Military

Multi-Domain Operations: A 'Next Step' in U.S. Military Combat Strategy

Imagine that a forward-operating, satellite-networked Air Force drone comes across a small, moving group of enemy surface ships. Further, imagine that the drone’s instant data is sent to both Navy ships commanders and land-based Army weapons operators in real-time, enabling a coordinated attack using ship-launched Tomahawk missiles, land-based attack rockets and fighter jets armed with air-to-surface weapons.

This possible scenario, wherein air, land and sea platforms share information in real time across vast, otherwise dispersed areas to optimize attack is precisely what the Pentagon now intends with its new doctrinal approach to future war.

“Our new concept is MDO, for Multi-Domain Operations, intended as a next step in combat strategy to include new domains such as space and EW,” General Joseph Martin, Vice Chief of Staff of the Army, said at an event at a think tank called the “Foundation for Defense of Democracies.”

The concept, now in development for the last several years, is fast making technological advances to surge well beyond what may have been previously envisioned. Martin explained MDO as a new version of the well-known Cold War-era AirLand battle concept which sought to counter the former Soviet Union through integrated air and ground combat on the European continent.