1

Mr. Martin Braun and Mr. Ralph Nichols, Strategic Analysis Branch, Center for Army Lessons Learned 

(CALL), 

Mr. John Hansen, CALL Analyst to U.S. Army Pacific (CALL Analyst at USARPAC)

NEWS FROM THE FRONT

Multi-Domain Battle

In Pacific Sentry 17-03

DEC 2017

Approved For Public Release

Distribution Unlimited
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Introduction

This News From The Front presents key leader insights, lessons, and best practices in 

operationalizing the concept of multi-domain battle (MDB) during exercise Pacific Sentry 17-03 

as described by U.S., joint, and allied leadership and exercise participants. It provides insights 

from U.S. Army Pacific (USARPAC), Pacific Air Forces (PACAF), and a multinational partners’ 

perspective (Australia [AUS]). It is the first in a series of publications focused on MDB 

throughout the Asia-Pacific region that will be used to inform a Center for Army Lessons 

Learned (CALL) Multi-Domain Battle Special Study.

Pacific Sentry 17-03 Purpose, Objectives, and Collection Background

Pacific Sentry 17-03 Purpose: U.S. Pacific Command (USPACOM) executes Pacific Sentry (PS) 17-

03 as an annual exercise that trains USPACOM forces involving a combined task force (CTF) in a 

high-end, mid-intensity warfighting exercise in a command post exercise (CPX) format. As a 

supporting command, USARPAC plans for and executes PS 17-03 CPX by performing its Title 

101, Task Force Homeland (TF HL), and Theater Joint Force Land Component Commander

(TJFLCC) functions in support of the commander, USPACOM.

USARPAC Exercise Objectives for PS 17-03:

• Exercise Mission Command. 

• Exercise the Land Operations Center (LOC) as the TJFLCC HQs. 

• Experiment with MDB concepts. 

• Exercise Homeland Defense. 

• Implement Lessons Learned from PS 17-02. 

Collection Background: U.S. Army and joint military MDB concepts and doctrine are currently in 

development, with USARPAC as the lead Service component in USPACOM to develop MDB 

concepts. The benefit of continuing to collect and analyze MDB capabilities is to mature its 

associated doctrinal foundation2, and add additional context, lessons, and best practices as 

MDB doctrine expands from the Service Component Command level to the lowest echelons in 

the Operating Force.

 1 TITLE 10, UNITED STATES CODE: ARMED FORCES

2 ADP, ADRP, and FM 3-0 Operations were published on 6 Oct 17. FM 3-0 provides an in-depth (3-page) description of MDB. ADRP 3-0 

introduces the multi-domain term.

“I believe the future security environment will require the Services to exert influence in nontraditional domains as these domains converge and become more complex, especially if our 

combatant commands are to achieve dominance across those domains [that] means the 

Army’s got to be able to sink ships, neutralize satellites, shoot down missiles and deny the 

enemy the ability to command and control its forces.”

-- Harry B. Harris, Jr., COMMANDER, U.S. PACIFIC COMMAND

AUSA Institute of Land Warfare LANPAC 2016
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Collections and interviews were conducted at USARPAC headquarters, Ft. Shafter, HI; the LOC, 

Ft. Shafter, HI; the air operations center (AOC), Joint Base Pearl Harbor–Hickam, HI; the Pacific 

Warfighting Center (PWC), Ford Island, HI; and at TF HL, Ft. Shafter, HI.

Key Leader Insights and Observations from PS 17-03

Multi-Domain Battle

• Expanding domains provides new maneuver space for 21st Century contested warfare; beyond air, 

land, and sea, new mediums for war include cyber, space, information, electromagnetic, and 

cognitive dimension.

• Emerging concepts such as MDB are linked to capabilities. We must adjust doctrine for the new 

way we will have to fight.

• The focus of MDB needs to be on what we have, not capability gaps.

• If you combine a mission command model embedded at tactical echelons with affordable, in-depth 

weapons systems for offensive and defensive [operations], it creates a cheap, layered defense that 

facilitates a rapid response on the offensive side.

• Service integration begins with thorough planning and all of the domains (air, land, maritime, 

cyber, and space) can be integrated into mission threads/execution.

Organization

• In the future, the greatest gains in multi-domain battle are going to be with organizational 

adaptations we are making, not technology.

