What is Rapid Dominance?
Rapid Dominance is the full use of capabilities within a system of systems that can decisively impact events requiring the application of military/defense resources through affecting the adversary's will. Rapid Dominance envisions execution in real or near real time to counter actions or intentions deemed detrimental to U.S. interests. On one end of the spectrum, Rapid Dominance would introduce a regime of Shock and Awe in areas of high value to the threatening individual, group, or state. In many cases the prior knowledge of credible U.S. Rapid Dominance capabilities would act as a deterrent. Rapid Dominance would ensure favorable early resolution of issues at minimal loss of lives and collateral damage. The concept ideally should be able to impact adversarial situations that apply across the board, addressing high-, mid-, low-, and no-technology threats. Some of these aims may not be achievable given the political and technology constraints, but need to be explored.
Rapid Dominance expands the art of joint combined arms war fighting capabilities to a new level. Rapid Dominance requires a sophisticated, interconnected, and interoperable grid of netted intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance, communications systems, and data analysis to deliver in real time, actionable information to the shooter. This network must provide total situational awareness and nodal analysis that enables U.S. forces to act inside the adversary's decision loop in a manner that on the high end produces Shock and Awe among the threat parties. Properly detailed nodal analysis of this grid of knowledge and vulnerability will enable the shutting down of specific or all essential functions nearly simultaneously. We expect that through these netted pieces of data, often, the sum of the parts will yield profound battlefield advantages to the possessor. The "Rapid" part of the equation becomes the ability to get real time actionable targeting information to the shooter, whether the shooter is a tank division, an individual tank, an artillery battery, an individual rifleman, a naval battle group, an individual ship, an air wing/squadron, or an aircraft in flight. At whatever unit level, Shock and Awe are magnified by the speed and effectiveness of targeting. The ability to achieve Rapid Dominance simultaneously throughout the battlefield will create strategic Shock and Awe on the opposing forces, their leadership, and society. When the video results of these attacks are broadcast real time worldwide on CNN, the positive impact on coalition support and negative impact on potential threat support can be decisive.
The top priority of Rapid Dominance should be to deter, alter, or affect those actions that are either unacceptable to U.S. national security interests or endanger the democratic community of states and access to free markets. These political objectives are generally those envisioned in the major and lesser regional conflict scenarios (MRC & LRC). Should deterrence fail, the application of Rapid Dominance should create sufficient Shock and Awe to intimidate the enemy forces and leadership as well as provide a clear message for other potential aggressors. Rapid Dominance would not be limited to MRC and LRC scenarios. It has application in a variety of areas, including countering WMD, terrorism, and other political problems. The challenge is that should deterrence fail, the execution of a response based on Rapid Dominance must be proportional to the threat yet decisive enough to convey the appropriate degree of Shock and Awe. Rapid Dominance cannot solve all or even most of the world's problems. It initially appears that Rapid Dominance should be applied sparingly for egregious threats or violations of international law, such as:
- Blatant aggression involving a large state crushing a small state
- Rogue leader/state sponsored terrorism/use of WMD
- Egregious violations of human rights on a large scale
- Threat to essential world markets
Clearly the Information Highway is crossing all sovereign borders and penetrating even the most closed societies. The inequities and benefits in closed societies are becoming known to both the public as well as the bosses. The requirement for Rapid Dominance to develop sophisticated capabilities to penetrate the Information Highway and create road blocks as well as control input/outputs to the highway both overtly and covertly is fundamental to the concept.
These same techniques also apply to law enforcement agencies targeting international crime and drug cartels using the highway. Closer interagency cooperation and coordination between military and law enforcement activities and capabilities must be established. Experience with the military involvement in the drug war revealed considerable cultural differences between these organizations. Overcoming these cultural differences is not easy. The required trust and confidence for sharing sensitive information and support between these agencies and the military needs to be developed further. Interagency coordination and cooperation must be raised to a new level of sophistication. Some laws may need to be changed. War in Cyberspace does not recognize domestic versus foreign boundaries. In this environment the subjects of Information Warfare and Information In Warfare take on new meaning and require focused development. We must become proficient within this environment.
This breakdown of traditional boundaries requires a great deal more thought with regard to the issues of security, vulnerabilities (their's and our's), and the concept of Rapid Dominance. Does Rapid Dominance apply only or mostly to the high end of the spectrum, involving more traditional applications of force to achieve political objectives as envisioned in the MRC and LRC scenarios? Yet to be explored is the degree to which a concept of Rapid Dominance applies to OOTW, countering terrorism against U.S. interests, controlling rogue states/leaders, etc. What are the political and military prerequisites to apply Rapid Dominance? Are they applicable and realistically achievable in the increasingly complex interaction of national governments/law enforcement organizations and international as well as local private venture or non-government organizations (PVOs/NGOs) present worldwide to provide health and humanitarian care to refugees and other disenfranchised people? Would the concept of Rapid Dominance offend and generate a counterproductive public relations backlash from those who believe force should only be used as a last resort and then with a measurable degree of proportionality?
At this point, one can only raise these types of issues to be addressed at a later date. This line of questions, concerns, and issues, as well as a host of others, needs to be raised up front during the concept development phase of the development of specific Mission Capability Package concepts. We must be careful that we do not overvisualize Rapid Dominance versus the reality of credible/affordable capabilities to execute the concept. Rapid Dominance does not eliminate the fog of war. Decisions will still be made on the leader's judgment and confidence in the intelligence provided, the estimate of threat intentions, knowledge of true center of gravity targets, and confidence in our own force capabilities to inflict Shock and Awe. In fact, the ability to penetrate this fog is the key to Rapid Dominance. Complicating the issue is the fact that the U.S. has not clearly defined its role in the post-Cold War era. As the world's only credible superpower, the U.S. can not avoid a leadership role, but neither can it avoid the focused criticism applied to all leaders. We are in the classical "damned if we do and damned if we don't" syndrome. One of the serious side effects of Rapid Dominance could be that if you adapt a strategy of Rapid Dominance and succeed, you may now own the problem and be responsible for the solution. Do we know the funding tail to such a policy and are we as a nation ready to accept this cost when/if Rapid Dominance is applied in situations that are less than of vital interest? This subject needs further development beyond the limitations of this book.