Indian Strategic Studies: 10/23/24

23 October 2024

Pen, Politics, and Power: How China and India Wield Soft Power through Education Diplomacy in South Asia

Nirjan Rai, Saumitra Neupane, and Anurag Acharya

INTRODUCTION

1.1 Soft Power and Education Diplomacy

As powerful nations compete for regional and global influence, they employ a complex blend of hard and soft power strategies in their foreign policies. While the use of hard power—from economic sanctions to weapons of war—has become somewhat controversial in today’s global order, it remains an important tool for diplomacy, as evidenced by the fact that the world now spends more on military expenditures than ever before.1 However, powerful countries only resort to these instruments of coercion if they feel that such drastic measures are necessary, such as in the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

In contrast, soft power is an approach to foreign policy that is widely accepted and even encouraged. While the practice of this form of diplomacy is not a new phenomenon, the term itself was only coined in the 1990s by Joseph Nye to mean “the ability to affect others to obtain the outcome one wants through attraction rather than coercion or payment.”2 Essentially, the goal of soft power is to change the preferences of others and persuade them to accept your objectives without the use of fear or force.

Why Russia Doesn’t Think the Taliban Are Terrorists Anymore - opinion

Ruchi Kumar

There are only a handful of places a minister in the Taliban’s de facto Afghan government can fly to these days, and Russia is one of them. Taliban Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi was invited to Moscow earlier this month to participate in the sixth meeting of the Consultations on Afghanistan hosted by the Russian government.

Known simply as the Moscow Format, the meeting also saw the participation of regional stakeholders including China, India, Iran, Pakistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. Among the issues discussed were regional and global security concerns, the development of economic and trade opportunities, and humanitarian support for Afghanistan.

The Taliban took control of Afghanistan in 2021 and their government is yet to receive official recognition by any country. But despite lacking legitimacy, the insurgent group has managed to gather allies in the region. Earlier this year, Beijing became the first government to officially accept diplomatic credentials from a Taliban-appointed envoy. They were soon followed by the UAE and, more recently, Uzbekistan, just days after the Moscow format.

The Upside to Uncertainty on Taiwan

James B. Steinberg

By almost universal agreement, the Taiwan Strait has emerged as the most combustible flash point in the world. In recent years, China has dramatically increased the scale and intensity of its military operations around Taiwan, responding to what it claims are provocations by the island’s government and the United States. Taiwan, in turn, has increased its defense budget and enhanced its military preparedness, while the United States has upped the pace of its military activity in the region. Pundits, scholars, and even government officials spin out a dizzying array of apocalyptic scenarios involving Taiwan, from economic blockades that crash the global economy to a superpower nuclear war, whether triggered by an intentional invasion of Taiwan or an accidental collision of ships or aircraft. In a 2022 phone call with U.S. President Joe Biden, Chinese leader Xi Jinping issued a stark warning about the island: “Those who play with fire will perish by it.”

Not surprisingly, this sense of impending doom has spawned a flurry of policy prescriptions to avoid calamity. Some have called on the United States to make an unequivocal commitment to defend Taiwan (including with nuclear weapons, if need be) and declare that the island is not part of China. Others have focused on enhancing Taiwan’s defenses, offering vivid metaphors such as turning the island into a hard-to-swallow “porcupine” or creating an impassable “boiling moat” around it. A much smaller number of analysts have advocated cutting a deal with Beijing in which Washington ends its commitment to defending Taiwan and the island is left to fend for itself. Although the proponents of each boldly assert the superiority of their approach, the reality is that all these proposals are fraught with risk and uncertainty. All present difficult tradeoffs between competing U.S. interests and values.

Latest Taiwan drills show off PLA deterrence

Jeff Pao

The Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) launched and completed the Joint Sword-2024B Exercise near Taiwan on Monday with a strong focus on deterring the United States from intervening in any possible battles in the Taiwan Strait.

The Eastern Theater Command of the PLA said Monday it had deployed the Liaoning aircraft carrier group to conduct exercises, along with its army, navy, air force and rocket force troops, on vessel-aircraft collaboration, joint air control and strikes on sea and land targets in the waters and airspace to the east of Taiwan.

