by Lieutenant Colonel Amos C. Fox, USA, Ret., PhD
Land Warfare Paper 163 / August 2024
 

In Brief

• The air-ground littoral (AGL) has quickly become a hot topic due to the extensive use of unmanned aerial systems (UAS) in the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh War and Russia’s 2022 reinvasion of Ukraine.
• Since dominance of the AGL, as with dominance of land or sea, is resource intensive and inherently risky, it is better to aim for a zone of proximal dominance (ZoPD) to align resources against a military problem within the constraints of time, space and duration rather than expecting permanent dominance.
• The Army must develop a coherent doctrinal framework for understanding dominance and how to apply its forces and resources within a specific zone to dominate an AGL where viable and appropriate to its mission.

Introduction

The air-ground littoral, or AGL, is a concept in military operations that has improved in value since the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh War; operations in the AGL are increasingly becoming the prime currency in warfare. During that war, Azeri unmanned aerial systems (UAS) took the front seat in military operations, while their traditional weapon systems, such as tanks, infantry and other land-based systems, took the back seat. Azeri UAS, flying at relatively low altitudes, were able to slice through Armenian land forces in a matter of weeks and deliver one of the 21st century’s first decisive wars.¹

Whereas Nagorno-Karabakh sparked curiosity in the AGL, Russia’s reinvasion of Ukraine in February 2022 stoked the flames of interest due to the commanding position that small UAS (sUAS) have taken during the conflict. While larger medium-altitude long-endurance (MALE) UAS played an important role for Ukrainian forces during the opening days of the conflict, they quickly became easy prey for Russian counter-UAS (C-UAS).² MALE UAS, being larger than sUAS, are easier to identify with conventional air defense systems.³ Military analyst Michael Kofman notes that easier targetability was the primary cause for the disappearance of the Ukrainian Bayraktar, and other high-altitude UAS on both sides of the conflict, after the first few weeks of the Russo-Ukrainian War.⁴ Moreover, as military analyst Franz-Stefan Gady correctly illustrates, the detectability of larger, higher-flying UAS has caused both Ukraine and Russia to invest in small, cheaper, harder-to-identify UAS, thereby infesting the AGL with a panoply of unmanned rotary-wing weapons and reconnaissance and surveillance systems.⁵

Stacie Pettyjohn, the director of defense programs at the Center for New American Security (CNAS), reports that both Ukraine and Russia filled the MALE UAS and AGL vacuum in eastern Ukraine with sUAS.⁶ sUAS operations, such as local reconnaissance, surveillance and attacks on mounted and dismounted Russian land forces, coupled with the sUAS and C-UAS cat-and-mouse game for local battlefield dominance playing out across the front, have re-emphasized the critical importance of the AGL.⁷ The deceptive interplay among sUAS and C-UAS capabilities must not be thought of as a feature of warfare limited to the Russo-Ukrainian conflict. Instead, this is a game of wits for decisiveness in the AGL; it transcends any single combatant, any theater of war, and is thus an idea of universal relevance.

Two basic frames are available to examine the AGL and its importance to Army aviation. We can use the more operationally leaning “train, man and equip” frame, or we can use the concept community’s “operate, organize and equip” frame. Considering that the Army is just now turning (or returning) its attention to the importance of the AGL and how it impacts Army aviation, it is preferable to conduct our analysis along the conceptual level: the subject is insufficiently mature for “train, man and equip” considerations but is ripe for conceptually detailing how Army forces, and especially Army aviation, might “operate, organize and equip” for operations in the AGL. For the purposes of this essay, we will focus on how Army forces and Army aviation might operate in the AGL to obtain decisive advantages that unlock opportunities for combined-arms Army operations and joint force–supported land offensives that are focused on achieving a commander’s military aims.

This essay first examines the concept of AGL. Those unfamiliar with the term might be confused by the use of the word “littoral,” which might cause the reader to think that it is associated with waterways or other bodies of water, but that is not the case. After reviewing the concept of AGL, we examine the two basic situations in which militaries—both state and non-state—fight for control of the AGL before scrutinizing the concept of dominance to help generate mental models for how to understand the struggle for control that militaries find themselves in when striving to dominate the AGL. These models provide a basic set of ideas that will help Army leaders think more deeply about how to operate pursuant to AGL dominance. We conclude with the major implications that Army leaders must appreciate regarding the AGL, Army aviation and striving for decisiveness in the AGL.

