More than 2,500 years ago, Sun Tzu illuminated a philosophy that continues to be salient today: “Water shapes its course according to the nature of the ground over which it flows; the soldier works out his victory in relation to the foe whom he is facing.”1 Recently, the United States has reembraced this philosophy and begun to reorient on its most dangerous enemies—China and Russia. A fight against either of these opponents will be an away game, putting the U.S. military at a clear disadvantage. Moreover, increased vulnerability to long-range precision fires requires divergence from the military strategy employed over the past 30 years.
The National Defense Strategy echoes this sentiment, which has spurred action from each service branch.2 Space Force aside, each service is developing a distinct concept for how it intends to overcome the challenges of peer competition. These concepts all fall under the umbrella of distributed operations or adaptive basing and fundamentally accomplish the same thing: spread operations to small and temporary locations to enable maneuver within a contested environment.
While these concepts are a step forward for each service individually, insular development has resulted in deficiencies that threaten effectiveness. To ensure victory against peer adversaries, the Department of Defense must provide a unified joint vision for operating in a contested distributed environment. At a minimum, this vision should include updated joint doctrine and integrated training.3
Joint Doctrine
The joint concept for distributed operations is being developed from the bottom-up, contrary to the top-down model fundamental to joint planning doctrine. Absent joint requirements and funding priorities for distributed operations, the services continue to support their individual priorities. Concepts currently being developed include adaptive basing and agile combat employment (Air Force), littoral operations in a contested environment, expeditionary advanced base operations, distributed maritime operations, and distributed lethality (Navy/Marine Corps), and the multidomain task force (Army).4 As a result of this decentralized planning, there is no one framework or vision for distributed operations. Moreover, insular planning, training, and execution have prevented well-defined linkages among these concepts.
Decentralized planning has resulted in various developmental flaws, including redundant capabilities, conflicting priorities, and misaligned methods. Service-specific concepts focus on each service’s dominant domain for execution; consequently, each plan falls short when denied in that domain. For example, if the enemy employs a robust antiair capability, strategic airlift is no longer a viable means of logistics for the Air Force plan of adaptive basing.
Another result of improper planning is redundant capabilities—one example being the overlap between expeditionary advanced base operations and the multidomain task force, both of which call for establishing small and austere bases within the first island chain off the coast of China. The two concepts also compete to fund similar niche weapon systems, mainly ground-based antiship cruise missiles.5
Bottom-up planning also causes conflicting priorities among the services, particularly when building partnership capacity. Gaining allies to establish forward bases is a cardinal approach of distributed operations; however, with limited suitable locations—such as airfields in southeast Asia—disagreements over basing priorities are likely.
Last, bottom-up planning has resulted in misaligned methods, mainly regarding command and control (C2). Complex operations in nonpermissive environments require a specific C2 architecture that everyone understands. The Navy and Marine Corps have designated the composite warfare commander (CWC) structure as their C2 architecture; however, no other service is incorporated or has knowledge of this system.6
These developmental flaws result in vulnerabilities, dissonance, and inefficient funding. But most notably, bottom-up planning cripples developmental tempo, as services build their plans off incomplete and inaccurate assumptions.
Without a unified vision for distributed operations, there is no way to gauge developmental progress or efficacy. Untested capabilities lack credibility—for allies and enemies alike. Without credibility, trust is attenuated, and critical alliances in the Pacific will stand to fail. Deterrence also rests on the premise of a credible threat. Inability to deter reduces the pressure on enemies, who will see an opportunity to exacerbate tensions further.7
All joint planning processes underscore the importance of assessing proposed courses of action, to test and refine underlying assumptions and discover potential problems with the plan.8 Without a way to test assumptions, it is difficult to understand and quantify risk—a critical part of decision-making, especially in wartime.9 Without a way to identify unforeseen issues, problems must be figured out reactively, which takes time, which in turn allows the enemy to exploit the friendly decision-making cycle. Against a peer threat, that opportunity could be the difference between victory and devastation.
Planning must occur from the top down to establish a truly unified joint vision of distributed operations. Joint doctrine that outlines service-specific capabilities and their applicability for mutual support is the way to accomplish this integration.10 If the enemy is able to deny operations in a service’s dominant domain, capabilities from another service can offer opportunities to overcome the deficit. Thus, the answer to airlift denial, for example, becomes straightforward: Sealift effectively accomplishes the same mission.
Joint doctrine also helps iron out redundant capabilities by clarifying each service’s responsibilities.11 A better understanding of individual missions among services can rectify the overlap. In the case of building alliances to establish forward bases, collocation of assets may present opportunities rather than challenges. Joint doctrine will illuminate these possibilities and clarify who has priority when collocation is untenable.
Last, joint doctrine will apply a common C2 framework to distributed operations, to better define roles, supported/supporting relationships, and the decentralized structure inherent to operating in a distributed manner. The Navy’s CWC may be the answer, but regardless of the system chosen, a shared understanding of C2 will support quicker decision-making.12
Joint doctrine is essential to establishing a joint single battle concept. This lens is foundational to understanding the intricate linkages, timing, and sequences of distributed operations and will embolden the services to supplement and complement the capabilities of others and make better assumptions in the continuance of planning.
