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Dispersion as Uncertainty

Rethinking Survivability in the Era of ISR-Enabled Targeting

 

Col. Benjamin Buchholz, U.S. Army

 

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You don’t have to outrun the bear, just someone else in your group.

—Author’s father while camping

 

In an era of increasingly integrated and AI-enabled intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) systems, modern military formations face a new targeting problem: the near-peer adversary’s ability to rapidly detect, identify, and prioritize high-value targets for precision or massed fires.¹ While dispersion has long been recognized as a core principle of survivability, leaders often reduce its application to simplistic measures such as the “jumping” of a command post, thinking that will suffice to obscure them on the battlefield.² This article argues that dispersion, properly understood, is not about achieving invisibility but about introducing uncertainty into an adversary’s targeting cycle, which requires a different mindset. By complicating the process of target identification, prioritization, and engagement, dispersion forces the adversary’s targeteers—whether human or AI-enabled—to assign lower confidence scores to potential targets, slowing or even disrupting the fires process.³

This article explores dispersion across two primary domains—the physical and the electromagnetic spectrum (EMS)—while also highlighting a potential third: the cognitive. In the cognitive realm, leaders must train to think creatively about how to generate the survivability effects of uncertainty, not simply to disperse forces but to design operations that introduce friction and ambiguity into the enemy’s analytical processes.⁴ Drawing on lessons learned from recent operational experiences—including support to Ukrainian forces facing conventional Russian formations—this article contends that dispersion must evolve beyond its traditional forms to remain effective against modern, networked targeting systems.

The Modern Targeting Problem

The character of targeting in contemporary conflict has shifted from a platform-centric model to a data-driven, network-enabled process.⁵ No longer confined to painstaking manual analysis or slow kill chains, today’s targeting systems integrate a wide array of ISR feeds—imagery, signals intelligence, cyber indicators, and even open-source data like social media footprints—into fused intelligence products that are processed and prioritized at machine speed.⁶ Just as the United States has done, it should expect its adversaries, particularly peer and near-peer competitors, to leverage artificial intelligence and machine learning to sift through this sensor-rich environment and generate target recommendations with increasing autonomy and speed.⁷

In this environment, the racking and stacking of targets—the process of assigning priority for engagement—follows a calculus that favors three variables: perceived value, perceived certainty, and perceived risk. A command node broadcasting clearly in the EMS or a vehicle cluster observed at a known logistics hub becomes a tempting target, not merely because of its function but because the targeting system is confident in what it is seeing.⁸ Then commanders determine risk to mission, to forces, and to other factors. Ambiguity is anathema to this process. If the system cannot confidently identify a target’s nature, function, value, or risk, the strike decision slows, defers, does not meet prioritization thresholds, and ultimately may not materialize.

The fusion of ISR with probabilistic decision-making has profound implications for survivability. What once may have been a matter of hiding from observation is now a contest of confidence thresholds in the adversary’s kill chain.⁹ In this context, dispersion becomes less about making units hard to see and more about making them hard to know. The modern targeting problem is not simply a technological challenge, it is a conceptual one—demanding that friendly forces move beyond traditional protective measures and instead disrupt the very logic of enemy prioritization itself.

Physical Dispersion

Physical dispersion has traditionally been understood as the geographic spreading of forces to reduce vulnerability when expecting enemy fire.¹⁰ But in an ISR-saturated battlespace, mere spacing no longer suffices.¹¹ What matters in this situation is whether dispersion creates uncertainty—not just about where a target is, but about what it is, how valuable it might be, what risks it poses, and how confident the adversary can be in its assessments therein. This shift reframes the purpose of dispersion: it is not to escape detection altogether but to remain below the threshold at which a strike becomes a priority.¹²

Doctrinal foundation. Joint doctrine emphasizes operating across “time, space, and purpose” to complicate enemy targeting cycles.¹³ Field Manual (FM) 3-0, Operations, reinforces this, highlighting the need for adaptability, distributed operations, and deception to shape the operational environment.¹⁴ Air Force Doctrine Publication (AFDP) 3-60, Targeting, further codifies triage within targeting: only high-value, high-probability targets rise in the joint integrated prioritized target list.¹⁵

Insights from Ukraine. My personal experience supporting Ukrainian military intelligence allowed me to observe these issues vis-à-vis Russian aggressor formations within Ukraine. While all types of Russian forces and support structures interested Ukrainian leadership, three specific categories factored most prominently: radars, command nodes, and logistics hubs. A quick review of how these Russian elements were categorized in the Ukrainian targeting effort will help illustrate this process.