The Air-Ground Littoral

Neither the Army nor the joint force define AGL in their doctrine.⁸ What’s more, the selective use of the term “littoral” in AGL can be confusing because of its association with sea and naval-related activities. To be sure, the only instances in which either Army or joint doctrine refers to littorals is in examining water-related operations.⁹ Air-ground intersection is perhaps a less confusing way to describe the idea. Nevertheless, the AGL can be best understood by its dimensions and by what occurs within those dimensions.

Dimensions

According to General James Rainey and Professor James Greer, the AGL is “the airspace from the ground to a few thousand feet above it.”¹⁰ This definition is somewhat loose and nondescript. Nevertheless, considering the absence of an institutional or doctrinal definition of AGL, Rainey and Greer’s definition does provide a starting point from which to dig deeper into understanding the AGL.

The AGL’s dimensions are relative and relational, and they interlace across the battlefield. Relativeness is the balance of one’s own resources and combat power in comparison to that of an adversary, within a specific locale, for a specific duration. Because of this, AGLs are interlaced across the grouping of land and aerial units.

Resource constraints, to which the Army is not immune, necessitate the prioritization of resources within the AGL. This is a critical point because it means that Army forces cannot dominate all of the AGL, but that they must selectively prioritize where and when they want to prioritize selected portions of the AGL.

Moreover, this means that Army forces must prioritize where and when they are economizing support in the AGL and where and when they are assuming risk. Therefore, we can think of the AGL in terms of space (i.e., where), time (i.e., when) and resource prioritization, domination (i.e., max allocation of resources over time), economy of force (i.e., minimum allocation), and assumed risk (i.e., no allocation, of most minimal allocation) (see Table 1).

Because dominance and decisiveness must be considered in regard to an adversary’s reciprocal attempt to deny them both and to assert their own dominance in the AGL, Army forces must pursue those goals relative to a force’s specific military objectives. As a result, main efforts should receive a preponderance of resources to assist them in achieving dominance in the AGL; but, equally important, main efforts must have their fronts shortened—while shaping and supporting efforts assume larger fronts to offset the cost of creating the main effort’s ability to overcome a potential state of parity in the AGL, or what Rainey and Greer refer to as “stalemate in the sky.”¹¹

Missions

The AGL and the operations within the AGL are not ends in and of themselves. Instead, they are shaping and enabling activities. To be sure, Army forces use operations in the AGL to unlock offensive or defensive operations. Of equal importance, Army forces conduct operations in the AGL to deny, or, at a minimum, to disrupt an adversary’s effort to unlock their own offensive or defensive operations.

A recent CNAS report finds that drones—including sUAS and MALE UAS—conduct three basic missions: (1) suppress enemy air defense (SEAD) / defeat enemy air defense (DEAD), (2) ground attack and (3) indirect fires.¹² Across those three missions, drones conduct five activities in the AGL: (1) find and cue, (2) track and target, (3) engage, (4) assess the situation and (5) reattack (if the initial attack was not successful).¹³ In effect, these missions and activities represent one way to think about the ceaseless competition in which combatants engage during their pursuit of dominance of the AGL. To help understand this feature of AGL operations, we must consider the two primary ways that forces fight for dominance of the AGL.

Two Fights for Dominance of the Air-Ground Littoral

If the Russo-Ukrainian War demonstrates anything, it is that just showing up to a fight with more resources than another combatant, and terrific hype surrounding a new doctrine—such as Russia’s supposed “Gerasimov Doctrine”—does not guarantee victory. This is an important lesson for the Army to remember—being numerically larger, qualitatively better and possessing Multi-Domain Operations (MDO) doctrine will not cause adversaries on future battlefields to roll over and quit once Army forces arrive. Adversarial forces will fight until it is no longer politically relevant, militarily useful or tactically tenable.

