Speaking at the world’s largest defense and security exhibition, retired Gen. Bob Brown stressed the importance of the evolving multidomain operations concept.

Brown, president and CEO of the Association of the U.S. Army, said the concept that could soon become U.S. Army doctrine is aimed at “providing multiple options to joint force commanders and challenging potential adversaries with multiple dilemmas.” It also ensures that “no single domain, service or nation could be decisive in large-scale combat operations against a peer competitor.”

Brown spoke June 15 at Eurosatory, a major event held just outside of Paris that draws exhibitors and attendees from around the world. AUSA is the organizer of the USA Security and Defense Pavilion, featuring 110 of the more than 1,720 global exhibitors at the event.

Joining Brown, retired French Lt. Gen. Jean-Francois Parlanti, former director of Doctrine and Employment Concepts for the French Joint Staff, described French thinking on the use of armed forces within a NATO context and challenged Western thinkers to recognize that “in MDO, all actions are linked, and that even tactical actions can have strategic effects.” 

Also on the panel was Jack Watling, of the Royal United Services Institute, who has recent extensive excursions in Ukraine. He shared insights regarding training and enacting control measures in multidomain operations, and the incredible impact that unmanned aerial systems are having on the battlefield.  

Based upon these battlefield observations, Watling stressed that “multidomain awareness was absolutely critical to inform commanders’ assessment of risk” because no single headquarters or artificial intelligence could manage this on its own.   

The commander of the U.S. Army’s 2nd Multi-Domain Task Force, Col. Jonathan Byrom, said his organization, operating in Europe and Africa, has a cutting-edge role to play in experimenting with new operating concepts while also having an ongoing operational mission.

Retired Col. Daniel Roper, AUSA’s National Security Studies director, who moderated the discussion, said multidomain operations are influencing “nearly everything the military is doing as it organizes, mans, trains and equips its forces to operate across the interface of five domains.” 

Roper said he shared that the “purpose of MDO was to create effects in the physical dimension to influence the information dimension and, ultimately, win in the human dimension.”