First, ISR-assisted prioritization resulted in a calibrated and rank-ordered list of potential targets. Daily, between several dozen and several hundred potential Russian targets appeared and were processed by ISR analysts, sometimes using AI.¹⁶ However, most of this list remained aspirational as limited munitions and strike capabilities allowed far fewer strikes, usually less than twenty.

Predictable patterns became a factor inviting those strikes. Ukraine’s targeting cell viewed repeated use of radar site locations, large and unmoving logistics sites, or Russian command nodes jumping tactical operations centers (TOC) on fixed schedules as low-hanging fruit—high confidence, high priority. Functional collocation further increased a target’s position on the list. For instance, sites where command-and-control (C2) nodes overlapped with radar or fuel storage rapidly escalated to top-tier targets due to compounded value and clarity. Sites with strategic or propaganda value also tended to rise on such lists. A fuel or ammunition dump exploding would garner more attention on social media and provide both internal (morale boosting) and external (donor and ally support) effects, even if a high-end Russian radar—for example—might have weighed higher from a utilitarian point of view.

When nominated to the strike list, a target might remain there for weeks, waiting for further confirmation, opportunity, or the arrival of sufficient munitions to prioritize it. A target might also fall off the list, either disappearing from the battlefield—lost in the fog of war—or being deemed no longer worth the effort.

This threshold is not theoretical. Targeting decisions created an exercise in triage, with priority going to targets that were both high-value and high-confidence. Targets that exhibited the above-mentioned traits became vulnerable in proportion to their predictability.

Dispersion as uncertainty. For defenders—like those Russian units—survival hinges on ambiguity, not invisibility. A location could be observed, but once its function or value became uncertain, the Russian element often stayed below the threshold. While dropping off the target list would certainly be desirable from that unit’s perspective, it seemed just as important—especially for the types of large command posts and logistical nodes that couldn’t help but be detected on the modern battlefield—that they simply not be selected against the available strikes that particular day, week, or month.

While many factors contribute to prioritization, only a few of those are within a unit’s direct control.¹⁷ These factors share a common nexus in the concept of dispersion. Unpredictability in movement, employing multiple small nodes rather than one large C2 hub, and separating key assets tended to sow uncertainty.¹⁸

This approach aligns with the principles of security and surprise found in JP 3-0, Joint Campaigns and Operations, and FM 3-0’s emphasis on the cognitive effect of dispersal to disrupt targeting and tempo.¹⁹

Tactical implications. To operationalize this concept, units should adopt multinodal command structures with small, redundant C2 packages that can complicate ISR analytics. Units should routinize irregular relocation, avoiding fixed schedules or fixed/doctrinal locations for TOC jumps so that they do not establish easily recognized patterns. And at echelon, planners should practice deliberate decollocation, reducing the two-for-one specials of creating lucrative targets where high-value items like radars, logistics nodes, or command hubs cluster.

It is important to highlight that dispersion measures don’t eliminate detection—they aim to keep sites ranked below an adversary’s actionable strike limit. Doctrinally aligned dispersion can, in this way, interface with modern targeting logic to ensure survivability not by evasion but by obscurity within the adversary’s kill chain.²⁰

Infrastructure as Destiny: Building for the Threat You Don’t Yet Face

One of the most overlooked areas in which dispersion should be considered is the planning and construction of physical infrastructure. Operational posture and basing decisions, especially in regions assessed as low or moderate threat, tend to default to models built for counterinsurgency (COIN) or stability operations. These models prioritize efficiency, force protection, and centralized support, leading to large, consolidated bases that optimize logistics and sustainment but risk creating lucrative, fixed targets should the threat environment shift.

