The Convergence Doctrine: Genesis of Absolute Dominance

2014

Since the Cold War, the likelihood of major interstate warfare has been perceived as being more remote while instability, societal conflicts and terrorism have frequently led to confrontation and crisis. The sources of potential conflicts worldwide have increased and their forms have been diversified. The global system has become increasingly interdependent and interconnected and has given conflicts a challenge, wherever it occurs, a global dimension will deem to it. Military power cannot be separated from diplomatic and economic levers of power. Additionally military power cannot be considered in isolation in chaotic and complex strategic environment. These levers of power are amplified by the growing power of information, which forms the armory of statecraft; the use of wisdom and judgment that blends hard and soft powers in an integrated pursuit of national interests; however, these levers can be destabilizing if used with miscalculation and adventurism. Strategy is one element i...

1995

Central European Journal of International and Security Studies 12(3): 57–80, 2018

The article is aimed at analysing the U.S. contemporary defence and military planning from the Revolution in Military Affairs (RMA), developed in the 1990s and consolidated during the War on Terror, to the Third Offset Strategy that will guide the Pentagon's efforts until 2030. It will be argued that this process of military innovation based on the legacy of the RMA and aimed at keeping the American military-technological edge while countering the Anti-Access/Area-Denial threats may inspire a new revolution capable of transforming the art of war while ensuring the country's military supremacy up to 2050.

ARMY COMMAND AND GENERAL STAFF COLLEGE FORT LEAVENWORTH KS, 2005

The US Army has transitioned from a Cold War-era 1980s doctrine of AirLand battle, an ArmyAir Force focused tactical concept, to one that embraces all domains of combat land, air, maritime, space, and cyber now known as Multi-Domain Operations MDO. This new tactical approach provides opportunities and challenges for the corps headquarters. US Army MDO doctrine replaces AirLand Battle in order to compete and win against current and future threats. Exercise REFORGER 1983 and Operation Desert Storm 1991 provide both an exercise and real-world example for how corps synchronized land and air power, and what lessons can be learned from that era of synchronization of corps assets. This concept of synchronization is expanded under MDO under the concept of convergence, a multi-domain approach of synchronizing effects. Corps-level targeting is crucial in the multi-domain fight, and the Joint Targeting process allows for a holistic lethal and non-lethal approach when converging effects. Doctrinal updates, training events, and leader education can help the Army and joint community implement multi-domain operations effectively.

ADRI Occasional Paper, 2017

This paper sheds light on the United States’ latest conventional deterrence strategy designed for 21st century Network Centric Warfare and aimed both at maintaining US technological edge vis-à-vis its prospective peer competitors and dissuading them from using force to alter the status quo. In the Asia-Pacific context, one may view the Defense Innovation Initiative as the US military response to China’s Active Defense Strategy. In this evolving strategic dynamic, the author identifies two extra-military challenges to the full operationalization of US’ technological innovation-driven strategy, namely: a.) alleged ‘strategic schizophrenia’ within the US defense and security establishment; and b.) China’s rapid military modernization. Left unaddressed and unchecked by the incumbent administration of President Donald Trump, US’ decades-long domination of the Pacific waters and skies may be severely undermined. In turn, this may have spillover effects over China’s handling of territorial and maritime disputes in the East China Sea and South China Sea, US allies’ security risk calculus and sense of urgency to acquire nuclear weapons, as well as Russia’s and Iran’s joint bid to challenge US political leadership in the Middle East. Hence, in order for its new strategy to succeed, the US must overcome its alleged ‘strategic schizophrenia’ in order to help create the enabling conditions for the perpetuation of the US Armed Forces’ technological superiority in particular and US credibility as the de facto guarantor of peace and stability in the Asia-Pacific region in general.

Naval War College Review, 2010

1995

SYNERGY, 2019

In 2016, the United States Army initiated the development of the “multi-domain battle” (MBD) concept. While critics and cynics have argued that it is a desperate attempt by the U.S. Army to find relevance for itself in the battlespaces of the Information Age, it has now been progressively adopted by almost all arms of the U.S. military establishment. While this battle concept was offered as a “difficult to fracture” concept and signaled the gradual demise of the AirLand and AirSea battle concepts, it is, in conceptual terms, not difficult to understand. As has been reported elsewhere, the basic idea is to "synchronize crossdomain fires and manoeuvre in all the domains to achieve physical, temporal and positional advantages.” This requires “mov[ing] beyond the mere synchronization of joint capabilities to the complete integration of capabilities”, which will allow, for example, “anti-air capabilities…coming from a … submarine or anti-ship cruise missiles…coming from an Army unit on the ground.” Leaving aside the critical and cynical points of view, the rationale offered is that “[p]otential adversaries are closing the technology gap with the United States and developing strategies to keep U.S. forces at bay.” Further, it has been assessed that “separatist forces [are] able to gain air superiority via the land, without even an air force….[they are] able to take down large land forces with a combination of electronic warfare, cyber, autonomous systems, drones, et cetera – not with a close-in battle.” These developments suggest that the key element underwriting the development and adoption of the MDB concept is the conceptualization and design of weapon-systems and capabilities that are unrestricted by the limitations of domains here understood as land, air, sea, and outer space. While this is not a “new” idea per se, the novelty of this development should not be lost on us which, counterintuitively, lies not simply in the projected cross-domain capabilities that are being expounded; rather, the novelty – indeed the uniqueness – lies in the nature of the battlespace that is being presumed that requires such cross-domain capabilities. In this short essay, I engage with this theme thereby attempting to draw attention to the transformation that is taking place in how we conceptualize the emergent battlespace and some of the implications of the same. I conclude with some observations on how this impacts the Indian strategic-military architecture and will recommend some ways by which it may adjust to these changing realities.

Future Wars (futurewars.rspanwar.net), 2017

Part I of this write-up discussed the changing nature of warfare over the last several centuries, based on Lind’s categorisation of “Generations of Warfare” as well as the concept of “Revolution in Military Affairs” (RMA). This part looks at the fast changing pace at which warfighting concepts are undergoing change in the present century, especially as a result of the ongoing rapid technological advancements. It gives an overview of some new conceptualisations of modern warfare such as “Asymmetric Warfare”, “Unrestricted Warfare” and “Hybrid Warfare”. It also dwells briefly on new Information Age warfighting concepts, such as “Network Centric Warfare”, “Information Warfare” and “Cyber Warfare”.