• We need to guard against relying on organizations we are comfortable with today, as they are not 

the organizations we need for tomorrow.

• The U.S. Army is still organized as a modulari force in a brigade-centric army. We are trying to 

make the transition back to a division-centric army that operates in a joint or combined 

environment.

• What we seek from the multi-domain task force is to create organizational flexibility and agility 

that results in speed.

• Cyber and electronic warfare (EW) are currently placed under information operations (IO) in the 

AOC. This creates a “loose relationship” because there are not solid ties or similarities between 

non-kinetic assets and space.

Sustainment

• Getting a task force into the joint operating area (JOA) rapidly is one thing, but sustaining that 

infrastructure once it is there is another.

• The U.S. needs a logistics buildup in the USPACOM theater to help mitigate the “tyranny of time 

and distance” by pre-positioning supplies and identifying alternative landing zones.

• Logistics support hubs have to be moved – assets must “launch to survive” ahead of the enemy’s 

decision cycle or ability to attack.

• For “adaptive basing” the first wave of the expeditionary operations is responsible for entry and 

establishing a foothold with an airfield or port. The second wave involves USAF Air Mobility 

Command (AMC), which establishes and expands the logistics base.

• Planning factors for logistics are vast. Planners must consider many more issues related to adaptive 

basing in order to be successful.

• The ability to rapidly conduct mobility displacement enhances survivability.
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Key Leader Interview Highlights

An Interview Summary with RADM Mark Montgomery, Director of Operations (J-3) PACOM

Q: What is the benefit of Pacific Sentry to USPACOM and its Components?

Pacific Sentry 17-02 (18-22 May 2017) enabled USPACOM to work through some of its

operational design issues in a modeling environment (constructive, simulated environment) but 

the exercise highlighted that if USPACOM does not get better at offensive fires, it will have a 

significant impact in future conflicts with peer and near-peer opponents. Offensive fires must 

be fast, survivable, and efficient (low cost).

Only the Army and the Navy provide defensive fires. The Navy has been working to counter 

anti-missile defensive fires at the tactical level which is being driven by the so called carrier 

killer missiles. These missiles are not only a threat to carriers, they are also a threat to key 

airfields, ports, and strategic assets (ground based).

Q: What is the Army’s role in MDB? 

It is not the Army of the last 17 years, it is the joint integration of networks, sensors, and 

missiles that will allow USPACOM assets to execute both offensive and defensive fires, and 

there is plenty of room for the Army throughout, particularly in the integration of mediumrange sensors and missiles.

To be effective in the future, USPACOM needs to be effective in three key areas: offensive 

fires, defensive fires, and subsurface warfare.
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An Interview Summary with MG Charles Flynn3, Deputy Commanding General – South, 

USARPAC

Q: What is your concept of multi-domain battle and your thoughts on how it relates to 

USARPAC? What is needed to make multi-domain battle work?

There are three dimensions that USARPAC has to operate within:

1. The joint operating area [JOA].

2. The dimension of homeland defense, which are the territories and the state of Hawaii.

3. Setting the [Pacific] theater.

Setting the theater [is accomplished] through the foundational capabilities that only the Army 

provides [to] the joint force commander. This is primarily done through the USARPAC theaterenabling commands. Sustained operations for the joint force is accomplished in campaign 

quality form by the JFLCC, providing the enabling capabilities.

Within the three dimensions [i.e., the JOA, homeland defense, and setting the Pacific theater], 

and the domains inside of each one of those dimensions of the fight in the JOA, there is a multidomain fight. In the homeland defense JOA (for lack of a better term) there is a multi-domain 

fight. In the theater there is a multi-domain fight. 

Add in the framework of a close fight, a deep fight, and the support fight or zone. Layer in all of 

the domains in each of those dimensions; that is the degree of the complexity related to MDB.

There is such an opportunity in the Pacific to learn, develop, discover, grow, succeed, fail 

because we are not going to do everything right. That is the power of being able to put the 

MDB pilot into action here in the Pacific.

Everything the Army does in the Pacific is either affecting or integrating with some other entity

— whether it is the designated Army corps or another Service component or coalition that are 

enabling things. This puts a significant load on a staff at the tactical headquarters and across the

joint force. It forces USARPAC to think in ways that it has not over the past 20 years. 

