Joint Force Experimentation for Great-Power Competition Sean Macfarland

Joint Force Experimentation for Great-Power Competition Sean MacFarland The war game at the Naval War College came direction of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of to a frustrating conclusion for the “blue” Staff, General Mark Milley, the Naval War Col- players representing the U.S. Their attempted lege recently war-gamed a real-world scenar- dash across the Pacific with powerful naval io against potential adversaries. It was a good forces to reinforce positions near the enemy start, and more such war games are expected to homeland had been stopped well short of their follow as are other forms of experimentation. destination by shore-based airpower. Friendly If they do, these opportunities to learn will losses due to the enemy’s pre-war investment in once again play a vital role in the development anti-access/area denial capabilities had been of a joint doctrine that supports our National staggering. A quick American victory would Defense Strategy, addresses the challenges and not be possible, and a new strategy would be opportunities created by technological change, needed to defeat this potential adversary. and responds to rising threats to both national and global security. If fully supported, they will lthough the location of this war game might help America’s defense establishment to make Anot surprise you, the date and opponent cost-effective investments and reduce stra- might. It took place in 1934, and the adver- tegic risk by tapping into America’s greatest sary was Japan (“Orange” in the war game). asymmetric advantage: our ability to innovate. Fortunately, the U.S. Navy, informed by the results, changed its war plan in time, and the Global Challenges rest, as the saying goes, is history. In fact, the In his article “The Thucydides Trap,” Gra- war game was so prescient that after the war, ham Allison observed that a rising power and Fleet Admiral Chester Nimitz said that “the a dominant power do not usually exchange war with Japan had been enacted in the game places peacefully. This is the trap into which rooms at the War College by so many people Athens, as a rising power, and Sparta, as the and in so many different ways that nothing that dominant power, fell.2 How can the United happened during the war was a surprise—ab- States, as the world’s dominant power, avoid solutely nothing except the kamikaze tactics the fate of Sparta, which defeated Athens but toward the end of the war. We had not visual- was so weakened that it also soon collapsed? ized these.”1 The first requirement, of course, is to recognize War games and large-scale exercises like threats and—just as important—their nature. those conducted before the Second World War The fastest-rising power in the world today played an important role in our military his- is China, which has embarked on what Michael tory, and they are poised to do so again. At the Pillsbury calls a “hundred-year marathon”3 to The Heritage Foundation | heritage.org/Military 23 displace the United States as global hegemon. traditional domains of air, sea, and land. As Although most observers agree that Beijing our dependence on space and cyberspace has does not wish to use direct force to overthrow grown, so too have our vulnerabilities. The the American order and establish itself as the globe-spanning reach of these new domains new “sun in the sky,” China is clearly arm- has expanded the battlefield to the homelands ing itself in a way that is meant to challenge of our adversaries as well as to our own “forts American power in the Western Pacific. It is and ports,” rendering our Atlantic and Pacific also seeking to compete with the United States moats ineffective. through diplomatic, information, and econom- Advances in weapon technology are po- ic means. The implications of these efforts are tentially game-changing as well. Stealth, or profound not just for the United States, but low-observable technology, directed energy also for the entire world. for weapons, sensors and communications, From the end of the Cold War until recently, remote-controlled vehicles, and hyperson- we have lacked a clearly defined pacing threat: ic weapons are accelerating the speed of a nice problem to have had but a problem no war from supersonic to hypersonic and be- longer. A resurgent Russia and a rising China yond, to the speed of light. As if this were not took note of how the U.S. rapidly overwhelmed mind-boggling enough, advances in artificial the Iraqi military in conventional warfare in intelligence (AI), powered by big data and in- 1991 and again in 2003. Since then, both na- formation operations that exploit social media tions have embarked on acquisition strategies platforms, are creating additional challenges designed to neutralize our joint warfighting and opportunities. advantages, now enabled by new technolo- The ability of the human mind