In the interim, both sides can be expected to vigorously compete with one another for dominance—localized, regional and, if capable, general dominance. The competition for dominance must be understood to appreciate how to prevent or overcome stalemates in the AGL because, again, the requirements for dominance exceed showing up in a theater of war with a large army, a glossy doctrine and a great narrative. This section explains the basic theory of dominance to provide a framework for appreciating the ideas underpinning the geometry of the AGL (Table 1) and how that geometry associates with missions and activities that combatants conduct within the AGL pursuant to dominance.

A Theory of Dominance and Air-Ground Littorals

Putting more sUAS, C-UAS or rotary-wing aircraft into the AGL won’t generate dominance on its own. Nor will more capacity in the AGL inherently enable land operations. Consideration must also be given to synergistically combining the timing, sequence and outcomes of those operations with the proper mix of military capabilities to generate windows of dominance. Army doctrine, for its part, lacks any useful models that illustrate a theory of dominance, how that theory of dominance should be applied against real variables and how the combination of those two elements—the theory and variables—can be applied in an empirical context.

Senior military leaders and Army commanders need a mental model to help them appreciate the combatant-to-combatant (or Army-to-adversary) power dynamics involved in creating the situation needed to unlock decisiveness in the AGL, which should subsequentially unlock comparable success for Army offensive and defensive operations. This section provides that needed theory of dominance.

Dominance is one’s ability to influence or control a specific situation or to exercise power and influence over others in a contested environment. Because of the competitive environment, influence, control and power all require relational resource overmatch regarding an adversary: (1) at a specific location, (2) at a precise period of time and (3) for an explicit duration of time.¹⁴ Scholars Felicia Pratto and Andrew Stewart assert that overmatch is a salient and animating feature of dominance.¹⁵ They identify it as the disproportionate use of force by one group regarding another group.¹⁶ Army forces must therefore exercise caution because the pursuit of dominance is resource intensive.¹⁷

Two implications emerge from this situation. First, dominance is conditional and dependent on resources, time and the situation. Second, because of the high costs required to pursue (and maintain) dominance, coupled with the fact that resources are limited, a combatant should not pursue dominance everywhere, but only in selective areas that best support achieving one’s military objectives. These implications can—and should—be overlayed on how Army forces think about and prepare for operations in the AGL.

Dominance of the AGL is conditional and should not be pursued everywhere, but only in areas that best support achieving military objectives. Attempting to dominate an entire AGL throughout a theater of war would easily exceed any Army and joint force’s capacity and come at the cost of preventing further offensive and defensive operations. In all other cases, senior military leaders and Army commanders must apply economy of force across the AGL and assume risk in less critical areas.

Building on these ideas, we must understand that dominance is impermanent. The dependency between resources, time and the situation is a vulnerability that adroit adversaries can attack and exploit to overcome being dominated. What’s more, perturbations, such as an unexpected, immediate and massive spike in an army’s expenditure of resources, can derail the pursuit, or maintenance, of dominance. Thus, we must appreciate that dominance is fragile, fleeting and vulnerable to shock and surprise.¹⁸ Its impermanence and fragility bring into question the idea that Army forces can even achieve decisiveness in the AGL. This idea is equally important when one considers the quantity of low-cost sUAS and C-UAS that potential adversaries such as Russia and China will be able to manufacture and deploy to fight for control of the AGL, which is an assessment echoed by a recent report published by RAND on the state of the United States’ capacity for national defense.¹⁹ The Army would better position itself in the reality of the AGL if it instead sought to dominate the zone of relevance but otherwise seek economies of force across the spectrum of Army forces arrayed on the battlefield.

Furthermore, a proportional relation exists between an army’s expenditure of resources and its ability to gain and/or maintain dominance.²⁰ All things being equal, and remaining relative to the situation’s starting conditions, the more it costs an army to gain dominance, the less likely it is that it can maintain dominance over time. Dominance should be selectively sought and accomplished in such a way that the level of resource loss is acceptable as it relates to the military objective under consideration.

