Marine Corps Gen. Joe Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, recently called for adaptive changes to the military’s command and control system based on cyber and outer-space threats, as well as the proliferation of advanced missile capabilities, all of which weaken the ability to isolate warfare to foreign battlefields away from the homeland.
“My whole argument about trans-regional, multi-domain, multi-functional fight is recognition that the character of war has changed, not the nature, but the character,” Dunford said. “It’s changed because of cyber capabilities, space capabilities, ballistic missile capabilities, intercontinental missile capabilities.”
Dunford used the Korean Peninsula as an example, arguing that response to any conflict there would no longer be isolated overseas to U.S. Forces Korea. Instead, U.S. Pacific Command, U.S. Northern Command, U.S. Cyber Command and U.S. Strategic Command would all likely become involved, and many of those commands also would deal with concurrent security concerns in other regions. Dunford advocated for a system that would allow for a delegation of responsibility from the defense secretary to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who could lead efforts to integrate U.S. forces.
“The character of war has changed, so we should adapt to the character of war, and by changing the organizational construct of the Joint Staff,” Dunford said. “We’re talking minutes of decision-making space. Can we do it today? Sure. But I would argue if we can cut the decision space down from six minutes to four, that’s actually geometric, and the implications are profound. It increases the probability that the American people would be safe.”
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