One + One = Zero? The Challenge of Battle Networks and Parallel Command Structures in a Bilateral Fight - Modern War Institute

Scott Blyleven 

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A week ago, the crisis became an armed conflict. The United States formed a joint task force and led a coalition of allies and partners, with the JTF establishing a joint operating area and assigned battlespace and authorities to subordinate task forces. However, due to national policy some of the battlespace was designated a bilateral operating area, in which the partner forces operated within a parallel command structure. Coordination centers were established to generate unity of effort, in the absence of unity of command. However, kill chains were not being closed. Bilateral intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance assets remained misunderstood, preventing integration. With no common intelligence picture, forces could not pass target custody. Several engagements were successful but came at a high cost in munition expenditure due to redundant targeting.

Individually, each nation had a plan to deliver lethal and nonlethal effects. But the bilateral efforts remained asynchronous.

The result: friendly losses and missed opportunities to defeat the adversary.

The vignette is not speculative fiction; it is the operational reality in the Pacific. A potential fight in that region will hinge on America and its allies’ ability to construct a bilateral battle network. The opening and closing of kill chains are complicated by parallel command structures, where countries retain command and control of their forces. These considerations, coupled with the decades-long work of building battle networks, can now move planning concepts to realized capabilities in the Pacific. In 2021, Todd Harrison, then a director and senior fellow at CSIS, identified five functional elements that comprise a battle network. The elements included sensor, communications, processing, decision, and effects. This battle network is another way to describe kill chains or a reconnaissance-strike network. While the crux of Harrison’s article was an examination of a unilateral US battle network, when we place the discussion in the context of bilateral (or multilateral) combat operations, we discover that battle networks organized in a parallel command structure will face substantial barriers hindering the completion of a dynamic targeting cycle. Against the backdrop of looming threats in the region and a significant shift in the United States’ expectations of its regional allies, building bilateral battle networks is now imperative.