US Ready To Fight Hybrid War By 2030

The US Army’s new draft strategy for 2025 to 2040 expects enemies to attack ever more lethally in multiple domains, land, sea, air, space, and cyber online, while blurring the distinction between peace and war.

To meet these foes, the strategy says, the Army of the future must be much more mobile, with small teams that can fight like today’s large units, and do it in every domain of warfare, simultaneously.

The Army’s Training and Doctrine Command, or TRADOC, creates guides that the Army uses to draft field manuals and train troops for tomorrow’s fights.

Last month they released a draft of their newest “concept document” that lays out the Army’s best guess about the enemy of the future.

Titled Multi-Domain Battle: Evolution of Combined Arms for the 21st Century, 2025-2040, it repeats one key point over and over again: Adversaries will make life as difficult as possible for US troops by not declaring themselves to be the enemy, or, as the concept puts it, by “combining regular and irregular forces with criminal and terrorist enterprises to attack the Joint Force’s vulnerabilities while avoiding its strength.”

That idea is not entirely new. The world got a great glimpse of what modern, blended warfare looks like when thousands of little green men invaded Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula in 2014.

“Adversaries have blurred the distinction between actions ‘below armed conflict’ and ‘conflict,’ enabling the achievement of strategic military objectives short of what the US traditionally considers ‘war,’” the document says.

The concept goes on to describe four other reasons the Army cannot successfully fight wars the way it has in the past:

1. The exponential speed of information technology. US forces can’t assume that they will have the best phones, drones, or computer hardware on the battlefield. As computers get smaller, cheaper, and more widely available, US tech advantages will disintegrate.

2. Warfare will be much more urban. Some 60 percent (conservatively) of the Earth’s population will live in cities in 2030, many in megacities with populations of more than 10 million. This is where adversaries will try to engage US forces, not in open fields or deserts where today’s Army and its enormous battle vehicles have the advantage.

3. The Internet will be a key aspect of the battlefield, not just in terms of trading cyber-attacks with enemy hackers but in the need to constantly and expertly shape global opinion about the conflict.

Troll armies spreading fake news and disinformation, coupled with enough social-media traffic to overwhelm open-source analysts, could “complicate the Army’s ability to gain and maintain an accurate, up-to-date, intelligence-driven understanding of the situation, as well as control of the information environment,” the document says.

4. Every bad guy becomes The Joker. The Army sees a rise of “Super-empowered individuals and small groups” who can “use access to cyberspace, space, and nuclear, biological, radiological, and chemical weapons of mass effects to change the battlespace calculus and redefine the conditions of conflict resolution.” Read that to mean: lone wolves and minuscule teams with the power to rival many of today’s nation-states.

Even the spread of personal phones and the Internet of Things will make US troops easier targets. “Unmanaged signatures will become a critical US vulnerability because the adversary’s forces will increasingly possess the ability to find and attack US and allied forces at strategic, operational, and tactical distances simultaneously,” the document says.

To fight in this environment, the US Army will move toward smaller, much more versatile, and more capable formations, somewhat like today’s special operations forces that can embark on a wide variety of missions.

These “semi-independent” formations won’t just be tasked with winning territory and holding it. They’ll have to do everything from flying drones (and defending against them) to shooting missiles deep into enemy territory (and getting the targeting data to do it) to outflanking the bad guys in cyberspace. And they’ll have to do it with less protection.

“Formations must maneuver semi-independently, without secured flanks, constant communications with higher headquarters, and continuous lines of communications,” the document says.

The “semi-independent” part is key. The Army still sees these smaller groups as connected to a much larger whole, perhaps even more so, but that doesn’t mean a return to large tank formations.

Nor does it mean that every tiny, mobile, Swiss-Army-knife formation will also carry an enormous missile battery. Rather, little teams will have to be able to access capabilities like drones and fire support from somewhere, but the capabilities themselves will likely be shared, similar to how people use Uber.

This idea of small, nimble, loosely connected nodes in sprawling networks fits well with what other services’ leaders have described as the future of the Navy and the Air Force.

It’s a future where every node become smaller, and where connections grow in number even as connectivity itself is challenged.

DefenseOne:

You Might Also Read:

Russian General Brags About Cyberwar Successes:

Cyber Warfare Opens A New Front Against Civilians:

How A Cyber Attack Transformed Estonia:

 

« Cyber Security Insurance
Where Should The Pentagon Focus In Cyberspace? »

CyberSecurity Jobsite
Perimeter 81

Directory of Suppliers

CYRIN

CYRIN

CYRIN® Cyber Range. Real Tools, Real Attacks, Real Scenarios. See why leading educational institutions and companies in the U.S. have begun to adopt the CYRIN® system.

MIRACL

MIRACL

MIRACL provides the world’s only single step Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) which can replace passwords on 100% of mobiles, desktops or even Smart TVs.

Resecurity, Inc.

Resecurity, Inc.

Resecurity is a cybersecurity company that delivers a unified platform for endpoint protection, risk management, and cyber threat intelligence.

North Infosec Testing (North IT)

North Infosec Testing (North IT)

North IT (North Infosec Testing) are an award-winning provider of web, software, and application penetration testing.

Perimeter 81 / How to Select the Right ZTNA Solution

Perimeter 81 / How to Select the Right ZTNA Solution

Gartner insights into How to Select the Right ZTNA offering. Download this FREE report for a limited time only.

F5 Networks

F5 Networks

F5 products ensure that network applications are always secure and perform the way they should—anywhere, any time, and on any device.

Australian Information Security Association (AISA)

Australian Information Security Association (AISA)

AISA champions the development of a robust information security sector by building professional capacity and advancing the cyber security of the public, business and governments in Australia.

InnoSec

InnoSec

InnoSec is a software manufacturer of cyber risk management technology.

Cask Government Services

Cask Government Services

Cask Government Services focuses on program management, cybersecurity, logistics, business analysis and engineering services for Federal, State and Local Government.

VIPRE Security Group

VIPRE Security Group

VIPRE Security Group is an award-winning global cybersecurity, privacy and data protection company.

Exponential-e

Exponential-e

Exponential-e provide Cloud and Unified Communications services and world-class Managed IT Services including Cybersecurity.

Intrinsyc Technologies

Intrinsyc Technologies

Intrinsyc provides product development services and Edge Computing modules that are helping to take the Internet of Things products to the next level.

NeuVector

NeuVector

NeuVector, the leader in Full Lifecycle Container Security, delivers uncompromising end-to-end security from DevOps vulnerability protection to complete protection in production.

Singular Security

Singular Security

Singular Security help public and private organizations minimize cybersecurity risk and pass their IT compliance audit.

RealCISO

RealCISO

RealCISO is a CISO grade cloud platform to help companies understand, manage, and mitigate their cyber risk.

Cybermerc

Cybermerc

Cybermerc's services, training programmes and cyber security solutions are designed to forge collaborations across industry, government and academia, for collective defence of our digital borders.

ByteSnipers

ByteSnipers

ByteSnipers specialize in penetration testings and secure development services. Our focus is on your security.

Allentis

Allentis

Allentis provide adapted solutions to ensure the security and performance of your information system.

Oort

Oort

Oort is an identity threat detection and response platform for enterprise security. The Oort platform is API-driven, cloud-native and agentless for rapid time to value and high scalability.

Corix Partners

Corix Partners

Corix Partners is a Boutique Management Consultancy Firm focused on assisting CIOs and other C-level executives in resolving Cyber Security Strategy, Organisation and Governance challenges.

Cythera

Cythera

Cythera is an Australian cyber security company with in-house cyber security professionals providing world-class cyber protection to medium to large companies all over Australia.