to close the gies like unmanned aerial systems and stealth OODA (observe, orient, decide, act) loop in aircraft. By investing in relatively low-cost a timely manner in response to these tech- systems that are designed to prevent us from nological changes is increasingly at risk. The projecting our forces, our adversaries are now “cognitive domain” of war is not new, but its challenging our ability to achieve overmatch character has changed along with the other against our opponents on the battlefield. This domains, perhaps making it the most signifi- asymmetric approach is called anti-access/ cant domain of all. area denial (A2/AD). To undermine U.S. power, our adversaries This renewed geostrategic competition is are employing other asymmetric means that unfolding amid a revolution that has the po- stop short of traditional acts of war, blurring tential to rival the Industrial Revolution in the line between peace and conflict. The so- its impact. The technological revolution driv- called Russian gray zones, China’s civil–mil- ing these changes in the character of war will itary integration, Iran’s proxy forces, and change the 21st century battlefield as much as cyber-attacks by non-state actors have thick- the Industrial Revolution changed the battle- ened the fog of war. Doctrinal discussions have field in the 20th century. Space, which became moved away from the “pre-conflict phase” in accessible in the latter half of the 20th century, favor of a continuum of conflict that encom- is growing ever more congested and contested passes competition and hostilities. We are in the 21st. competing with our peer adversaries and have America, which pioneered space travel, been for a while, whether we realized it or not. no longer enjoys assured access to it, remov- Twenty-first century conflict, then, has ex- ing it as one of our asymmetric advantages panded not only spatially, but also temporally. over our enemies. Cyberspace, which the United States also pioneered, is now shared Our Doctrinal Response by the entire world and has joined space as a Our adversaries have reacted to our ac- new domain of warfare along with the more tions, and now it is our turn to counteract by 24 2021 Index of U.S. Military Strength developing a new doctrine that leverages our also important, particularly in the space and asymmetric strengths to degrade, penetrate, cyber domains where management of the and ultimately disintegrate A2/AD measures electromagnetic spectrum and networks in and restores our strategic reach and ability to the competition phase of conflict will mean fight on favorable terms. Our response must striking a balance between civil and military address both geostrategic and technological requirements. changes. It must be sufficiently compelling to Getting the services to align doctrines achieve broad support both among U.S. poli- and acquisition programs and to integrate cymakers and among our allies. It must also operationally across domains is hard but not be affordable. The U.S. used a cost-imposition impossible. We came close in the final years strategy to defeat the Soviet Union during the of the Cold War under the rubric of AirLand Cold War. We cannot allow ourselves to be Battle (ALB). The Army aligned all elements driven down an unsustainable path in a similar of DOTMLPF to support ALB, and—critical- way, as A2/AD would have us do. ly—so did the Air Force, making the vision of To answer all of these challenges, the U.S. a seamless dual-domain operational concept Department of Defense (DOD) is developing a reality. Although we did not have the benefit a doctrine called Joint All Domain Operations of sophisticated computer modeling tools then, (JADO). It is still only a concept, but it builds we were able to test some ALB assumptions on the work started by the U.S. Army, joined by during the massive annual REFORGER exer- the Marine Corps, in developing the warfight- cises in Europe. We also benefitted from the ing Multi-Domain Operations (MDO) con- very real and bloody lessons gleaned from the cept. It will also incorporate subsequent work 1973 Arab–Israeli War. Acquisition efforts in done by the Air Force on the Joint All Domain the Army were tailored to ALB and vice-versa. Command and Control (JADC2) concept and Thus, the “Big Five” Army weapons pro- eventually will include concepts from the Navy grams still widely in use today were ideally and Space Force as well. JADO recognizes the suited to the doctrine, and the integration of new domains of conflict and is intended to ex- joint effects in training and exercises became ploit them with cross-domain effects and will the norm. In the end, we were able to catch doc- leverage our armed forces’ unique and prov- trinal lightning in a bottle, as proven in Opera- en ability to orchestrate joint operations at tion Desert Storm against a combat-seasoned, all echelons.

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