There are some elements of MDB that relate to joint integration in a high intensity conflict. 

How do we take new technologies and new ways of doing things differently to enable a 

 3 Other participants at this interview included COL Charles Rambo and LTC John Miller (Misson Command Training Program Operations Group 

Alpha), COL Bruce Vitor (USARPAC Strategy and Innovation Division), COL Richard Butler (USARPAC Assistant Chief of Staff [ACOS] G-5), MAJ 

Joshua Powers (USARPAC G-5) and CALL analysts.

The complexity of weapons systems, whether lethal or non-lethal, and messaging 

operations are not limited by a terrain feature or areas of operation.
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commander to be successful where the tempo of war is significantly faster than it has been? 

The answer to this question resides in concepts linked to capabilities that do not currently exist; 

some of those capabilities may already exist but are going to be used in different ways. The 

Army will do this by linking the capabilities to doctrine (that is a motion of change) and linking 

them to new ways to fight based on the interactions of human beings that are happening in 

different ways.

What did you learn during this iteration of Pacific Sentry?

Army Service Component Command (ASCC) headquarters do not get the training rigor that 

Corps and Divisions get with Warfighters. We learned a lot in this exercise from an operational 

staff perspective. We needed more rigor in how to do that. We learned to be able to shift 

quickly. There are going to be a lot of decisions made in USPACOM that were directed from 

Washington, D.C., that are going to happen in a 30-day period before there is any other support 

that comes to this theater.

The greatest chance and greatest opportunity for all of the Services, to include the Army and 

joint force, to learn is in the Pacific. The tension that the environment and all of the variables 

create for weapons and ranges and threats to pick our way through — from China, to Russia, to 

North Korea, to violent extremists, to governments that fully support the U.S. to governments 

that do not fully support the U.S. — are all present in USPACOM; all of the domains that need 

to be considered and apply capabilities inside are present in the theater.

In this exercise (Pacific Sentry 17-030 you can see that we actually need MDB capabilities now 

to execute the fight against adversaries (or combination of adversaries). We are not organized 

to conduct these type of fights.

We are still organized as a modularized force in a brigade-centric army. We are trying to make 

the transition back to a division-centric army that operates in a joint or combined environment. 

We need the organizational adaption to be able to confuse and create dilemmas for the 

adversary so that we can gain positions of advantage. Creating confusion through the 

application of multi-domain capabilities [will occur] through an organization that is adaptive 

and can adjust.

The solution for MDB is not a doctrine, training, materiel, leadership, people or facilities 

solution. It is the organization, the “O” in DOTMLPF4, which is most important and USARPAC 

 4 DOTMLPF-P is the DOD acronym that pertains to the eight possible non-materiel elements involved in solving warfighting capability gaps. 

They are Doctrine, Organization, Training, materiel, Leadership, Facilities, and Policy. DOTMLPF-P is cited in CJCSI 3170.01, Joint Capabilities 

Integration and Development System (JCIDS), and described in detail in the JCIDS Manual. Find more at Defense Acquisition University: 

https://dap.dau.mil/acquipedia/Pages/ArticleDetails.aspx?aid=d11b6afa-a16e-43cc-b3bb-ff8c9eb3e6f2

In the future, the greatest gains in multi-domain battle are going to be with organizational 

adaptions we are making and not technology.
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needs to create adaptive organizations that can make rapid organizational adjustments to give 

the advantage that is needed. 

The technology is going to happen anyway. Three years from now any technology we get 

[today] is already going to be outdated. We need to learn to adapt our organizations where 

they have access to the multi-domain capabilities and they can create disruption, confusion, 

and distortion in order to sow the seeds of doubt or confusion in the minds of adversarial 

decision-makers.

Speed of action, speed of decision, and speed of recognition. Speed relative to the adversary

and the environment. The “tug” [i.e., point of friction] is that we are an Army that also needs to 

sustain campaign quality in an extended fight. That inherently is slow. 