Parity emerges when neither combatant can gain dominance over the other combatant. Parity should be thought of as a threshold, or a zone, that a combatant must pass through to transition from being dominated by an adversary to dominating that adversary. This motion is not one-way; it is subject to the whims of military operations that fritter away resources, misjudge time and underestimate opponents in the battlefield. Parity—this zone of intense competition between two (or more) combatants for dominance of a specific situation—is a significant danger zone. It is the primary area in which resource expenditure in pursuit of (or maintaining) dominance—personnel and equipment—can bankrupt a combatant. Thus, attempting to break stalemates everywhere is a fool’s errand. Adept senior military leaders and Army commanders should rather attempt to channel their grab for dominance at the minimum time, place and duration required to obtain a specific military goal. Otherwise, they risk becoming fixed attempting to summit the apex of parity and losing all of their resources in the process.

Through the appropriate use of resources, senior military leaders and Army commanders can navigate through parity and move from (a) being dominated to dominating or (b) parity to dominating. Likewise, by understanding the dynamics at play as they pertain to the pursuit of dominance between two competing belligerents, senior military leaders and Army commanders can also sidestep the misappropriation of resources and maintain control of a dominant (i.e., dominating) position relative to an adversary (or adversaries) (see Figure 1).

The pursuit and maintenance of dominance in the AGL should be thought of in terms of zones of proximal dominance, not dominance everywhere all the time. A zone of proximal dominance, or ZoPD, is a heuristic for thinking, strategy and planning that helps senior military leaders and Army commanders align resources against a military problem within the constraints of time, space and duration.²¹

ZoPDs are built on the rule that dominance radiates from a source of power and that the force within that zone loses strength as one moves farther away from the source of power.²² Furthermore, power radiation is proportional to the source of power’s strength, an adversary’s competing strength and both combatants’ ability to replenish their resources.²³ For instance, the more sUAS and C-UAS a combatant operates in the AGL, close to a supply depot, the more likely that combatant is to generate a ZoPD within the AGL to radiate with the brightness and intensity with which a coverage area elsewhere could not compare.

An important element of ZoPDs, however, is that a senior military leader or Army commander’s options are generally binary—you either get (1) broad but shallow coverage or (2) deep but narrow coverage.²⁴ A broad but shallow ZoPD in the AGL might be useful when a war has transitioned from one of movement to something more stationary and defensive. At the same time, if a conflict remains mobile and Army forces remain on the move toward an objective, a deep but narrow ZoPD in the AGL might best support offensive and defensive operations achieving decisiveness in the AGL and accomplishing a commander’s objectives. Army aviation’s impact—current and potential—in this area cannot be overemphasized. By virtue of its longstanding mission, doctrine, equipment, mentality and training, Army aviation remains the force’s vanguard for helping create the conditions required to gain and maintain situationally required materiel overmatch in the AGL, thus facilitating Army forces’ ability to achieve decisive impacts for both joint force and combatant commanders.

Dominance and the AGL—On the Move and Along Lines

As alluded to in the conclusion of the previous section, operations in the AGL occur in two ways, either on the move or from relatively static lines. Each of these focus areas is addressed in greater detail in this section.

AGLs while Moving

In undetermined, mutually offensive situations, like a movement to contact or a meeting engagement, AGLs are generally narrow and directional. This is because, in offensive operations, military forces attempt to make contact with the smallest-size force possible to prevent themselves from becoming decisively engaged and to maintain the freedom to act on the developing situation. In addition to being narrow and oriented toward the primary axis of advance, a force’s activities in the AGLs operate in deep areas rather than in relatively close (or shallow) areas.

These three conditions—(1) narrowly focused, (2) oriented on the emerging threat situation and (3) deep—allow Army forces to make sense of the situation, proactively shape the environment and the adversary to fulfill offensive objectives and serve as a fulcrum to unlock supporting branches and sequels based on changing battlefield conditions. As a result, Army force operations in the AGL during this situation focus on (1) reconnaissance; (2) deep fires to eliminate adversary fires and reconnaissance forces and capabilities; (3) deception to generate the required conditions on the ground, in the air and in the cyber domain for the execution of the offensive plan; and (4) to fix the adversary’s land forces in position for the application of combined arms and joint enabled operations to defeat the advancing adversary. These missions are longstanding features of Army aviation’s raison d’être.

Army forces fighting for dominance in the AGL while on the move must be temporally minded. To be sure, the costs required to achieve dominance are significant. Prudence in this situation becomes a watchword. This is so that senior military leaders and Army commanders do not fritter away much-needed resources for subsequent AGL dominance. ZoPDs in the AGL while moving must be as short as possible.

