DOD introduces expanded maneuver to deter future aggression with Russia and China

To solve future challenges in warfighting and deter adversaries like China and Russia, the Department of Defense has introduced a new concept called “expanded maneuver”.  The new concept will give a better understanding to the defense forces about their adversaries will operate in different domains and solutions to deter them, thereby protecting DOD and coalition forces.

It involves four functional battle areas: contested logistics, joint fires, all-domain command & control, and information advantage. The DOD will be changing its logistics approach as logistics is very difficult to do in contested environments. The Joint fires is the second concept focused on by the DOD. Fires come from any area with no restrictions.

To combat this, the DOD aspirational requirement is that the adversaries should not understand where the fires are coming from and should fail to defend themselves.  The DOD hopes to change the equation of joint fires on any future battlefield.  Through the new concept, the DOD will look into whether it is affordable, practical, and where to bring it from. The DOD will get joint fires from all the domains and all services, including kinetic and non-kinetic.

Through the joint-all command and control concept, the DOD aims to connect fully to the command and control links through a combat cloud that allows one to understand the situation on the battlefield and act quickly with the help of the information.The fourth concept, information advantage, will allow enhanced interoperability among the joint forces and its allies. Joint Requirements Oversight Council is making efforts to make all the new concepts work and enable defense services to move faster. The Joint Requirements Oversight Council is heavily invested and involved in making this all work and enabling the services to move faster in that direction, he said.