Introduction

The U.S. Army’s latest concept document, The Army in Multi-Domain Operations – 2028, seeks to turn the page on the AirLand Battle era and push the Army squarely into the twenty-first century. And yet, multi-domain operations (MDO) will fall short of that vision if the Army doesn’t take three key actions. By reviewing the history of AirLand Battle, as well as other notable transition periods in military history, the Army can avoid the pitfalls that have prevented success in the past.

As a doctrine for military operations, AirLand Battle has become legendary in Army circles. It represents the American exemplar for how an army can redefine itself following perceived failure, and then demonstrate that turn around with magnificent battlefield success. Twenty years after the outcome of the Vietnam War, the Army’s tactical dominance during the Persian Gulf War (1990-91) validated AirLand Battle as well as years of initiatives in training and materiel modernization.

Following the end of the Cold War, the Army has tried to build upon the AirLand Battle era. The Army’s Training and Doctrine Command published a series of concept documents under the umbrella known as the Army Concept Framework. The “Quality of Firsts” concept led the way in 2005 by promising to lift the fog of war, and espoused much of the promise of network centric warfare. Its oversimplified summary argued that the Army would “see first, decide first, act first, and finish decisively.”¹ However, the realities on the ground in Iraq and Afghanistan, combined with the cancellation of the Army’s Future Combat System program, pushed senior leaders away from network centric warfare and towards modernizing an army that can operate in an uncertain environment. Combined arms maneuver, wide area security, and full spectrum operations became the Army’s watchwords.² MDO replaces the 2014 version that sought to “win in a complex world,” which proposed using multiple options to create multiple dilemmas in multiple domains with multiple partners.³ Today, the official Army operations doctrine is known as “Unified Land Operations,” but the aura of AirLand Battle remains.⁴

Predicting when, where, and how future wars will be fought is hard. Charting the path of modernization for an organization as big as the U.S. Army against that unpredictable backdrop is even harder. Yet, the success of AirLand Battle continues to serve as a source of inspiration to the current generation of Army leadership. It is possible to replicate the successes from the 1980s. The following sections will first summarize multi-domain operations and then provide three recommendations to help achieve its vision.