Nowhere is this clearer than in Kuwait, where the dominant threat model remains irregular or terrorist in nature despite a near-peer threat just across the Persian Gulf as well as China, with its first extra-Pacific military outpost just miles away on the Bab el-Mandeb; the force posture remains built around a single, cluster-style base complex.²¹ This design supports force protection against limited attacks and enables efficient sustainment operations under budget constraints, but it risks becoming a strategic liability in the event of a shift toward high-end conflict.

Successive years of low-end conflict, risk aversion to allowing dispersed C2, and funding pressures have reinforced infrastructure templates optimized for COIN: consolidated sustainment hubs, collocated C2, and “everything inside the wire” basing logic. In doing so, we have effectively hardened our formations—into the wrong shape.

This tendency stands in direct contrast to the logic of dispersion described throughout this article. Centralized bases provide predictability, fixed signatures, and compounded target value—ideal conditions for modern ISR-targeting systems.²² The problem is not just tactical but structural: once concrete is poured and C2 networks are built into a single site, the cost and delay of reconfiguring likely rises to prohibitive levels. The choice, made years earlier under a different threat model, becomes destiny.

But this does not need to be a zero-sum trade-off. A base posture designed with peer-level threats in mind—dispersed C2 elements, redundant sustainment nodes, deceptive infrastructure, and off-site emissions sources—can still support COIN and counterterrorism functions. What it sacrifices in efficiency, it gains in flexibility. What it costs in construction, it saves in survivability. Moreover, the ability to operate from multiple dispersed nodes aligns with doctrinal principles of mission command, resilience, and the need to “fight tonight” even in degraded conditions.²³

Future posture planning should embrace this dual lens: capable of enabling low-end, persistent operations without sacrificing survivability in high-end war. Dispersion must be baked into the blueprint, because once it’s not, it may be too late to retrofit.

Electromagnetic Spectrum Dispersion

When most leaders consider dispersion in the EMS, the reflexive solution tends toward outright suppression: reduce emissions, eliminate personal device use, limit use of radars and satellites, and limit radio chatter.²⁴ The dominant message tends to be “turn it all off”—especially the ubiquitous cell phone. But in practice, this blanket approach can be both operationally limiting and strategically flawed.²⁵

Emissions detection is unavoidable, predictability = targeting. Just like with physical dispersion, in a modern ISR environment, a commander would be wise to assume the adversary will detect them. Yet, emissions alone don’t guarantee targeting. What matters more is recognition—when emissions form or support a coherent, repeatable, and perhaps even uniquely attributable signature.²⁶

Today’s battlefield, and environments both urban and rural, are filled with EMS signatures, which present opportunities to again lean into ambiguity and dispersion. The situation is analogous to lessons learned from the human domain: in intelligence operations, operatives no longer strive for complete invisibility. It’s too difficult with modern surveillance. Instead, they try to blend in. In urban areas where everyone uses a phone, the person who doesn’t can become the anomaly. Similarly, a complete absence of electromagnetic activity in an otherwise active sector can be as revealing as a persistent signal. Suppression without nuance emits a signature in itself and would likely violate the principle of consistency in military deception.²⁷

Joint doctrine (JP 3-12, Cyberspace Operations; JP 6-0, Joint Communications) emphasizes spectrum awareness and agility, not simply silence.²⁸ FM 3-0 encourages forces to develop flexible communications architectures capable of “surviving and adapting” within contested EMS environments.²⁹ This calls not just for concealment but for complexity—making one’s presence hard to interpret, not simply hard to hear.

Rethinking cell phones as an asset. Rather than banning cell phones, units should think creatively about how to harness their utility while managing risk.³⁰ Younger soldiers possess intuitive skill with personal tech that can be leveraged for distributed communications, rapid messaging, media operations, creative problem-solving, and even morale. The key is not to suppress but to incorporate—strategizing with mobile devices one facet of a broader PACE (primary, alternate, contingency, emergency) communications plan that flexes depending on terrain, threat, and mission phase.