The multi-domain task force should be equated to “150, 150, and 150.” In the AOC, in the 

JFACC, they’re doing JFACC operations all day, all night, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days 

a year. They mission command air, space, cyber, and integrated air and missile defense. Those 

are the domains they are operating in all of the time. They do that with 150 people, three shifts 

a day, and 24 hours a day. They’re in a built-up, mature facility that has access [to mission 

command systems]. If we can take and replicate the power that the AOC has in those domains, 

and add land and maritime, [we] get a capability in the multi-domain task force that has 25 

people per shift. That would be the equivalent of 75 folks versus 450 folks. Now you have a task 

force that is much smaller. You have less need for sustainment and all of the other types of 

support. If the MDB task force had access to the same capability — same data, at the same 

speed, to the same missile defense, radars, anti-ship, surface to air, surface to ship, special 

operations forces, cyber, and space — that should be the goal that we are trying to achieve (a

headquarters that can do what they do at Hickam in an AOC). These 75 people can pick up 

suitcases, get in the back of an airplane, go somewhere, set up and be operating in literally 

minutes and they can pick up and go to another location after their signature is identified ... or 

maybe they can screen, or guard, or have some sort of MILDEC [military deception] capability 

where their signature is not locatable. 

[If] this thing [the multi-domain task force] needs to be the standard 1,500 to 4,000 people, 

then there may be capabilities you hang on the headquarters that build it up that high, but it 

doesn’t need to all be in one spot. The MDB task force needs to have the access or the ability to 

enter into the U.S. fighting network [so] that capabilities can be applied to achieve the desired 

effect. 

In typical bureaucratic form, we [need to guard against] relying on organizations we are 

comfortable with today; they are not the organizations we need for tomorrow.

What we seek from the multi-domain task force is to create organizational flexibility and 

agility that results in speed.
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Multi-Domain Battle Insights

The Army Air and Missile Defense [AAMD] community needs to go to war with the systems we 

have right now. They can validate using existing systems in new ways and then acquire new 

systems in the future. The focus needs to be on what we have, not capability gaps.

-- BG Sean Gainey, Commanding General, 94th Army Air and Missile Defense Command

(AAMDC)

The end state of MDB is achieving the “best sensor to best shooter.” The "best shooter" 

(tactical, theater, or CONUS) is used to deliver the desired effect. 

-- BG Sean Gainey, Commanding General, 94th Army Air and Missile Defense Command

(AAMDC)

The "tyranny of time and distance" can be mitigated by pre-positioning supplies and identifying 

alternative landing zones in case of non-availability during a possible conflict with a peer and/or 

a near-peer adversary.

-- Brig. Gen. Steve Bullard, Director of Mobility Forces (DIRMOBFOR), PACAF

“Adaptive basing” is the practice of moving transportation assets around theater (to “lily pads”) 

to decrease exposure and risk. This concept is applied when in a fight against a near-peer or 

when the enemy has superiority (overmatch) and airfields are threatened or denied. Logistics 

support hubs have to be moved – assets must “launch to survive” ahead of the enemy’s 

decision cycle or ability to attack. This causes air mobility platforms to have to move rapidly to 

alternate locations for protection/survivability. Of key concern is the limited time frame that 

may or may not be available to plan and execute this type of mission.

-- Brig. Gen. Steve Bullard, Director of Mobility Forces (DIRMOBFOR), PACAF

The focus of MDB needs to be on what we have, not capability gaps.

The U.S. needs a logistics buildup in the USPACOM theater to help mitigate the "tyranny of 

time and distance."

The ability to rapidly conduct mobility displacement enhances survivability.

The end state of MDB is achieving the “best sensor to best shooter.”
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Emerging concepts such as MDB are linked to capabilities. We must adjust doctrine for the new 

way we will have to fight. We need more rigor in exercises that feature time-compressed 

decision cycles. The U.S. has to extend lines of communication to provide MDB support. 

– COL Richard Butler, USARPAC ACOS G-5

The challenge will be when we go against a peer or near-peer adversary we are going to be 

“targeting resource drawn.” The MOC [Maritime Operations Center] or the AOC [Air Operations 

Center] are built to be centralized targeting nodes for release coordination. When you are going 

against a third-rate power or VEO [violent extremist organization] node that will work because 

you have conductivity of communications and command and control. That does not happen 

against an adversary who can jam your communications. That does not happen for timesensitive targets. So you have to move to the type of model that is embedded at the tactical 

echelons. That is kind of an old school model adapted to the 21st Century. If you combine that 

with weapons systems that are affordable, and in-depth for offensive and defense [operations], 

that allows for a cheap, layered defense that facilitates a rapid response on the offensive side. 

