These are huge strategic challenges — and Ryan McCarthy is emphasizing them more than any of his predecessors in at least a decade.

The hard part of Multi-Domain Operations isn’t hypersonic missiles or robotic tanks. It’s getting civilian agencies and foreign allies to fight disinformation — long before the shooting starts.

The Air Force wants to develop information warfare capabilities to “deter malign activities from [the] information warfare level all the way up to conflict,” says Air Combat Command head Gen. Mike Holmes.

The military needs a globe-spanning network to counter threats that no single theater command can cope with. That takes more than just technology.

WASHINGTON: The entire US government — not just the Pentagon — needs to wake up to the intertwined threats of cyber warfare and political subversion, Army and National Security Agency officials say. It’ll take a major cultural change to get the whole of government to compete effectively in the grey zone between peace and war.… Keep reading →

HUNTSVILLE: Modernizing the Army is about much more than equipment. To defeat Russia and China in future multi-domain warfare — or better yet, deter them — the service is contemplating cultural revolutions as ripe for controversy as any multi-billion dollar weapons program. They include allowing junior officers more initiative, ending chronic micromanagement; creating long-term “regimental” affiliations… Keep reading →

“All the services understand the need to move to Multi-Domain Operations,” Lt. Gen. Wesley said. “Second, we all agree that MDC2 [Multi-Domain Command & Control] is the most important joint problem that we have to solve. After that, the specifics of how you conduct MDO – that’s where the variance is that we’ve got to converge on.”

There are real signs of a renaissance in electronic warfare. Now comes the hard part: translating new strategies and concepts into doctrine, requirements, and systems in the field.

Smart missiles to strike hard targets hundreds of miles away. Wireless links to pull data from stealth fighters and foot soldiers alike. Command posts agile enough to coordinate it all — not only in open war, but in the ambiguous “grey zone” of hacking, proxy warfare, and Twitter trolls. That’s just a few of the… Keep reading →

It would be wrong for Europeans to conclude that President Trump wants to withdraw all US forces from Europe. The President simply wants the US military to be NATO’s security guarantor of last resort, not NATO’s “first responder.”