Integrated Training
The most effective way to measure a military concept’s efficacy is through integrated training—including exercises, rehearsals, and war games. Because it illustrates a force’s capabilities, integrated training, especially with allied partners, is a pragmatic way to build credibility to deter opponents. Training exercises also can demonstrate resolve to allies, which may propagate across a region and compound deterrence of common threats.13
Performance is indicative of preparation; therefore, it is prudent to train how one expects to fight. To be effective, training should be conducted under uncertain, complex, and ambiguous circumstances. Harsh conditions will uncover shortfalls in equipment and capabilities that otherwise would come to light during real-world conflict. As such, training outcomes reveal the effectiveness and developmental progress of a concept.14 Realistic training also presents commanders opportunities to make and evaluate assumptions.15
Remedying issues identified while training creates a process with fewer gaps, strengthened capabilities, and optimized equipment. And with a minimal consequence for failure, integrated training affords commanders the opportunity for trial and error, encouraging innovation and process improvement.
Some might argue that a unified joint vision for distributed operations already exists. Joint Publication 4-09, Distributed Operations, is often quoted as a solution, but it falls short of the mark in two ways: First, it was published in 2010 and does not address current threats; and second, it fails to establish the necessary roles, responsibilities, and linkages.16
Some also lean on the classified Joint Access and Maneuver in the Global Commons (JAM-GC) concept.17 JAM-GC sets the stage for operations in an anti-access/area-denial environment; however, it does not contain the specific information needed for planning and avoids introducing a unified time horizon. The Marine Corps–Navy team predicts that service integration to conduct expeditionary advanced base operations will take five to ten years.18 A joint concept will take even longer; therefore, rapid initiation of a planning time line is essential. Others contend that their concept is intrinsically joint because it incorporates more than one service or allows others to integrate into their plan—this is not a unified vision. This view ignores the joint fight’s intricate relationships.
Service isolationists may argue that distributed operations training already occurs. While training for individual concepts exists within each service, it is not enough to prepare for a joint operation. Current service-specific concepts are incomplete and incongruent with one another; therefore, training individually is equally faulty. A unified vision must integrate training to allow commanders to flex the timing and sequences of a joint operation.
Individual services may also assert that a unified joint vision created from the top down will crush innovation. This vintage conception of planning overlooks the bottom-up refinement necessary to make the concept complete. Moreover, a unified vision does not prescribe one combined concept but rather a common framework, leaving services to develop their roles accordingly.
The individual military services have taken it on themselves to nurture new concepts that focus on their most dangerous adversaries; however, stove-piped development has stymied their full collaborative potential. The Department of Defense must immediately champion a unified joint vision of distributed operations to ensure victory against peer adversaries. Updated joint doctrine establishes this vision, while integrated training ensures continual refinement. The path toward victory begins by adapting together.
1. Sun Tzu, The Art of War, trans. Lionel Giles (London: Arcturus, 2020), 34.
2. Department of Defense, Summary of the 2018 National Defense Strategy of the United States of America (Washington, DC: Department of Defense, 2018), 5-7.
3. Since the original completion of this article, the Joint Chiefs of Staff have spurred an initiative called the “Joint Warfighting Concept,” aimed at outlining how all-domain operations will occur going forward. This initiative has been repeatedly delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic but could be a start for codifying a unified vision of distributed operations.
4. Art Corbett, Expeditionary Advanced Base Operations (EABO) Handbook, MCA Marines (Marine Corps Association, 1 June 2018); Headquarters U.S. Army, TRADOC Pamphlet 525-3-1: The U.S. Army in Multi-Domain Operations 2028 (Washington, DC: U.S. Army, 6 December 2018); ADM Michael M. Gilday, USN, CNONAVPLAN (Washington, DC: U.S. Navy, January 2021); Patrick Mills et al., Building Agile Combat Support Competencies to Enable Evolving Adaptive Basing Concepts (Santa Monica, CA: Rand Corporation, 2020); GEN Robert B. Neller, USMC, and ADM John M. Richardson, USN, Littoral Operations in a Contested Environment (Washington, DC: Headquarters, U.S. Marine Corps and Headquarters, U.S. Navy, 2017).
5. Robert Farley, “U.S. Army Getting into the Anti-Ship Cruise Missile Business,” The Diplomat, 12 November 2020.
6. Neller Richardson, Littoral Operations in a Contested Environment, 10–14.
7. Paul R. Pillar, The Forgotten Benefits of Deterrence (The Center for the National Interest, 21 February 2018).
8. Joint Chiefs of Staff, Joint Planning, III-7-III-9, III-44-III-55.
9. Joint Chiefs of Staff, CJCSI3500.01 J: Joint Training Policy for the Armed Forces of the United States (Washington, DC: Joint Chiefs of Staff, 13 January 2020), A-l-A-2.
10. Joint Chiefs of Staff, JP 1: Doctrine for the Armed Forces of the United States (Washington, DC: Joint Chiefs of Staff, 12 July 2017), V-9-V11.
11. Joint Chiefs of Staff, Doctrine for the Armed Forces of the United States, V-14.
12. Joint Chiefs of Staff, Doctrine for the Armed Forces of the United States, xv-xvii, xxiii.
13. U.S. Army Combined Arms Center, Enhancing Realistic Training White Paper: Delivering Training Capabilities for Operations in a Complex World (Fort Leavenworth, KS: U.S. Army, 26 January 2016), B-3.
14. U.S. Army Combined Arms Center, Enhancing Realistic Training White Paper.
15. Sebastian J. Bae, War (Gaming) What Is It Good For? A Whiteboard, (U.S. Army War College, 8 October 2020).
16. Joint Chiefs of Staff, JP 4-09: Distributed Operations (Washington, DC: Joint Chiefs of Staff, 5 February 2010).
17. Michael E. Hutchens et al., Joint Concept for Access and Maneuver in the Global Commons: A New Joint Operational Concept (National Defense University Press, no. 84, 27 January 2017).
18. Corbett, Expeditionary Advanced Base Operations (EABO) Handbook, 8.