”The drills aim to test the joint combat capabilities of multiple services in integrated operations inside and outside the island chain,” said Li Xi, spokesperson of the Eastern Theater Command.

He added that the drills, conducted in the Taiwan Strait and the north, south and east of the island of Taiwan, are a powerful deterrent to the separatist activities of “Taiwan independence” elements, and are legitimate and necessary actions to safeguard national sovereignty and national unity.

How China’s Iran support could spark a Persian Gulf energy war

Gordon G. Chang

In a statement carried by state television on Oct. 1, Iran’s military vowed to attack energy infrastructure in the Middle East if the U.S. or its partners ramp up support of Israel.

In September 2019, drone attacks significantly damaged facilities operated by Saudi Aramco, Saudi Arabia’s state-owned oil company. Tehran, which denied responsibility, is widely believed to have been behind the strikes, which were launched from Yemen by Iran-backed Houthi militants. Moreover, the Houthis, Iranian proxies, have carried out persistent attacks on Red Sea shipping, including oil tankers.

As the war in the Middle East spreads, the possibility of disruption of global energy markets grows. Tensions have driven up oil in recent days, and some predict historically high prices if the Strait of Hormuz is blocked.

Some fear that Israel will soon destroy Iran’s oil ports and other facilities. Gulf states, worried about retaliatory strikes on their energy sites, have been lobbying Washington to persuade Israel not to hit oil targets in Iran.

The View From the Ground: China’s Evolving Strategy in South and Central Asia

Sophia Nina Burna-Asefi

In the middle of the Pamir mountains, near the remote Tajik-Afghan border area of Badakhshan, I find myself staring at a large red banner with Chinese text that says “China Aid: Shared Humanity.” Beside it, another reads, “Belt and Road, win-win with you!” The phrases land with a soft thud. The intensity of the first banner’s red color stands boldly against the dusty gray mountain rock. You couldn’t miss it.

This was not the first time I saw banners promoting the building of China’s “community of common destiny.” Not only in Tajikistan but in the rest of the “Belt and Road cities” across South and Central Asia, the Chinese presence was notable and poignant. Although often limited to infrastructure construction sites, industrial zones, and Chinese restaurants, huge logos with Chinese characters also hung on unfinished buildings.

The slogans come from the Chinese President Xi Jinping’s concept for a “community of common destiny for mankind” (人类命运共同体). As I found, the strategic branding of Chinese Belt and Road projects were not the only tactics being deployed by China to build influence in the South and Central Asia region.

Is a Full-Scale Middle East War Already Here?

Kenneth M. Pollack

Many analysts watching the conflict in the Middle East have warned that the present fighting could escalate further. At the moment, such fears are concentrated on the prospect of a war between Iran and Israel.

Of course, that war is already underway. Iran has launched two direct attacks on Israel, while Israel has carried out one strike in response and is almost certainly preparing a second. A half dozen Iranian allies and proxies have attacked Israel, including in terrorist assaults; Israel has assassinated a passel of key Iranian leaders; and both sides have carried out cyber strikes.

The Collapse of the Khamenei Doctrine

Arash Azizi

A year of conflict in the Middle East has destroyed the foreign-policy approach of Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. His strategy was always implausible, but its collapse has led Iran to the brink of its first international war since 1988.

What I like to call the Khamenei Doctrine—those close to him have variously dubbed it “strategic patience” or, more to the point, “no peace, no war”—rests on a duality that has remained constant through Khamenei’s 35 years in power. Iran refuses any public dealings with Israel, clamoring instead for the Jewish state’s destruction and surrounding it with Arab militias that seek to destroy it. Iranian officials deny the Holocaust and chant “Death to America” at events and ceremonies. And yet, at no point does Khamenei intend to get into a direct conflict with Israel or the United States—because he knows very well that such a confrontation could be fatal for his regime.