A note of caution before transitioning to analyzing AGLs on static fronts. Army forces applying ZoPD in the AGL while on the move are resource intensive. Army forces that are not sensitive to temporal efficiency during this situation run the risk of achieving parity instead of dominance. In not quickly achieving overmatch and dominance in the AGL, Army forces will encounter the “stalemate in the sky” that Rainey and Greer caution against. This will limit Army aviation’s ability to get into the fight and reduce their ability to display their battlefield efficiency. Army forces fighting a stalemate in the sky will (1) unravel planned operations, (2) cause Army force objectives to remain unfulfilled and (3) prevent Army forces from dominating the AGL in subsequent operations. Thus, the ZoPD for AGL supremacy while on the move must be highly planned, tightly regulated and managed along the lines of triggers to transition Army force activities throughout the AGL to support the broader Army and joint force objectives. This brings into question the usefulness of mission command and other forms of decentralized command and control when synchronization and resource management are more important than junior leader initiative.

AGLs while Static

Often Army forces find themselves operating on relatively static fronts. This is not to say that Army forces are not repositioning, conducting protection activities, collecting intelligence or conducting sustainment while on these static fronts. Rather, this means that Army forces often find themselves conducting defensive operations or conducting tactical and operational pauses so that rear echelon forces can bound forward and stay afoot with advancing offensive operations.

In these situations, Army force operations in the AGL take on a different character than those while on the move. In static situations, ZoPDs are broad to cover the expanse of front-facing Army forces. Moreover, because AGL considerations are no longer directionally oriented on a threat-specific zone, they diffuse along a broad front, and thus their range becomes shallow due to resources having to be dispersed to protect defending or paused Army forces.

Army operations in the AGL take on a different hue when Army forces are operating from set lines. AGL activities can be classified into three categories when Army forces are static: (1) forward activities, (2) activities on the line and (3) rear-area activities. The priority of support for these activities is situationally dependent, but considering the situation’s defensive character, the preponderance of AGL support will likely go to activities on the line, which is the place where Army forces, any separation space and adversary forces converge on the battlefield.

AGL activities on the line consist of the operations that tactical Army forces can accomplish with their organic capabilities, or those that their higher headquarters have provided. These operations become thick with protective actions and with terrain-oriented reconnaissance and security operations that are intended to help Army forces hold the ground on which they are committed. These activities on the line also include screening and deception operations to confuse or mislead an adversary’s information collection and decisionmaking apparatus and to unlock the situations needed for further offensive action. In these situations, a higher headquarters might reduce weapon systems and other capabilities along one portion of the front to create a situationally required ZoPD for the purpose of future exploitation. Army forces often use attack aviation, first-person view UAS, drone swarms, electronic warfare and unconventional C-UAS techniques in this area of the AGL.

AGL activities forward are often dependent on weapon systems and other capabilities that exceed those that are organically present in tactical Army forces. These operations are focused on neutralizing, or at least disrupting, an adversary’s ability to effectively operate in the AGL, to combine arms at the tactical level and to integrate joint capabilities into the AGL along the broad front of converged forces. Army forces often use one-way (or suicide) UAS, MALE UAS, larger-scale cyber capabilities and more conventional air and missile defense systems in this portion of the AGL.

AGL activities in the rear area are likely to be far more limited than they are on the line or forward of the line of converged adversary forces because of the lack of available resources to cover every location, all the time. As a result of this resource shortcoming, Army commanders will have to prioritize capabilities to protect high-value, rear-area units and activities while assuming risk across large portions of their rear.

Conclusion

To conclude this examination on achieving decisiveness in the AGL, we close with a few considerations, implications, and recommendations.

Army forces must not regard their mere presence on the battlefield as the key to achieving dominance. Dominance is achieved through the situationally appropriate application of resources and time against an adversary, the (multidomain) terrain in which they are both operating and the situation.²⁵ The situation includes whether the forces are moving and converging on one another, operating along a relatively static front, and each combatant’s military objectives. Army forces should not pursue dominance everywhere, all the time, and in every domain. Dominance in the AGL is no different in that respect from gaining dominance on land or in any other domain.

