Chaitanya Jyothi Museum Opening, 2000
RAMANAM
In nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti. Amen
Countrymen,
ORBIS NON SUFFICIT
SOLUS DEUS SUFFICIT
A PDF version of this post concludes it.
Multi-Domain Operations is today the rallying point, the main theme of USA military leader thought. Multi-Domain Battlespace and Multi-Domain Warfare are parallel themes.
Comme il faut.
The history of conflict illustrates the theme’s pragmatic puissance. Yet, the theme presents a question: how many domains exactly comprise Multi-Domain Operations? How many is multi?
BLUF: Exactly five.
Let us examine.
Families in a designate-able geography soon learn they cannot conduct their affairs unless a ground-based armed force controls ingress and egress of their property, their geography. Those families and that force soon learn they cannot conduct their affairs unless a water-operating armed force — which is still ground-based! — controls ingress and egress of their property from waters inside and adjacent to it.
Very quickly in history, therefore, first an army and then a navy are thrown into existence in order to protect families living in a designate-able geography, which is in train of becoming those families’ land, their country. Two domains of battle operations occur very quickly in any human aggregation: first, ground controlled by an army; second, water controlled by a navy.
Armies and navies soon learn that they cannot operate safely in their respective domains unless accurate intelligence and effective counter-intelligence and espionage inform their movements: build morale on their side by winning and destroy it on the other side by forcing loss. In this third domain are managed the fires of the mind, so to speak. This domain protects the second, water, which protects the first, ground. The arrival of gunpowder gave this domain of intelligence, aka fires, a hardware presence: artillery, the great morale builder . . . and destroyer.
Today, operations in this third domain, fires, are called Information Operations — formerly, PsyOps — and now include so-called cyber (electronics), which is multi-range (very short and very long) artillery used to build one’s own and destroy an enemy’s morale. This domain, like its predecessors, is ground-based.
Comes the aircraft and armies, navies, and information shops soon learn that they cannot operate safely — and the families their duty it is to protect cannot conduct their affairs to and beyond potential — unless an air-operating armed force — which is still ground-based! — controls their vertical geography. A fourth domain of combat operations is thrown into existence in order to protect the first three.
Finally, after a lot of history, come affairs in space. Space is a domain of existence that, when reached, becomes a domain of human affairs that is outside the other four (air, fires, water, earth). When space is reached by human visitors — and especially so if by human inhabitants — its relative freedom of movement, with consequent opportunities for impingement on the other four domains of human affairs, give it top-facet status possessing superior — nay, decisive — puissance.
This is long understood. Not long understood is that for purposes of thought regarding military taxonomy and operations (e.g., RMA, among others), space is unique and super-potent.
Just as in the recent past no rational commander would consider operating without air, fires/information, and naval control of his battlespace — or the high probability of achieving that over an acceptable duration — no rational commander would operate today without controlling the space domain — or very soon achieving that.
Be it noted, also, that combat control of the ground domain affects a small-ish segment of the globe’s surface; combat control of the water domain affects a larger segment of the globe’s surface; combat control of the mind/intelligence/fires domain affects yet a larger segment of the globe’s surface; and combat control of the air domain affects a very large segment of the globe’s surface. However, combat control of the space domain affects the surface of the globe altogether.
Space is a domain unto itself. It is not an extension of air. And it envelopes all other domains.
How many domains are there in Multi-Domain Operations?
Exactly five. From most to least subtle and therefore affective: Space, Air, Fires, Water, Earth. There are no others.
Penta-Force
Now a few thoughts-related:
1- USA Armed Forces might be re-referenced as Penta-Force, or something like that which coveys the fullness, the plenary power, of five-ness. A true and complete identification of the joint force is: Penta-Force.
2- All five components of Penta-Force are ground-based. They operate in five unique domains of existence and human affairs. Yet, all base on the ground. This is important (see below). Humanity is a land-phenomenon! Even someone who visits or, more unlikely, inhabits a moon or another planet uses this planet’s ground-based assets to make the effort and accomplish their objective.
