Posted on May 16, 2018
Generals Worry US May Lose In Start Of Next War: Is Multi-Domain The Answer?
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"In a single command post, the speaker said, commanders had to make sense of four separate pictures of the battlefield:
data on the current positions of friendly ground units via Blue Force Tracker;
data on friendly air units, which didn’t show up on Blue Force Tracker;
intelligence data, which didn’t feed into either the ground or air systems above;
“a crowd-sourced social media map” that compiled tweets and other social media posts to report where bombings and battles had occurred. This open-source intelligence was at least as accurate as official intelligence sources and considerably faster.
This kludged-together system, taking weeks to bring capabilities together across multiple domains, works okay against the Islamic State, with its ragged ground force, modest cadre of hackers, and complete lack of air, sea, and space assets. But it would be lethally slow against a major power with its own long-range sensors, precision missiles, and big guns.
“We had absolute supremacy in all domains, right, and it still took us weeks to get that together because we didn’t have all the tools or resources or the authorities to be able to do it ourselves,” the speaker said. “(That) won’t work against a near-peer adversary.”"
data on the current positions of friendly ground units via Blue Force Tracker;
data on friendly air units, which didn’t show up on Blue Force Tracker;
intelligence data, which didn’t feed into either the ground or air systems above;
“a crowd-sourced social media map” that compiled tweets and other social media posts to report where bombings and battles had occurred. This open-source intelligence was at least as accurate as official intelligence sources and considerably faster.
This kludged-together system, taking weeks to bring capabilities together across multiple domains, works okay against the Islamic State, with its ragged ground force, modest cadre of hackers, and complete lack of air, sea, and space assets. But it would be lethally slow against a major power with its own long-range sensors, precision missiles, and big guns.
“We had absolute supremacy in all domains, right, and it still took us weeks to get that together because we didn’t have all the tools or resources or the authorities to be able to do it ourselves,” the speaker said. “(That) won’t work against a near-peer adversary.”"
Generals Worry US May Lose In Start Of Next War: Is Multi-Domain The Answer?
Posted from breakingdefense.com
Strategy
Tactics
Cyber
Leadership
Planning
Posted >1 y ago
Responses: 11
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Thanks, some great challenges and questions in the article. Multi-domain remains tough to accomplish, and I'm sure it's just as tough for our enemies. Just at the most basic level, we haven't yet solved the problems created by pushing the FSCL so far forward that our airpower is effectively removed from large swaths in front of our land component, and that's just air and land domains, the old problems of AirLand Battle doctrine. Adding the cyber attack integration challenges, VERY high level of approvals required, and the long preparatory timelines required to find and exploit vulnerabilities, and it means the warfighters on the ground and in the sky often dismiss it because it can't respond to the timelines we need. So we just go blow it up old school because we have no confidence the claimed cyber effects will be produced and IN EFFECT at the moment we risk young men and women's lives.
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SPC David S.
Great point about the fire support line. The speed of a next major war will more than likely leave many allied troops behind enemy line - I fear the front and the rear may be the same battlespace.
Many others with way more war college than me are hinting at the problems that the cyber domain adds to command and control -
Army Chief of Staff General Mark A Milley ~ "Future adversaries could end the US's traditional air superiority, and anti-access, area-denial capabilities could prevent the Navy from getting near the battlefield.
So “land forces will have to enable sea forces,” and the Army “is definitely going to have to dominate the air above our battle space"
Much like I stated in my post -
With the speed I really feel the concept of FSCL will be lost and we will be more dependant on a more autonomous battlefield coordination line (BCL)
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/future-war-russia-china-us-extremely-lethal-fast-artificial-intelligence-cyber-warfare-a7347591.html
Many others with way more war college than me are hinting at the problems that the cyber domain adds to command and control -
Army Chief of Staff General Mark A Milley ~ "Future adversaries could end the US's traditional air superiority, and anti-access, area-denial capabilities could prevent the Navy from getting near the battlefield.
So “land forces will have to enable sea forces,” and the Army “is definitely going to have to dominate the air above our battle space"
Much like I stated in my post -
With the speed I really feel the concept of FSCL will be lost and we will be more dependant on a more autonomous battlefield coordination line (BCL)
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/future-war-russia-china-us-extremely-lethal-fast-artificial-intelligence-cyber-warfare-a7347591.html
Generals warn war with Russia would be ‘extremely lethal’
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I think it is imperative for LNOs of each functional area to participate in the MDMP process and provide quick feedback. It will be centralized, however branches are given the flexibility as long as it follows the commander's intent.
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If it's complicated for us it's complicated for an enemy as well and we dont have to go to the supreme, exalted leader to get permission before doing something.
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