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Multi-Domain Operations
NATO’s Military Instrument of Power enables, prepares, plans, orchestrates, and executes synchronized activities, across all domains and environments, at scale and the speed of relevance, in collaboration with other instruments of power, partners and stakeholders. This delivers tailored options at a time and place of our choosing that build advantage, across the shaping, contesting and fighting contexts, in order to decisively influence the attitudes and behaviours of adversaries and connected audiences.
Multi-Domain Operations aim to orchestrate and synchronise military activities with non-military activities, across all domains and environments, to enable commanders to deliver converging effects.
(Allied Command Transformation, Multi-Domain Operations Concept, Dec. 2021)
Related Publications
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Synchronizing Kinetic and Non-Kinetic Ops
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Charilaos
Nikou
By Sqn Ldr
David
Tucker
The landscape of modern warfare has undergone significant transformations in recent years, becoming far more complex and multifaceted. The parameters of this new era of warfare have broadened beyond the traditional military-focused model, encompassing a [...]
The Heart of Decision Superiority
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By Col (ret.)
Anthony
Bellione
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Quantum Technology for Defence
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By Lt Col
Denis
Dúbravčík
By Dr
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Krelina
Quantum Technology (QT) has its foundation in quantum mechanics, a discipline more than one hundred years old. The first applications of quantum mechanics, known as Quantum Revolution 1.0, include nuclear fission, lasers, semiconductors, etc., where [...]
Good News or Bad News?
Embryonic Development of Network Enabled Weapons
By Lt Col
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In the past few decades, the way we have understood conflict and war has seen a tremendous change. War had traditionally been understood as armed physical violence. Today, global security challenges are changing faster than [...]
MDO: What’s in a Name?
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The Multi-Domain Combat Cloud in Light of Future Air Operations
An Enabler for Multi-Domain Operations
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le Quement
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Vinçotte
Much has been published on new operational concepts to re-enhance Western air superiority when facing threats posed by peer or near-peer competitors with long-range and precise fires. Most experts advocate for a much more integrated [...]
Terabytes of Unprocessed Data or Superior Pieces of Info
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The info-operational environment in which we are immersed is characterized by conflicts that span the entire spectrum of the competition continuum, including all possible combinations of conventional, asymmetric and hybrid operations. Our military organizations have [...]
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Daniel
Cochran
By Col
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Joint All-Domain Operations (JADO) is a concept with the ambition of maximizing the effectiveness of all declared NATO forces through broadly focusing on two critical interoperability areas: obstacles between services and across the nations. The [...]
Multi-Domain Combat Cloud
A Vision for the Future Battlefield
By Col
Hubert
Saur
‘… lack of information sharing impedes operational effectiveness. Information sharing restrictions and national caveats limit interoperability solutions and reduce operational effectiveness across the domains.’ This is one key finding of the Joint Air Power Strategy [...]
Future Battlespace Management
Fighting and Winning in the Increasingly Complex Air Operations Environment of the Future
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Robust Anti-Access and Area-Denial (A2/AD) structures, coupled with the proliferation of advanced technologies across multiple domains, will dominate the third dimension in the coming decades. Potential adversaries will blend conventional, asymmetric, and hybrid capabilities across [...]
The Luftwaffe in Multi-Domain Operations
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Ingo
Gerhartz
NATO is living through one of the most challenging periods of its existence. Our security environment has become even more complex and increasingly dynamic. Our security situation is characterized by crises, conflicts and the revival [...]
NATO Training and Benefits of a Multi-Domain Approach to Targeting
By Mr
Adam
Jux
Since the early 2000’s the western world, and particularly NATO, has been progressively scrutinized in their ability to conduct offensive operations. Targeting (the method by which we conduct offensive operations) has been developed and refined [...]
Tracing Opinio Juris in National Cyber Security Strategy Documents
By Ann Väljataga, Law Researcher, NATO Cooperative Cyber Defence Centre of Excellence. The article below is a summary of Ann Väljataga, ‘Tracing Opinio Juris in National Cyber Security Strategy Documents’, NATO CCD COE, Tallinn, 2018. [...]
Multi-Domain Operations and Challenges to Air Power
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Juan
Cánovas
New concepts of operation, fuelled by technological advances, have facilitated interconnectivity across different domains of warfare. Consequently, this cross-domain interconnectivity now provides an opportunity to access objectives through non-linear (non-segregated) approaches. Indeed, the Alliance has [...]
The Complexity of Multi-Domain Operations
By Gen
Herbert J.
Carlisle
Courtesy of National Defense, NDIA’s Business & Technology Magazine For the US military to maintain its status as the greatest fighting force in the world, it must continue to learn and understand the Multi-Domain battlespace [...]
Accelerating Multi-Domain Operations: Evolution of an Idea
By Gen
Stephen
Townsend
Courtesy of Modern War Institute at West Point Multi-Domain Battle has a clear origin. Stemming from the idea that disruptive technologies will change the character of warfare, it recognizes that the way armies will fight [...]
Defining the ‘Domain’ in Multi-Domain
By Dr
Jared
Donnelly
By Lt Cdr
Jon
Farley
Courtesy of Over the Horizon – Multi-Domain Operations & Strategy Multi-Domain’ is the word du jour of the defence enterprise. While there are plenty of philosophical discussions on the future of warfare, the important dialogue [...]
What is a Multi-Domain Operation?
By Lt Col
Heiner
Grest
By Lt Col
Henry
Heren
The use of the term Multi-Domain Operations (MDO) has increased in popularity over the past decade as military services, those of the United States, in particular, have sought to codify their approach to warfare beyond [...]
On Multi-Domain Operations
Is NATO Today Sufficiently ‘Joint’ to Begin Discussions Regarding Multi-Domain Command and Control?
By Lt Col
Andrea
Olivieri
By Capt
William A.
Perkins
Recently, there have been multiple think papers, studies and articles proposing a new way of viewing the future battlespace. Many of these treat the entire environment as one single domain or an integrated environment of [...]
Gateway to Multi-Domain Command and Control
The E-3A Final Lifetime Extension Program
By Maj
Sameek
Parsa
By Maj
Aaron
Sprecher
Since NATO’s inception, airpower’s role has evolved from a key enabler of military capability to that of a primary means of executing the Alliance’s three core tasks: collective defence, crisis management and cooperative security. With [...]
Fifth Generation Air Combat
Maintaining the Joint Force Advantage
By Gen
Jeffrey L.
Harrigian
By Col
Max M.
Marosko III
This is an abridged version of an article published in the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies Journal Ed. No. 6, July 2016. For the purposes of this paper, we must define what a ‘fifth generation’ [...]
