Eschewing Mass: Dispersed Force Employment as a Counter to Anti- Access/Area Denial Challenges

摘要

Since the end of the Cold War, potential US adversaries have realized the importance of deterring, delaying or disrupting US force deployment to crisis regions. To meet these ends, potential US adversaries have developed strategic, operational, and tactical methods to deny US forces entry into strategically vital regions or force them to operate from greater than desired range. These Anti-Access/Area Denial (A2/AD) techniques inhibit freedom of maneuver for US JFCs, deny US forces' the ability to seize the initiative, and threaten the survival of US Joint Forces. In order to ensure the US a continued ability to influence strategically important regions via military instruments, US JFC's should develop a dispersed, synchronized operations concept. Dispersal denies potential US adversaries strategically lucrative targets, complicates enemy decision making, and allows US forces to mass effects against critical enemy centers of gravity. Dispersed, synchronized operations offer significant advantages over current massed, 'kick-the-door' in initiatives, and should be fully developed to include formalized doctrine, Theater Security Cooperation initiatives, supporting command-and-control techniques, and persistent Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance tools. These efforts are vital to ensure JFCs have the ability to project US military power into strategically vital regions in time of crisis.