More importantly, the integration of civilian-style communications offers an opportunity to diversify signature patterns.³¹ A unit that shifts unpredictably between emissions profiles—sometimes active on signal, sometimes dark, sometimes emitting from a terrestrial radio or satellite communications node—becomes harder to track and assess. This resembles the concept of frequency hopping but across platforms, modes, and even user behaviors.

Signature confusion as protective terrain. An effective EMS dispersion strategy should aim not for silence but for ambiguity. Think of the adversary’s ISR apparatus as asking: Is this the same unit I saw here yesterday? Is this pattern consistent enough to strike? How does it compare with other targets on the list?

When answers to these questions become uncertain due to changing emissions behavior, fusion algorithms hesitate. Human decision-makers deprioritize. And the unit slips beneath that day’s targeting threshold, which ultimately saves lives and preserves combat power.

Dispersion in the EMS might involve the following:

• Randomized communications windows: scheduled intervals of emissions interleaved with dark periods³²
• Multimodal emissions: using multiple platforms (cell, radio, satellite communications) in staggered, overlapping fashion³³
• False positives: occasionally simulating command-like or high-intensity behavior from dummy devices to dilute targeteer confidence³⁴

Doctrinally, these ideas align with the “protect, conceal, and maneuver” functions of the electromagnetic warfare triad, and with AFDP 3-13’s directive to use EMS not just defensively, but for exploitation and freedom of action.³⁵ The goal isn’t to disappear, it’s to introduce just enough uncertainty that a confident targeting solution never forms.

Cognitive Dispersion

Cognitive dispersion is perhaps the least understood, and most underutilized, dimension of survivability in the ISR-targeted battlespace. It involves structuring operations and command behaviors to sow doubt not just in sensors but in the minds of analysts, targeteers, and commanders.³⁶ Just as physical dispersion complicates spatial certainty and electromagnetic dispersion disrupts pattern recognition, cognitive dispersion confounds interpretation and intent.

Operational design as deception. Adversary targeting is not purely technical—it remains a human-machine enterprise.³⁷ ISR data must still be interpreted, stacked, and framed within a broader operational picture. When friendly force actions unfold in ways that defy enemy assumptions or known doctrinal patterns, it forces adversary analysts to recalibrate their models.³⁸ This recalibration takes time and effort to convince more senior leaders and decision-makers that a paradigm has shifted. In that space, that hesitation, survivability improves.

This concept finds doctrinal support in JP 5-0, Joint Planning, which emphasizes deception as a shaping function and encourages commanders to “generate exploitable perceptions.”³⁹ Similarly, FM 3-13, Information Operations, highlights the importance of sowing ambiguity and leveraging psychological friction.⁴⁰ In practice, this means deliberately using maneuver, timing, messaging, and even emissions to overload or mislead adversary interpretation.⁴¹

Examples of cognitive confusion. Cognitive dispersion is achieved not through any single method but through layers of operational misalignment that force adversary analysts to ask, What is this unit trying to do? Is this behavior real or feigned? And even, Can I assess this and vouch for it as a target based on doctrine and understanding of the formation? Examples include the following:

• Non-standard movement: rotating TOCs on irregular timelines or using decoys that “jump” on traditional schedules while the real headquarters remains static⁴²
• Anomalous emissions: creating deliberately inconsistent signal behavior (e.g., a key node suddenly silent or a low-tier site briefly active)⁴³
• Disjointed unit structures: detaching key elements to operate independently while retaining enough signature overlap to mimic a cohesive C2 package⁴⁴

The effect is to degrade adversary confidence in their own ISR outputs. If the targeteers can’t confidently determine function, value, or continuity, they hesitate—or misprioritize. This aligns with the core targeting dilemma described in AFDP 3-60: even accurate data must be “vetted” for actionability. Introducing cognitive doubt weakens that bridge.

Cognitive dissonance isn’t the easiest to produce but also doesn’t require high-tech processing. A famous story of an element of the 101st Airborne in World War II, when approached to surrender by their German counterpart during the defense of Bastogne, replied with one word, “Nuts.”⁴⁵ The German didn’t know what this meant. Perhaps unintentionally, it introduced cognitive ambiguity and delayed the German commander long enough that the unit was rescued by Allied forces.