It changes the priority of investment, and it changes the way that we fight.

-- COL Bruce Vitor, Strategy and Innovation Division Chief, USARPAC

AMC has units throughout the globe to help with throughput sustainment and to support 

expeditionary operations capability for the joint force.

Joint Task Force Port Opening (JTF-PO): One of AMC’s Contingency Response Groups (CRG), a

U.S. Army Rapid Port Opening Element (RPOE), and a DLA (Defense Logistics Agency) team 

combine to make JTF-PO. This task force provides a larger spectrum of the distribution chain, 

opening the airfield, downloading cargo from aircraft and transporting it via ground to forward 

nodes. USTRANSCOM always maintain one JTF-PO on 12-hour alert. JTF-PO operates under 

TRANSCOM and is manned by AMC and SDDC [U.S. Army Military Surface Deployment and 

Distribution Command].

For "adaptive basing" the first wave of the expeditionary operations is responsible for entry and 

establishing a foothold with airfield or port. The second wave involves AMC, which establishes 

and expands the logistics base.

We need to re-learn how to fight a near-peer opponent.

Targeting nodes should be embedded at the tactical echelons.

Planning factors for logistics are vast.
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Pacific Sentry 17-3 logistics insights include the following:

• A fundamental, accurate transportation and sustainment exercise needs to be done in 

the PACOM AOR [area of responsibility] to capture a true baseline for logistics 

capabilities. Recent exercises apply untested/un-validated assumptions with regard to 

transportation and sustainment.

• Users do not understand how to input logistics requirements into the tasking system. 

Without valid requirements in the queue during the exercise, it gives a false impression, 

providing exercise participants and leaders an unrealistic expectation of airlift capacity 

and responsiveness (i.e., supply was higher than demand).

• Planning factors for logistics are vast. Planners must consider many more issues related 

to adaptive basing in order to be as successful ... We must exercise this concept to fully 

understand its advantages and disadvantages.

-- Col. Joel Safranek, Deputy Director of Mobility Forces (DEPDIRMOBFOR), PACAF Air 

Operations Center (AOC)

Expanding domains provides new maneuver space for 21st century contested warfare; beyond

air, land, and sea, new mediums for war include cyber, space, information, electromagnetic, 

and a cognitive dimension. The cognitive dimension is the cognitive domain, the information 

domain. It is superior leaders, adaptive leaders, mission command, and thinking and moving 

formations. While our adversaries do not have the ability to address multiple crises due to 

culture and education, the U.S. has the ability to address multiple problems due to our culture. 

Considerations for Adaptive Basing

• There is a requirement to develop a more comprehensive system to communicate 

effectively with U.S. coalition partners and to ensure that everyone has visibility (i.e., 

common operational picture) on sustainment. For example, AMC uses GDSS (Global 

Decision Support System) which does not automatically feed into the systems 

PACAF’s AOC uses, and in some cases may not be releasable to international 

partners.

• We need satellite communications and software capabilities to ensure that ITV [intransit visibility] works properly.

The U.S. has the ability to [simultaneously] address multiple problems due to our culture.
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-- LTC Jeff Lakey, Deputy Chief, Strategy and Innovation Division, USARPAC

Spectrum management is very important in the space domain.

For strategic (space) assets, U.S. Strategic Command (USSTRATCOM) has not delegated 

authority down to the theater level (STRATCOM manages strategic space assets). The DIRSPACE 

has the responsibility for theater space assets without the authority to direct all space assets. 

The space (both strategic and theater) authorities issue could be resolved if the Joint Space 

Operations Center5 (JSpOC) delegated its authorities to the CFACC then the CFACC could direct 

space assets operating in support of the theater (or a designated coalition joint area of 

responsibility). The AOC space element does not have tasking authorities.

The issues associated with space are not related to a question of integration (elements are 

integrated), it is an authorities issues. Early, good planning can help mitigate space element 

issues (i.e., employing space assets during Phase 0 vice waiting until Phase 3 in a reactive mode 

to enemy space threats).

