By Zhou Yuting

The White House recently released the Biden administration's first national security strategy. According to the strategy, in the context of the possible long-term conflict between Russia and Ukraine, the strategic focus of the US military will continue to be major power competition and the so-called challenges and threats by China, and the US will make a series of preparations and strategic adjustments, of which a very important part is the concept of Multi-Domain Operations (MDO).

The MDO is not a new concept for the US. According to US media reports, the US Army's new Field Manual (FM) 3-0, which is the MDO doctrine, was officially released on October 11,2022, after more than five years of preparation. The 280-page operational doctrine elaborates on the concept of MDO and will become the operational guide for the US Army in the future. As early as 2017, the US Army proposed the concept of MDO and advocated competition with major country opponents on the ground, sea, air, space, and even cyberspace.

Military expert Jin Yinan, retired Major General and professor with the PLA National Defense University, said that MDO was more of a concept before, but now it has become a reality. For a long time, the US Army has mainly engaged in ground warfare. Now, it is emphasizing operations in the other four domains and considering the impact of the other four domains on the Army. At present, the concept of MDO has already begun to take shape in the Russia-Ukraine conflict. On the surface, Russia and Ukraine are mainly engaged in ground combat, but in fact, various dimensions such as air, space, and network are also involved in army operations.

Take Ukraine as an example. In space, there are various US reconnaissance satellites. In air, there are NATO’s early warning aircraft. NATO’s large-scale supercomputing systems in Belgium and Poland can conduct statistical analysis of the obtained information in real time, and classify and identify it to form a clear and transparent battlefield. With the support of NATO, the Ukrainian military is implementing MDO.

Relying on strong technological and military capabilities, NATO has combined space, cyberspace, air, and ground forces. On the surface, it is Ukrainian rocket launchers and artillery that are carrying out precision strikes against Russian troops. However, there are drones guiding it in the air which are linked to NATO's network. Therefore, the theory of MDO is that even if ground warfare is implemented, the capabilities of multi-dimensional space and multiple combat domains are at work at the same time and can influence the effectiveness of ground combat.

Jin believes that the Ukrainian army chose to deploy the troops in a distributed manner during this conflict and divided them into elements, each having only a dozen people. Such an act can avoid the Russian army's firepower and large-scale encirclement and annihilation. On the surface, the land forces are dispersed. But in fact, they all exist as the nodes on the grid of a huge network, which are connected to each other closely. The US digital warfare theory answers three questions very well, that is, first, where am I; second, where are the friendlies and neighbors; and third, where are the hostiles. In this way, even if the elements are scattered, they are still a whole without chaos.

Therefore, the MDO of the US military implies distributed deployment and distributed killing at first, and then requires support of an effective information network, including communication and data links. These data links can provide operational support and prevent the enemy from knowing the channel, stealing information, knowing the location, and killing people.

Jin pointed out that with the rapid development of science and technology and the highly developed information technology, today's battlefield has become more and more transparent. We must strengthen our efforts in this area and prevent from self-exposure. In general, the FM 3-0 recently released by the US is not a simple matter of political theory or military theory. These theories are all supported by modern high-tech. It is technical factors that really promote changes in military theory and combat methods.

Looking back at history, from cold weapons, hot weapons, continuous weapons, breech-loading weapons, armored weapons, nuclear weapons, to information weapons today, and artificial intelligence weapons in the future, it can be summarized that important changes in all technical fields will inevitably lead to major changes in combat models and then lead to major changes in military doctrine. Therefore, the FM 3-0 launched by the US Army appears to be a change in the combat theory, but what drives the theory to change is the change in technical means and combat models.

Editor's note: Originally published on military.cnr.cn, this article is translated from Chinese into English and edited by the China Military Online. The information and opinions in this article do not necessarily reflect the views of eng.chinamil.com.cn.