As an adversary collects more information and expects ongoing clarity of understanding our formations and intent, opportunities to introduce this ambiguity multiply. They just must be seized through deliberate planning or fortunate decision-making by leaders trained to consider the value of cognitive dispersion.

Training leaders to think in uncertainty. Cognitive dispersion requires a mindset shift. Most leaders are trained to think in terms of clarity, synchronization, and tempo, and these qualities must remain at the forefront. But in a surveillance-saturated environment, opacity can sometimes be more valuable than speed, and asymmetry more useful than cohesion. Commanders must learn to think like deceivers, blending elements of maneuver warfare, mission command, and information operations into their design.

Doctrine supports this evolution. FM 6-0, Commander and Staff Organization and Operations, acknowledges the importance of decentralized execution and independent initiative.⁴⁶ JP 3-13.4, Army Support to Military Deception, stresses deceptions that “manipulate and exploit” adversary perceptions as a legitimate and necessary function.⁴⁷ While these capabilities can be improvised, as in the case of “Nuts”—the deliberate inculcation of them should be practiced, war-gamed, and institutionalized.

Cognitive dispersion, then, is not merely a conceptual layer atop physical and electromagnetic survival—it is the intellectual foundation for how forces stay unpredictable. It arms the commander with one final asymmetry: while the enemy seeks certainty, we trade in doubt.

Balancing Dispersion with Command and Control

Dispersion enhances survivability, but it also threatens coherence. As units spread out physically, obscure themselves electromagnetically, and deliberately create cognitive friction in adversary targeting, they risk introducing those same frictions into their own command relationships. The challenge for modern commanders is not just how to disperse but how to disperse deliberately, in a way that preserves agility, enables decision-making, and avoids fragmentation.⁴⁸

Dispersion versus disintegration. Joint doctrine makes clear that command and control is the critical connective tissue of operations. JP 1, vol. 2, The Joint Force, defines C2 as “the exercise of authority and direction by a properly designated commander over assigned and attached forces in the accomplishment of the mission.”⁴⁹ FM 6-0 and JP 3-0 both emphasize that C2 enables initiative, synchronization, and the unity of effort required to fight as a whole. But these same documents also warn that excessive dispersion can strain or even sever these bonds, especially when communications degrade or situational awareness lags behind movement.

Units that overdispersed during past operations often found themselves either isolated from higher command or unable to mass effects. In Ukraine, Russian formations that attempted decentralized or dispersed operations without sufficient C2 scaffolding were frequently defeated in detail.⁵⁰ (And this was compounded by the Russian inability to employ mission command and empower subordinate leaders to operate successfully without that C2 scaffolding.) Survivability depends not just on staying uncertain in the enemy assessment but on staying connected to friendly forces, at least connected enough to achieve a mission within the left and right limits given by higher command.

The “sweet spot” of operational dispersion. Finding the right level of dispersion—enough to confuse the enemy but not disorient the friendly force—should be considered part of the art of military operations. It requires the scientific military command tools of situational awareness, robust mission command, and adaptable planning.⁵¹ Working from that baseline, commanders must determine

• How dispersed can we be without breaking communications?
• What level of autonomy do subordinate elements require to make decisions?
• Where do we need physical or temporal convergence to maintain tempo or achieve mass?

The “sweet spot” lies at the intersection of survivability and effectiveness. Forces must remain disaggregated enough to complicate adversary ISR-targeting cycles yet aggregated enough to maintain unity of command and shared understanding, and achieve mission accomplishment through synchronized execution.⁵² This balance often shifts by phase, terrain, echelon, and risk tolerance.⁵³

Enabling distributed command. To operate in this space, units must build dispersion-aware C2 architectures. That means

• Mission command over micromanagement: empowering subordinates with clear intent and trust to act in uncertainty⁵⁴
• Layered communications plans: using a resilient PACE structure that spans radio, digital, civilian, and analog systems⁵⁵
• C2 redundancy and dislocation: employing multiple, mobile, low-signature command posts that can hand off control seamlessly—what the Army’s evolving multidomain operations framework calls mobile mission command⁵⁶

The aim is not to restore traditional C2 in dispersed conditions, it is to reinvent it. The most survivable force is not just the most spread out or the most silent. It is the one that remains coherent even when fragmented, adaptable even when degraded, and capable of imposing dilemmas faster than the enemy can resolve them.