Yet the Army lacks a coherent path for understanding dominance within its doctrine, aside from mentions of overmatch. Main efforts and decisive operations are insufficient for this task—they do not account for the rigorous effort of an adversary attempting to achieve its own objectives while trying to prevent Army forces from accomplishing theirs. The challenge with focusing solely on overmatch is that, if left unconstrained, it can lead to a rapid exhaustion of resources, leaving Army forces incapable of capitalizing on fleeting windows of opportunity. Therefore, the Army must develop a coherent doctrinal framework for understanding dominance and how to apply its forces and resources within a specific zone to dominate an AGL and create situations that can be further exploited to accomplish objectives.

Furthermore, the concept of mission command is incompatible with the pursuit of dominance, in general and in the AGL. Military analyst Frank Hoffman asserts that synchronization and mission command are incompatible concepts because they are functionally opposite.²⁶ Professor Conrad Crane makes a similar argument discussing MDO: “The concept of mission command not only accepts increased risk for a force that is less able to accept significant casualties, it also appears to be impractical for the synchronization required against a competent and capable near-peer. It should indeed be recognized as just one possible course of action, not the only one.”²⁷

Due to the resource requirements associated with dominance, coupled with the insistence that dominance be temporally and situationally localized, the allocation and application of forces and resources in pursuit of achieving decisiveness in the AGL must be highly centralized and controlled. To be sure, the freewheeling, intuitive application of combat power in the AGL will burn through resources and create the much-fretted-about stalemate in the sky. Tactical forces not engaged in the pursuit of dominance can operate more freely, and, once dominance in the AGL is assured, they can also operate according to the principles and philosophy of mission command, but doing so outside of those conditions will not allow for lasting decisiveness in the AGL.

As operations in the AGL become more important to Army forces accomplishing their missions, and since Army rotary-wing aviation and tactical UAS are an incredibly limited resource, the Army should conduct a detailed analysis—and make its findings available to the public—on the potential need for an Army drone corps. Army Chief of Staff General Randy George and Army Undersecretary Gabe Camillo both recently dismissed a House Armed Services Committee recommendation on the formation of an Army drone corps.²⁸ Both George and Camillo said that modifications to existing force structure and tactical training would meet the requirements Army forces need to dominate in the AGL, but these comments fail to appreciate how operating in the AGL differs from operations on the move to static fronts. UAS and C-UAS can be centralized and frontloaded for mobile, offensive Army operations. However, once Army forces find themselves defending along a static front, those centralized capabilities used along the Army force’s spearhead quickly become far less sufficient to meet the requirements of activities within the AGL. An Army drone corps, working alongside Army rotary-wing aviation, above U.S. land forces and with joint enablers, would provide a credible investment toward preventing the stalemate in the sky and allowing Army forces to achieve decisiveness in the AGL.

To overcome potential stalemates in the sky—or parity in the AGL—and achieve decisiveness in the AGL, Army forces need to commit to developing a full set of concepts, forces, and equipment, along with an associated doctrine, to fight and win in this space. As competitors and adversaries continue both to participate in and to observe and learn from the Russo-Ukrainian War and its novel innovations emerging in the AGL, modifying Army force doctrine and capabilities along the margins will not be sufficient to achieve dominance and unlock decisiveness in future AGL battlefields. The Army’s aviation branch, perhaps with a newly minted drone corps, provides the critical link between synchronized land and air operations that the Army needs to achieve decisiveness in the AGL.

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Lieutenant Colonel Amos C. Fox, USA, Ret., PhD, is a Fellow with Arizona State University’s Future Security Initiative. He is also a lecturer in Politics and International Relations at the University of Houston. He hosts the Revolution in Military Affairs, Soldier Pulse, and WarCast podcasts, serves as an editorial board member with the Journal of Military Studies, and is a senior editor with Small Wars Journal.

 

Notes▼

 

The views and opinions of our authors do not necessarily reflect those of the Association of the United States Army. An article selected for publication represents research by the author(s) which, in the opinion of the Association, will contribute to the discussion of a particular defense or national security issue. These articles should not be taken to represent the views of the Department of the Army, the Department of Defense, the United States government, the Association of the United States Army or its members.