Multi-Domain Operations: The Army's Future Operating Concept for Great Power Competition - Case Study of World War II Solomon Island Campaign, Convergence and Calibrated Force Posture

Enduring and emerging powers are reshaping the geopolitical landscape by heavily investing in military modernization programs to achieve domain overmatch, physical stand-off, and superiority in military power. The Department of Defense published the Defense Innovation Initiative in 2014 to identify and invest in innovative ways to sustain and advance America's military dominance for the twenty-first century. Through the initiative, the Department of Defense developed a third "offset" strategy to contend in great power competition and win during armed conflict. The U.S. Army developed a new future operating concept called Multi-Domain Operations in order to support the new defense strategy, drive modernization, and prepare for the future fight. Multi-Domain Operations theory proposes three interrelated tenets that solves the problem of contested domains and Anti-Access/Aerial Denial threats presented by Chinese and Russian operations in conflict. Those tenets are calibrated force posture, multi-domain formations, and convergence. This monograph examines the efficacy of the three Multi-Domain tenets through the lens of a historical case study - Solomon Island Campaign during World War II. The case study will help drive discussion, analysis, and further refinement of the operating concept with military professionals.This compilation also includes a reproduction of the 2019 Worldwide Threat Assessment of the U.S. Intelligence Community.Is World War III cresting the horizon as international relations and competition between great powers lay in the balance of the global commons? As enmity between great powers such as the United States, China, and Russia begin to grow through competition for economic resources, geographic sovereignty, and military superiority all in the name of national interests; the U.S. military faces complex and ill-defined challenges if pitted against a foreign conventional military with matched capability and strength. The fictional book, Ghost Fleet by P.W. Singer and August Cole conjures a terrifying and plausible future where the United States finds itself in a global war against a peer superpower. China, assisted by Russia, gain dominance in the western Pacific by leveraging a massive cyber-attack via malware in Chinese-made microchips that infects the Defense Intelligence Agency, subsequently rendering all U.S. military command, control, communications, computers, and intelligence networks obsolete allowing for a bloody attack on Pearl Harbor and occupation of the Hawaiian Islands. In the twenty-first century version of the Cold War, U.S. veterans organize into an insurgency called the North Shore Mujahedeen, teenage computer hackers battle in digital playgrounds, Silicon Valley billionaires mobilize for cyber- warfare in space to neutralize Chinese satellite warfare, and old warships from the navy reserve fleet forms a "Ghost Fleet" to fight the Chinese at sea. Private commercial companies such as Walmart contribute to the war effort by establishing a supply chain using three-dimensional printing technology. North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) collapses under the geopolitical pressure of China and Russia. The employment of rail gun technology doubles the lethality of naval firepower. Ghost Fleet provides a high-tech geopolitical vision of future war and warfare. Admiral James Stavridis, United States Navy (Retired) Supreme Allied Commander of NATO said "Ghost Fleet is a startling blueprint for the wars of the future." The Army's future operating concept of multi-domain operations seeks to bridge the gap between reality and science fiction by providing a framework on how to fight and win in future wars.