Conclusion and Recommendations

In an era defined by algorithmic targeting, multidomain ISR saturation, and compressed decision cycles, the traditional view of dispersion as a merely spatial or defensive tactic is no longer sufficient. Dispersion must be reimagined as an active method of disruption—one that deliberately generates uncertainty across every domain the enemy uses to create targeting solutions.

The modern adversary is not simply looking for what it can see. It is looking for what it can understand with confidence. Every targeting system—whether human, machine, or hybrid—relies on clarity of function, value, continuity, risk, and location. A force that appears ambiguous, fragmented, or anomalous within that targeting framework does not disappear; it simply drops off the priority list. Survivability, in this sense, becomes not about vanishing but about misleading.

We have shown that this concept applies across three interrelated domains: physically, by avoiding predictable patterns and collocation that elevate targeting confidence; electromagnetically, by creating emissions patterns that are irregular, inconsistent, and intentionally confusing; and cognitively, by designing operations that challenge adversary expectations, doctrinal templates, and analytical workflows. Across all domains, the goal is the same: to blur the picture just enough that the enemy hesitates, just long enough that they shoot at something else.

To institutionalize dispersion as a generator of uncertainty, military planners and leaders should

• update doctrine and training to reflect dispersion not as absence, but as ambiguity;
• incorporate uncertainty-generation into combat training center rotations, warfighting functions, and war games;
• invest in C2 tools and architectures that allow for controlled chaos, enabling decentralized decision-making, elastic communications, and recoverable fragmentation;
• reframe emissions discipline from suppression to misdirection, leveraging emissions unpredictability as a survivability tool; and
• encourage creative deception at all echelons, not as a niche capability but as a core competency of maneuver warfare.

Future battlefields will reward the force that understands how the enemy thinks—and then deliberately undermines that thinking. Dispersion, in this light, is not the absence of presence, it is the presence of doubt. And doubt, skillfully introduced, can be the difference between a normal day’s work on the battlefield or taking a near-peer adversary’s strongest punch.

 

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Notes

• Epigraph. The author’s father used this common adage to amuse the author.

