US Army to develop multiple domain Ops to exploit enemy vulnerabilities.

The genius of the new U.S. Army concept coined "multi-domain operations" is it's designed to enable the maneuver commander to strike at the enemy's most vulnerable point, be that in the air, space, sea, land or cyber domain, said Maj. Gen. William K. Gayler, reported by David Vergun, Army News Service.

The new U.S. Army concept coined "multi-domain operations" is designed to enable the maneuver commander to strike at the enemy's most vulnerable point, be it in the air, space, sea, land or cyber domain. (Illustration by Peggy Frierson)

Maj. Gen. William K. Gayler, commander, U.S. Army Aviation Center of Excellence and Fort Rucker, spoke at an Association of the U.S. Army's "hot topics" forum Sept. 5 on Army aviation. However, achieving the level of dominance needed for an effective multi-domain plan is still a ways from full operational capability, he said.

In the air domain, there will continue to be an increased reliance on unmanned aerial systems to collect intelligence, carry weapons, do logistical tasks and team with other manned and unmanned systems, Gayler said. Current UAS lack adequate protection, but that will soon change as avoidance sensors are placed in them that can geo-locate and pick up activity in the electromagnetic spectrum, he said. They will also be equipped with onboard capabilities that can spoof and jam the enemy's integrated air and missile defense network.

A current problem in the air domain is a shortage of pilots, particularly AH-64 Apache pilots, he said. The other services and commercial airlines also are experiencing shortages as well.
As a result, the Army will soon be offering retention bonuses to people who normally don't get them --- those near or at retirement eligibility, he said, adding that their experience is invaluable.

Col. Yi Se Gwon, director of the U.S. Army Targeting Center, said perhaps two of the most effective offensive fires reside in the cyber and space domains -- not to take anything away from long-range precision fires. One of the issues that still needs to be resolved is what level should grant approval to use those fires, he said. If the level is too high, then asking permission to use one or more of the tools such as offensive cyber or electronic warfare, might slow the process down --- and events on the battlefield of the future will be very, very rapid. To complicate matters, the force will almost certainly be multinational in its makeup, each nation with its own policies.

Also, brigade combat teams need to be adequately staffed to use nonlethal weapons like cyber and EW and maneuver commanders must have a level of knowledge to know the appropriate time to use those weapons, he said. While the space and cyber domains offer some of the best tools for the commander to exploit, they also will be contested in the future, probably more so than the other domains, he said.

The whole idea of multi-domain ops is to "persistently attack the enemy [in all domains] so he doesn't get a chance to catch his breath and doesn't know where he'll be attacked next," he summed up.

Retired Gen. James D. Thurman, president of JD Thurman Enterprises LLC, pointed out one of the challenges with getting multi-domain ops to work the way it's designed to work: namely problems with the network, the backbone for communications such as linking sensors to shooters in all five domains.

When Thurman was the top operations officer for Gen. David D. McKiernan during the 2003 invasion of Iraq, he said spearheading that effort was V Corps, I Marine Expeditionary Force and the United Kingdom's 1st Armoured Division. McKiernan commanded all U.S. and coalition ground forces. There was little to no network connectivity between them. "It was high adventure," he said sarcastically, noting that connectivity with multinational partners is still a work in progress. Getting multi-domain ops right is a tall but very necessary order, he said, lauding efforts by the Network Cross Functional Team and the other CFTs working on the six Army modernization priorities.

Another challenge, this one literally inside the land domain, Thurman said, is learning to fight in underground warfare, particularly in megacities. That's where the enemy is likely to fight in the future, he said. The Army needs more work on developing communications that work well underground, as well as refining underground tactics, techniques and procedures. During his participation in the initial Iraq invasion, Thurman said soldiers were surprised to see so many hardened underground compounds in Baghdad. Other potential adversaries have them too, he added.

Also, for multi-domain ops to be effective, soldiers need agile thinking so they can pivot from one domain to the next swiftly in order to keep the enemy guessing and off-balance, he added.

Gayler summed up multi-domain ops: Although current capabilities in all formations are "super" and we're "ready to fight tonight," technologies are developing rapidly and the enemy has been studying what the U.S. military is doing and how they can thwart it in each of those five domains using those technologies as well as their own evolving tactics. That's why standing up Army Futures Command and the eight cross functional teams' focus on the six modernization priorities is so important, he said.