Cyber and EW are [currently] placed under information operations (IO) in the AOC. This creates 

a “loose relationship” [because] there are not solid ties or similarities between non-kinetic 

assets and space. Placing space under IO causes difficulties and space should be placed in the 

 5 STRATCOM's Joint Functional Component Command for Space, through the Joint Space Operations Center (JSpOC), detects, tracks, and 

identifies all artificial objects in Earth orbit. The JSpOC is a synergistic command and control weapon system focused on planning and executing 

the JFCC Space mission. Its purpose is to provide a focal point for the operational employment of worldwide joint space forces, and enable the 

JFCC Space commander to integrate space power into global military operations.

The DIRSPACE has the responsibility for theater space assets without the authority to direct 

space assets.

Challenges associated with implementing MDB include, but are not limited to, the 

following:

• Countering or mitigating the effects of anti-access and area denial (A2AD).

• Ensuring joint interoperability with increased joint-level integration.

• With regard to the human dimension, the force needs adaptive leaders.

• Quicker decision-making will be required on many levels nearly simultaneously 

against peer and near-peer opponents. 

• The ability to conduct faster targeting.

• Maintaining a U.S. and coalition common operational picture [when operating with 

multinational partners].

• Expanding Link 16 access to multinational partnered operations.

• Effectively integrating with joint and coalition communities.

• Efficiently leveraging a limited number of sensors, while obtaining more redundancy 

 

 

 

 
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“strike shop” (fires). Placing all non-kinetic capabilities in IO is akin to saying that all aircraft are 

airlift aircraft. Assets should be organized by their effects.

Pacific Sentry 17-3 space domain insights include the following:

• Exercise injects lend to artificiality if not incorrect lessons. The exercise is focused on 

Phase 3 when non-kinetic activities occur during Phase 0 and Phase 1.

• Cultural awareness of contested space domain is lacking. Often forces are not aware 

there is a problem with degraded and/or denied capabilities until it is too late. 

• The U.S. and AUS, along with other Pacific Rim coalition allies may not have space 

superiority at times. This represents a paradigm shift.

-- Wing Commander Darren “Fish” Lovett, AUS AF Division Chief for Space and Non-Kinetic 

Effects

Even though it is not called "MDB" in the AUS military, the Services are structured to fight in a 

MDB and cross-domain fire fashion. The Services are unable, by design, to fight separately as a 

Service.

The Australians have three military Services: Army, Navy, and Air Force. These Services are each 

led by three-star commanders. The Joint Operations Command (JOC), also a three-star billet, 

oversees all joint operations. When they go to war, the JOC goes to war and the Services raise, 

train, and sustain the forces. Every AUS operation is a joint operation. The JOC has an air, land,

and maritime (Navy) sub-component commands.

AUS joint operations are still evolving. The AUS military has a Joint Capability Group that is an 

organization that oversees joint acquisition and looks at solving interoperability gaps. They 

published the “First Principles Review of Defence”6 in 2015 that provided recommendations on 

joint acquisitions.

-- Wing Commander Ashley Joslen, Chief Combat Operations (OPS), Air OPS Center, PACAF

 6 The review was commissioned in August 2014 to ensure that Defence is fit for purpose and is able to deliver against its strategy with the 

minimum resources necessary. Australian government, Department of Defence at 

http://www.defence.gov.au/publications/reviews/firstprinciples/

The AUS Services are structured to fight in a MDB and cross-domain fire fashion
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The Chief of Staff of the Air Force (CSAF)7 is pushing transparency between the Services to 

identify who has the ability to effect the battleground. If one effect is denied, then a Service 

that has an alternative capability should provide a similar effect on the same target – so MultiDomain Command and Control (MDC2) becomes a clearing house for effects.

HQ USAF is – first and foremost – emphasizing the mastery of MDC2 among USAF capabilities. 

The integration of those capabilities with those of other Services, while critical, is a job for joint 

agencies.

MDC2 is an attempt to get all of the Services, with their individual stovepipes or “rice bowls” 

working together, but it is not necessarily a way of determining how an Army capability 

supports a USAF capability. Said another way, the CFLCC should know what the JFMCC (joint 

force maritime component command) and JFACC [joint force air component command] have,

but not determine what tools the JFMCC and JFACC bring to the fight. It should not unduly 

influence the acquisition and POM [program objective memorandum] processes.

MDC2 is a process that assists the USAF in providing support to ground forces as part of the 

overall USAF mission. The joint community needs to improve the integration of lethal and nonlethal planning and targeting in joint operations.