1. Benjamin Jensen and Jake S. Kwon, “The U.S. Army, Artificial Intelligence, and Mission Command,” War on the Rocks, 10 March 2025, https://warontherocks.com/2025/03/the-u-s-army-artificial-intelligence-and-mission-command/.
2. Army Techniques Publication (ATP) 6-0.5, Command Post Organization and Operations (U.S. Government Publishing Office [GPO], March 2017), 1-9, https://armypubs.army.mil/epubs/DR_pubs/DR_a/pdf/web/ATP%206-0_5%20(final).pdf.
3. Air Force Doctrine Publication (AFDP) 3-60, Targeting (Curtis E. LeMay Center for Doctrine Development and Education, November 2021), 5, https://www.doctrine.af.mil/Doctrine-Publications/AFDP-3-60-Targeting/.
4. Frank Hoffman, “The Contemporary Spectrum of Conflict: Protracted, Gray Zone, Ambiguous, and Hybrid Modes of War,” Heritage Foundation, 5 October 2015, https://www.heritage.org/military-strength-topical-essays/2016-essays/the-contemporary-spectrum-conflict-protracted-gray.
5. Field Manual (FM) 3-60, Army Targeting (U.S. GPO, August 2023), 5-7, https://armypubs.army.mil/epubs/DR_pubs/DR_a/ARN39048-FM_3-60-000-WEB-1.pdf.
6. Charles Faint and Michael Harris, “F3EAD: Ops/Intel Fusion ‘Feeds’ the SOF Targeting Process,” Small Wars Journal, 31 March 2012, https://archive.smallwarsjournal.com/jrnl/art/f3ead-opsintel-fusion-%E2%80%9Cfeeds%E2%80%9D-the-sof-targeting-process.
7. Rich Farnell and Kira Coffey, “AI’s New Frontier in War Planning: How AI Agents Can Revolutionize Military Decision-Making,” Belfer Center, 11 October 2024, https://www.belfercenter.org/research-analysis/ais-new-frontier-war-planning-how-ai-agents-can-revolutionize-military-decision.
8. AFDP 3-60, Targeting, 26.
9. Jack Watling, Supporting Command and Control for Land Forces on a Data-Rich Battlefield (Royal United Services Institute [RUSI], 27 July 2023), 41, https://www.rusi.org/explore-our-research/publications/occasional-papers/supporting-command-and-control-land-forces-data-rich-battlefield.
10. Army Doctrine Publication 3-90, Offense and Defense (U.S. GPO, July 2019), 4-16, https://armypubs.army.mil/epubs/DR_pubs/DR_a/ARN34828-ADP_3-90-000-WEB-1.pdf.
11. Jack Watling, “The Mirage of the Interconnected Battlefield,” Modern War Institute at West Point, 21 January 2022, https://mwi.westpoint.edu/the-mirage-of-the-interconnected-battlefield/.
12. AFDP 3-60, Targeting, 25.
13. Joint Publication (JP) 3-0, Joint Campaigns and Operations (U.S. GPO, June 2022), I-1, https://jdeis.js.mil/jdeis/new_pubs/jp3_0.pdf.
14. FM 3-0, Operations (U.S. GPO, March 2025), 4, 14, 27. https://armypubs.army.mil/epubs/DR_pubs/DR_a/ARN43326-FM_3-0-000-WEB-1.pdf.
15. AFDP 3-60, Targeting, 42.
16. Kateryna Bondar, “Understanding the Military AI Ecosystem of Ukraine,” Center for Strategic and International Studies, November 2024, https://www.csis.org/analysis/understanding-military-ai-ecosystem-ukraine.
17. FM 3-0, Operations, 36.
18. Author’s personal observation.
19. JP 3-0, Joint Campaigns and Operations, A-3; FM 3-0, Operations, 62.
20. FM 3-0, Operations, 62.
21. U.S. Department of Defense, Military and Security Developments Involving the People’s Republic of China 2023: Annual Report to Congress (U.S. Department of Defense, 2023), 92, https://media.defense.gov/2023/Oct/19/2003323409/-1/-1/1/2023-MILITARY-AND-SECURITY-DEVELOPMENTS-INVOLVING-THE-PEOPLES-REPUBLIC-OF-CHINA.PDF.
22. FM 3-0, Operations, 62, 154.
23. U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC) Pamphlet (TP) 525-3-1, The U.S. Army in Multi-Domain Operations 2028 (TRADOC, 6 December 2018), 31. https://adminpubs.tradoc.army.mil/pamphlets/TP525-3-1.pdf.
24. Ryan McGovern, “Adapting to Multi-Domain Battlefield: Developing Emissions Control SOP,” U.S. Army, 22 April 2025, https://www.army.mil/article/284546/adapting_to_multi_domain_battlefield_developing_emissions_control_sop.
25. McGovern, “Adapting to Multi-Domain Battlefield.”
26. TP 525-3-1, The U.S. Army in Multi-Domain Operations 2028, 29.
27. JP 3-13.4, Military Deception (U.S. GPO, 2012), I-6, https://jfsc.ndu.edu/Portals/72/Documents/JC2IOS/Additional_Reading/1C3-JP_3-13-4_MILDEC.pdf.