So what is the point of holding this contradictory posture? Khamenei is a true fanatic. He forged his beliefs as a revolutionary in the 1960s, when he read Sayyid Qutb and Mao Zedong. But he isn’t blind or stupid. Rather, he is patient and pragmatic. He appears to have accepted that his dream of destroying Israel won’t be realized in his lifetime, but he remains ideologically committed to it as a long-term goal for Islamists across generations. He has declared that Israel won’t exist in 2040—a year he will see only if he lives to be more than 100. But he seeks to advance the cause to the extent he can, building the strength of Israel’s enemies, and then handing off the task to his successors.

Iran’s Latest Miscalculation Could Prove Fatal – OpEd

Richard Rousseau

Iran’s attack on Israel on October 1 is undoubtedly the greatest military blow ever dealt to Israel. Unlike Iran’s first direct strike on Israeli territory in April of this year, the salvo of nearly 200 ballistic and hypersonic missiles – even if almost all of them were intercepted – represented a serious and uncalculated escalation, in the knowledge that Iran had given no advance warning, as it did the last time.

Iran described the attack as defensive, targeting only three Israeli military sites, and as a response to Israel’s assassination of militant leaders and its aggression in Lebanon and Gaza. However, this action indicates a shift in Iran’s position and a new willingness to risk an avoidable war in its ongoing efforts to carve out a dominant role in the region.

Israel masterfully eliminated Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, along with numerous top lieutenants, local commanders, and even foot soldiers. It came barely a year after the Hamas attack on southern Israel, considered the most serious threat to the Israeli state in its 75-year existence. This act, however, likely dealt a severe blow to Iran, which no longer adheres to the customary rules of engagement and asymmetric warfare that have prevailed in the Middle East for over thirty years.

Israel’s offensive against Hezbollah is working, and the West should back it fully

Dan Perry

In a statement that should have received more attention, Lebanon’s prime minister recently said that the country is ready to implement UN Security Council resolutions that would end Hezbollah as an armed force.

This reflects Israel’s success in its offensive against the Iran-backed group after a year in which it absorbed countless Hezbollah rocket attacks. The world should support this wholeheartedly, and help.

Instead, President Biden seems fixated on avoiding “escalation.” And President Emanuel Macron of France, whose country was the colonial master in Lebanon and thus should know better what goes on there, chose to hypocritically call for a cease-fire last week. These positions appear to have enormous public support, at least among younger people and on social media.

So the world needs to be reminded of a fundamental truth: Hezbollah is the enemy of Lebanon. Its defeat would be a huge favor to the Lebanese, and to a functioning world order. Whereas the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is complex overall and bears some moral ambiguity, Israel is completely in the right in its campaign against Hezbollah.

Unwinnable Wars, Risks of Escalation, and the Nuclear Taboo

Pavel K. Baev

The announcement of the Nobel Peace Prize on October 11 coincided with a dangerous phase in two long wars—Israel’s war against Hamas and Hezbollah and Russian President Vladimir Putin’s war on Ukraine—that are both poised for escalation. Israel is set to deliver a strike on Iran in retaliation for the largest-ever attack by some 180 Iranian ballistic missiles, which primarily targeted Israeli airbases—and scored very few hits (TopWar.ru, October 8). Russia is pondering potential responses to Ukrainian long-distance strikes with Western weapon systems; this has not yet been authorized, but such a move is seen as inevitable by Moscow (Nezavisimaya Gazeta, October 9). The Norwegian Nobel Committee elected to hail a Japanese non-governmental organization’s project of preserving the tragic memory of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. This points at the crucial importance of preserving the “nuclear taboo”—the international norm against the first use of nuclear weapons (Kommersant, October 11).

The Nobel Prize decision was announced during Russian President Vladimir Putin and Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian’s meeting in Ashgabat, Turkmenistan, to discuss the finalization of a treaty on advanced strategic partnership and the expansion of military ties, the latter of which both parties denied (Izvestiya, October 11). By coincidence, another dictator—Kim Jong Un of North Korea—found the same day opportune for sending an “ultimatum” to South Korea to reinforce his earlier statements about the country’s readiness to use nuclear weapons (Interfax, October 4; RBC, October 11). These three autocrats cannot form anything resembling an alliance because their fundamental interests are exclusively about their own survival and grasp on power, but they have much in common. This is especially so with regard to their urge to assert that each rogue country’s aggressive behavior will not be deterred by Western resolve to punish transgressions against international norms, including the nuclear taboo.

