.
For units operating at lower tactical levels, the introduction of MDO may not seem, as of yet, transformative. Of course, this does not mean that such units will not be exposed or contribute to a multi-domain operating environment. In particular, MDO will likely require changes in the speed of manoeuvre and present new problems and opportunities for tactical-level commanders. Hence, developing a MDO-mindset among even lower tactical level leaders, in order to fully exploit its benefits, is likely a priority. Further, it is thought that lower-level units will contribute to building a better operational picture through the
provision of multiple forms of data while also being able to exploit that operational picture when needed.18
NATO AND MDO
MDO in NATO is at a different stage from the United States. Despite the frequent insertion of MDO into statements by NATO commanders and now into doctrine including AJP-1, the reality is that MDO for NATO is not yet an operational concept. The document that sets out the NATO MDO, the Alliance Concept for Multi-Domain Operations, is a development paper aimed at structuring future force development and modernisation across the Alliance.
NATO’s current definition of MDO is the “orchestration of military activities, across all domains and environments, synchronized with non-military activities, to enable the Alliance to create converging effects at the speed of relevance”.19 The baseline definition informs numerous developmental lines of delivery within NATO. These include new command and control concepts and structures, new command and control system architecture, the introduction of AI into the Alliance and the better utilisation of non-military instruments of power into planning processes.
NATO itself argues that it is this latter element that wholly distinguishes MDO from joint operations.20 It is believed that the current threat environment requires the integration of a wide array of national instruments of power. Moreover, NATO will need to engage more closely with the private sector to enhance its deterrence, defensive and warfighting capabilities. This is primarily aimed at the space and cyber sectors where civilian actors possess capabilities such as satellite imaging that NATO commanders may not have native military access to.
If realised, MDO in NATO will
allow the Alliance to better leverage the potential of data and connectivity across its strategic, operational and eventually tactical commands. However, the timelines for this transformation are likely to be long. As stated in part one of this series, developing and implementing a new operating concept across 32 members of different capabilities and resources is a challenging exercise. Not only do interoperable capabilities need to be integrated across the Alliance at various levels, but NATO as an organisation will need to gradually change while retaining the extant skills that its officers and enlisted personnel possess. This will require the iterative modification of training, doctrines and procedures.
Importantly, these efforts will not result in an MDO-enabled alliance tomorrow. Instead, what is more likely is the iterative development of specific capabilities through a long process of negotiation and development between the NATO Allied Command Transformation, SHAPE, the Joint Force Commands and the various members of the alliance.
For now, MDO in NATO is more likely to involve bringing cyber and space capabilities down to the operational and highertactical levels. This is a complex task in itself but is one that is already being tested. For example, the NATO exercise Steadfast Defender 2024 was a multidomain exercise which included cyber and space elements.21
A FUTURE OF CHANGE
MDO or MDO-related concepts will continue to inform force development in NATO and the United States. As this briefing has shown, the US military is moving quickly ahead with the introduction of not only new technologies but also organisational changes and platform modernisation. Much of this transformation is
being shaped not only by the opportunities provided by new technologies but also by the military challenge posed by China.
NATO – in attempting to introduce its version of MDO into an Alliance of 32 members – faces a number of difficulties ranging from a wide number of national strategic cultures to large differences in capabilities, force development priorities and resources. Further, NATO will need to develop the key enablers to operationalise MDO when the majority of US capabilities will be concentrated in East Asia. Nevertheless, NATO must continue to develop such capabilities to harness the warfighting potential that technology aligned with conceptual and doctrinal change could provide.
Vitally, as the US case demonstrates, much of MDOrelated force development remains in the experimental stage and therefore is likely to look different in a year from now. Indeed, given that technology and its military potential continue to evolve, it is likely that MDO-related force development may not have an end point but instead will be an ongoing and evolving process.
15Lt. Col. Joe Mroszczyk, “Multi-Domain Effects Battalion: Space Integration and Effects in Multi-Domain Operations”, Military Review (March 2024).
16Jen Judson, “Here’s how the US Army’s Multidomain Task Force is Contributing to AUKUS”, DefenseNews, (May 17, 2024).
17Gen. James Rainey and Lt. Gen. Laura Potter, “Delivering the Army of 2030”, War on the Rocks (August 06, 2023).
18US Army, Army of 2030
19“Multi-Domain Operations: Enabling NATO to Out-pace and Out-think its Adversaries”, NATO ACT (July 29, 2022).
20“Multi-Domain Operation in NATO –Explained”, NATO ACT (Oct 05, 2023).
21“The JWC’s Multi-Domain Scenario Support for NATO Exercise Steadfast Defender 2024”, NATO JWC (February 06, 2024).