Multi Domain Warfare and the Operational Level The resulting equation compels relative preservation or degradation of opposing forces as they collide across the spectrum of competition and conflict. 6 Cultivation of these variables, which balances forward convergence with the countervailing forces of friction and chance, enables initiative and synchronisation at scale. At the operational level, where the essence of multi-domain warfighting converges as ‘a duel on a larger scale’, as described by the Prussian theorist Carl von Clausewitz, Army commands manage three fundamental factors in order to prevail: controlling of tempo, building of cohesion, and mitigation of risk to cross-domain convergence. This imperative to counter, and if need be, defeat an array of adversaries in expeditionary settings consequently requires a modernised “theory of action” to thrive within the changing phenomenon of 21 st century great power competition. 4 As senior, multi-star echelons that enable ‘Team Warfare’ by joint and multi-national forces, these intermediate warfighting commands own a primary and irreplaceable responsibility to both deter and overmatch threats by converging, integrating, and applying multi-domain efforts. 3 In more practical terms, it must rapidly modernise its approach to degrade and defeat the anti-access and area denial capabilities of regional hegemons that are threatening American ability to conduct expeditionary combat at the operational level-where divisions, corps, and armies connect tactical actions to strategic aims. In theoretical terms, the Army must develop an evolved “theory of the phenomenon” to conceptualise how the enterprise explicitly and implicitly views the totality of the political, social, economic, and military environment in relation to adversaries such as China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea. As argued by General Mark Milley, the 20 th Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, America’s primary land power institution, as a partner in the larger joint force, must transform its approach to 21 st century warfare in order to ‘achieve a perfect harmony of intense violence.’ 2 Army in particular, a simultaneous imperative to modernise its operational concepts to better compete against near-peer competitors and prepare for large-scale combat operations. 1 While American forces nevertheless remain engaged in stability efforts in Iraq, Afghanistan and across the world, this means, for the U.S. Over the last decade the United States has shifted focus away from its residual counterinsurgency campaigns in the Middle East to once again reorient on great power competition in Eastern Europe and East Asia. From Counter Insurgencies to Great Power Competition This requires enhanced operational art that integrates emerging technologies within evolving social-political contexts in order to converge resources from diverse elements of national power, synchronise Team Warfare in specific geographies, and apply cross-domain effects to support joint and combined arms actions. Cultivation of these variables, which balances forward convergence with the countervailing forces of friction and chance, enables initiative and synchronisation at scale. At the operational level, where the essence of Multi-Domain Warfare converges, intermediate commands manage three fundamental factors in order to prevail: controlling of tempo, building of cohesion, and mitigation of risk to cross-domain convergence. The US Army requires a modernised “theory of action” to thrive within the changing phenomenon of 21 st century great power competition.
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