Oetinger: The end of the ways of God is corporeality.
3- Rational war-fighting is conducted to supply the needs of the ground combat component of Penta-Force, namely, the army. Since the families and their land, their country — the original and persistent charge of Penta-Force — are on land and cannot exist not on it, the needs of their immediate protector — the army — govern decision-making regarding grand and local strategy as well as asset deployment of Penta-Force in the five-facet multi-domain.
Marines are naval infantry equipped, trained, and tasked to assault and seize land to protect ships — because ships, and aircraft also, are ground-based — not to control/administer land per se. The latter is army mission, although the former can be as well.
4- Of late, US Air Force treats a nascent US Space Force as US Army originally treated a nascent US Air Force. SecAF has led in that direction. The direction is wrong-headed. Space is its own domain, outside air, literally, and far, far more potent than the other four domains that host battle operations.
5- Now that all five domains of human affairs are summoned as battlespace — Multi-Domain Operations — the total lethality potential is so high as to suggest to me that actual battle in the five-fold multi-domain — even without resort to nuclear munitions — would assure, in itself, mutual destruction. Perhaps my intuition on this, my over-the-horizon-radar, so to speak, is faulty. Omniscient I am not. However, I would like to mention the thought.
6- The five domains of human affairs correspond to the five Elemental Principles observed by Classical Greek and Hindu Sages: the world is combinations and permutations of Ether [Space], Air, Fire, Water, and Earth. In human physiology these Elemental Principles conduce to, respectively, the senses of Hearing, Touch, Sight, Taste, and Smell.
We think of the world proceeding in to the five senses acting as receptors. Indian Sages think of the world proceeding out from the five senses acting as generators.
7- I am finding it difficult to think through what space domain is and has to offer as military asset. Satellites zapping this and that is easy to see, but that can appear as fires/cyber domain or air domain rather than as uniquely space domain puissance. That space is an unique domain in five-fold/five-facet Multi-Domain Operations, however, is a fact which I observe without difficulty. I would like to be more forthcoming with specifics. However, I am unable to do that.
Tillich admitted to this experience when discoursing on religion of the concrete spirit.
8- I offer this architectonic for true, clear, thorough revolution in military affairs, so to speak: Penta-Force.
Βασιλεία του Θεού
Kingdom of God
Update 1: Quantum Monism Could Save the Soul of Physics
Update 2: Kurt Schlichter: We Are Going To Lose The Coming War With China
Update 3: Russian GPS navigation spoofing.
Update 4: Chinese military chiefs set to move PLA service branch headquarters out of Beijing
Update 5: Good point, good article. Emphasizing: vector of USA development is westward, not eastward, away from Old World snits (to include MENA), not towards them.
Geo-strategically, water is wet land. The same strategic rules that apply to land warfare apply to sea warfare. The sea is wet land. The air is thin land.
One implication of that reality is that INDOPACOM is an Army show primarily, not a Navy one. Current deployments of thought and dispositions of assets do not reflect that fact.
Navy is a transport and fires support asset. Marines are an assault asset. Air and Cyber — and Space — are forward fires support assets. Army is the asset tasked and equipped (when well) for land-control primarily and assault when needed.
The US foreign policy establishment anchors in the premise that USA strategic interests lie to the east, across the Atlantic. They do not. They lie to the west, across the Pacific. That abyssal error is the source of confusion and mayhem in the assembly and execution of statecraft by the USA’s bi-partisan leadership kakistocracy, essentially mutineers against USA identity and strategic interests. Until now. Now, someone is shaking their foundations, thankfully.
Update 6: What China’s Defence Paper Tells Us About Beijing’s Regional Ambition
Update 7: Contemplating Positions On Chinese Flanks
AUM NAMAH SHIVAYA