[Service] integration begins with thorough planning and all of the domains (air, land, maritime, 

cyber, and space) can be integrated into mission threads/execution. The current air tasking 

order (ATO) process works effectively. The answer to “How are all of the disparate effects being 

used efficiently and effectively?” is to integrate at the planning level. It could be a design issue 

like putting the AOC (or MDTF) in a SCIF [sensitive compartmented information facility] and 

giving everyone JWICS [Joint Worldwide Intelligence Communications System] access to 

coordinate the ATO with cyber, with space, with ground, and maritime assets.

-- Mr. James “J.J.” Jordan, Combat Ops Observer Trainer, USAF Operational Command Training 

Program and Mr. Groeninger, USAF Operational Command Training Program, Team Lead

There is a lack of [staff] depth at the ground component command (GCC) (JFLCC) level. The GCC 

has delegated staff duties to the ASCC. The ASCC, in this case USARPAC, is responsible for 

prioritizing ASCC staff requirements without the benefit of a table of distribution and 

 7 Mr. Jordan and Mr. Groeninger stated that the opinions provided are their own and are not intended to be counter to any current official 

USAF views.

Multi-Domain Command and Control (MDC2) is a clearing house for effects.

USARPAC is responsible for prioritizing staff requirements without the benefit of a table of 

distribution and allowances (TDA).
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allowances (TDA) that is able to perform all of the GCC’s delegated missions (due to a lack of 

resources).

Critical asset processes. USARPAC identified existing restrictive processes when requesting 

replacement of critical assets. A recent Department of Army (DA) execution order (EXORD) 

directs that critical asset replacement requests must include the staffing of an Operational 

Needs Statement (ONS) to validate the requirement for a replacement. This is the current 

procedure/requirement employed for replacing critical assets in Operation Inherent Resolve

(OIR). The DA process prohibits the rapid movement of the critical replacement. Instead of 

taking hours to initiate the movement of the critical asset into Theater, it currently takes days 

(or more) to staff the request and obtain the appropriate approvals. The Joint Urgent 

Operational Needs (JUON) statement (in the Joint Capabilities Integration Development 

System) was developed for U.S. Central Command (USCENTCOM) to address the problem 

described. USPACOM, on behalf of USARPAC, does not have the same record of success as 

USCENTCOM.

-- Mr. Wallace “Al” Price, USARPAC Financial Management

Getting a task force into the JOA rapidly is one thing, but sustaining that infrastructure once it is 

there is another. We can move a force in conjunction with the maritime domain, but to 

resupply that force with a maritime and air threat is difficult. That ability to connect back to the 

sustainment structure presents challenges.

-- MAJ Joshua Powers, Exercise Planner, USARPAC G-5

Conclusion

The bottom line is that MDB continues to evolve through exercises like Pacific Sentry 17-03. The 

greatest gains in operationalizing MDB will come through changes in organizations, and as the 

MDB concept develops there will be challenges in mission areas such as sustainment and space.

As MG Flynn stated, “The Army will do this by linking the capabilities to doctrine (that is a 

motion of change) and linking them to new ways to fight based on the interactions of human 

beings that are happening in different ways.” 

The interactions of humans is a cognitive process. LTC Lakey points out that the cognitive 

dimension is in the information domain and it demands superior leaders, adaptive leaders, 

mission command, and thinking and moving formations to successfully maneuver in the 

cognitive battlespace. While our adversaries do not have the ability to address multiple crises 

due to culture and education, the U.S. has the ability to address multiple problems due to our 

culture.

Connecting back to the sustainment structure presents challenges
15

U.S. Army, as it works through the development of MDB, can leverage the MDB insights gained 

from PS 17-03 and exercises such as Yama Sakura, RIMPAC, Vigilant Shield, and Talisman Saber 

to inform doctrine. MDB insights gained from PS 17-03 compel the Army to contine to collect 

and analyze operations within this framework, in order to facilitate its maturity and 

proliferation throughout the force.

As the MDB concept continues to evolve and proliferate beyond the Army and into joint 

doctrine, CALL will continue to capture insights, lessons and best practices to inform that 

doctrine. Look for our next edition in June 2018 when CALL releases the third of five in a series 

of publications focused on MDB throughout the Asia-Pacific region.