Multi-Domain Operations

Topic: Decision Making Process Assessing the Decisive Action Fight (ARTICLE) -- Combat experience over the past twelve years has demonstrated the benefits of quantitative assessments in operational headquarters. Prior to the GWOT, doctrine governing staff organization and operations spoke generally of assessments as occurring within each staff section and presented them as synonymous with running estimates. By 2012, the usefulness of quantitative assessments was codified in Field Manual (FM) 6-0, Commander and Staff Organization and Operations, and the role of the operations research analyst in assessments was promoted. By: Roach, Joe; White, Clay. Army Press Online Journal. June 2016. 8p.

Topic: Decision Making Process Integrated Planning: The Operations Process, Design, and the Military Decision Making Process (ARTICLE) --  One example of how Morgan and his staff accomplished this happened at the beginning of the planning effort in 1943. Although the COSSAC staff was instructed to build three supporting campaign plans (deception, assault, and stability), and their initial analysis suggested where and when to cross the channel and with how much, they quickly realized that the heart of their problem was landing craft. The conceptual notion of assaulting with Allied forces across the English Channel led the planning team into a detailed effort to determine how many boats and of what size and configuration would be needed. In other words, the complex problem of a multi-Army, multi-division assault from the sea with supporting airborne invasion and accompanying naval and air-delivered operational fires was reduced to an effort to determine the number of boats needed. The COSSAC planners’ efforts to approximate their problem in simple terms are akin to the conceptual notion of framing the environment and framing the problem, both of which are inherent in the design methodology. By: Grigsby, Jr., Wayne W.; Gorman, Scott; Marr, Jack; McLamb, Joseph; Stewart, Michael; Schifferle, Pete. Military Review. Jan/Feb2011, Vol. 91 Issue 1, p28-35. 8p.

Topic: Decision Making Processes - Planning Setting the Theater: A Definition, Framework, and Rationale for Effective Resourcing at the Theater Army Level (ARTICLE)  -- Setting the theater is an extraordinarily complex task often misunderstood by not only our military and intergovernmental partners but also by those responsible for its planning and execution. Such misunderstanding is largely due to a lack of a common definition of the concept among the services and our allies. This article highlights the impact of a doctrinal definition gap while also exploring why setting the theater is such an important requirement for the Army and joint forces. It also discusses the various divergent and largely insufficient descriptions found in doctrine and proposes a common definition and systems approach to facilitate the creation of a framework that will enable the theater army to analyze, plan, and, perhaps most importantly, resource future requirements. By identifying the specific conditions necessary to set the theater, a doctrinal definition and conceptual framework similar to the one developed by US Army Africa can scope down what has historically been a tremendously broad undertaking into something much more manageable. By: Shimerdla, Joseph John; Kort, Ryan. Military Review. May/Jun2018, Vol. 98 Issue 3, p55-62. 8p.

Topic: Decision Making Processes 1st Armored Division Leads Army in Re-examining Mission Command 'Initiatives'. Abstract: The article focuses on the re-examination of the mission-command methodologies by the 1st Armored Division of the U.S. Army, and cites its distributed command-post exercise (CPX) Iron Resolve 14.2. It notes that these methodologies were once embedded within Army force structure however they were set aside during the Army's shift toward the brigade modularization critical to supporting the nonlinear, decentralized nature of the counterinsurgency (COIN) fight. By: Harrington, Joseph P.; Rierson, William M. Cavalry & Armor Journal. Jan-Mar2015, Vol. 6 Issue 1, p24-29. 6p.

Topic: Electronic Warfare Adapting Multifunctional Intelligence and Electronic Warfare to Support Maneuver (ARTICLE) -- The event was the first in a series of joint operational integration assessments (JOIAs) and was made possible with funding from the Department of the Army's operations and intelligence staffs, as well as the Program Executive Office for Intelligence, Electronic Warfare, and Sensors. The purpose of the JOIA is to discover best practices and identify doctrine, organization, training, materiel, leadership and education, personnel, facilities, and policy (DOTMLPF-P) implications for greater sensing and effects on capability and interoperability in joint multidomain operations. The intent is to demonstrate how the Army and USMC would jointly conduct SIGINT and EW support operations across a congested and contested EMS environment to open windows of opportunity for maneuver forces and provide those forces a decisive advantage. By: Dotson, Mark; McAfee, Jennifer; Ziemba, Francesca. Military Intelligence Professional Bulletin. Vol. 44, Iss. 4, (Oct-Dec 2018): 32-34. 2p.