U.S. Department of Defense
Date of this Version
2017
Citation
MILITARY REVIEW ONLINE EXCLUSIVE · MARCH 2017
Abstract
The United States Armed Forces are at a crossroads, facing both institutional and operational challenges. The character of war continues to change at a quick pace, requiring military leaders to reassess some of their core beliefs. This situation has led to the testing and refinement of concepts, capabilities, and people to ensure U.S. forces are ready for the conflicts of today and tomorrow. Without doubt, any future conflict will be increasingly complex and distributed, involving actions across multiple domains—land, air, sea, space, and cyber—by multiple military services, at times simultaneously.1 The nascent Multi-Domain Battle concept, some elements of which are described in a forthcoming white paper jointly authored by the Army and the Marine Corps, addresses the increasing complexity of the battlefield and its requirement for service integration.2 While still in development and experimentation, the concept is already affecting operational and resource decisions, especially in the Indo-Asia Pacific.