28. JP 3-12, Cyberspace Operations (U.S. GPO, June 2018), I-2, https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/document/16681-joint-chiefs-staff-joint-publication-3-12; JP 6-0, Joint Communications (U.S. GPO, December 2023), I-3, https://jdeis.js.mil/jdeis/new_pubs/jp6_0.pdf.
29. FM 3-0, Operations, 100.
30. Jack Watling, “The Tactical Opportunities and Risks of Mobile Phones,” RUSI, 6 September 2024, https://www.rusi.org/explore-our-research/publications/rusi-defence-systems/tactical-opportunities-and-risks-mobile-phones.
31. FM 6-02, Signal Support to Operations (U.S. GPO, September 2019), 4-7, https://armypubs.army.mil/epubs/DR_pubs/DR_a/pdf/web/ARN19185_FM%206-02_FINAL_WEB.pdf
32. FM 6-02, Signal Support to Operations, A-1.
33. FM 6-02, Signal Support to Operations, A-1.
34. AFDP 3-85, Electromagnetic Spectrum Operations (Curtis E. LeMay Center for Doctrine Development and Education, December 2023), 9, https://www.doctrine.af.mil/Portals/61/documents/AFDP_3-85/AFDP%203-85%20Electromagnetic%20Spectrum%20Ops.pdf.
35. AFDP 3-13, Information in Air Force Operations (Curtis E. LeMay Center for Doctrine Development and Education, February 2023), 13, https://www.doctrine.af.mil/Portals/61/documents/AFDP_3-13/3-13-AFDP-INFO-OPS.pdf
36. Zac Rogers, U.S. Army Mad Scientist Initiative, “158. In the Cognitive War - the Weapon Is You!,” Mad Scientist Laboratory (blog), TRADOC, 1 July 2019, https://madsciblog.tradoc.army.mil/158-in-the-cognitive-war-the-weapon-is-you/.
37. JP 2-0, Joint Intelligence (U.S. GPO, 5 July 2022), IV-15.
38. TP 525-3-1, The U.S. Army in Multi-Domain Operations 2028, 29.
39. JP 5-0, Joint Planning (U.S. GPO, July 2025), C-2, https://jdeis.js.mil/jdeis/new_pubs/jp5_0.pdf.
40. FM 3-13, Information Operations (U.S. GPO, December 2016), 2-3, https://armypubs.army.mil/epubs/DR_pubs/DR_a/pdf/web/FM%203-13%20FINAL%20WEB.pdf.
41. FM 3-13, Information Operations, 1-3.
42. For example, see Wikipedia, “Operation Fortitude,” last modified 31 July 2025, 18:01 (UTC), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Fortitude. Allied forces used inflatable tank, radio and dummy headquarters decoys ahead of D-Day.
43. For example, see Wikipedia, “Operation Titanic,” last modified 9 May 2025, 22:40 (UTC), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Titanic. The Royal Air Force use of dummy parachutists and sonic deception during Normandy invasion.
44. For example, see Wikipedia, “Operation Chettyford,” last modified 5 June 2025, 10:18 (UTC), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Chettyford. The Allies employed an Italian front decoy headquarters, phantom radio traffic to distract Axis reserves.
45. Paul Szoldra, “Surrounded. Low on Supplies. Freezing. The Nazis Demanded His Surrender. He Replied: ‘Nuts!,’” Task and Purpose, 22 December 2020, https://taskandpurpose.com/history/us-army-nuts-bastogne-surrender/.
46. FM 6-0, Commander and Staff Organization and Operations (U.S. GPO, May 2022), 5-1, https://armypubs.army.mil/epubs/DR_pubs/DR_a/ARN35404-FM_6-0-000-WEB-1.pdf.
47. FM 3-13.4, Army Support to Military Deception (U.S. GPO, February 2019), 1-7, https://armypubs.army.mil/epubs/DR_pubs/DR_a/ARN15310-FM_3-13.4-000-WEB-2.pdf.
48. JP 3-0, Joint Campaigns and Operations, IV-47–IV-48.
49. JP 1, The Joint Force, vol. 2 (U.S. GPO, 19 June 2020), GL-4.
50. Michael Kofman and Rob Lee, “Not Built for Purpose: The Russian Military’s Ill-Fated Force Design,” War on the Rocks, 2 June 2022, https://warontherocks.com/2022/06/not-built-for-purpose-the-russian-militarys-ill-fated-force-design/.
51. FM 6-0, Commander and Staff Organization and Operations, 1-3.
52. JP 3-0, Joint Campaigns and Operations, III-40.
53. JP 3-0, Joint Campaigns and Operations, II-08.
54. JP 6-0, Joint Communications, I-3.
55. JP 6-0, Joint Communications, viii.
56. TP 525-3-1, The U.S. Army in Multi-Domain Operations 2028, F-2.

 

 

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