Stopping Russia might take more than ‘offering’ peace

Gabriel Elefteriu

With Ukraine’s situation becoming increasingly precarious, it is time to confront, head-on, the most dangerous of the many illusions entertained by the Western strategic community in relation to this war: the notion that peace is in Ukraine’s and the West’s gift to “give”, and up to Russia to “accept”.

The old world

There was a time – perhaps from mid-2022 to late 2023 – when this appeared as a reasonable proposition. Ukraine had done the impossible and survived the initial Russian blow; it had then moved swiftly on the counter-attack – helped by key deliveries of foreign weapons, especially American HIMARS – rolling back the Russians in Kharkiv and Kherson.

The prestige of the valiant Ukrainians and of president Zelensky himself were at their zenith. Almost the entire Western world had mobilised in support of the embattled Eastern European nation. Financial and military aid was flowing in; even Germany’s obstructionism was breaking down, one weapon system at a time. The immediate sanctions slapped on Russia after 24 February 2022 were being further strengthened into the strongest system of sanctions ever devised.

'The first technological war': Inside the IDF Southern Command's digital battlefield systems

LIOR NOVIK

During the "Swords of Iron" war, technology became a cornerstone of the IDF's operational activities, with digital systems and technological innovations contributing significantly to combat management and supporting ground forces.

In an era of multi-branch warfare, where coordination between forces is critical, the Southern Command has become a pioneer in data utilization, implementing smart systems, and enhancing field capabilities and operational control.

"We are a body focused on data utilization within the command headquarters and its units," Lt. Col. Alex Lidogoster, commander of the Big Data Unit in the Southern Command, said. "The Southern Command is a pioneer among the regional commands in these fields. During the war, many ideas sprouted here, but not all of them came to fruition. However, we achieved dozens of outcomes. Some are related to data collection, some to data organization, and the broader category focuses on data utilization."

Lidogoster highlighted four key capabilities developed in the Southern Command over the past year of war.

Jerusalem’s Long War

Benjamin Sanders

Over the last year, Israel has decimated Hamas’s regime in the Gaza Strip. The terrorist organisation showed no remorse after its invasion of Israel last October. Of course, the victorious proclamations that followed the massacres in Israeli settlements soon turned to pathetic protestations of victimhood when Benjamin Netanyahu’s government struck back. Over the last year, the IDF has systematically dismantled and routed Hamas’s military capabilities, yet the concern now is what comes next, as Egypt has deployed its military along the Gaza border to prevent any refugees from leaving. This could have left the Israelis in a familiar situation, able to defeat the enemy, yet having to wait for the problem to reemerge once again. The idea of Palestinians being moved to other Islamic countries is considered a faux pas in polite company, so this has never been discussed seriously as an option. Thankfully, Netanyahu’s government—unlike previous conflicts against Hamas—have finally implemented lasting change. They have split the Gaza strip into several zones, which will prevent Islamists from re-arming, whilst allowing food and other commodities through checkpoints.

This policy is shaped by the realisation that Israel’s calculations have now changed. The delusion that they could live next to territory controlled by Hamas has been shattered, and no prime minister who presides over a similar invasion will be forgiven. With this in mind, Netanyahu’s government voted in late August to keep troops in the Philadelphi corridor, a narrow strip of land 100 yards wide and nine miles long, which runs parallel to the Egyptian border. This will allow a robust control of the border areas and make tunnelling very difficult for any remaining militants.

The Russia-North Korea Alliance: A Hidden Opportunity for Washington

Will Kielm & Axel de Vernou

As tensions flare in the Middle East, with some calling for the destruction of Iran’s nuclear program, two other American adversaries are signaling that they are increasingly prepared to resort to their nuclear arsenals. Russian President Vladimir Putin revised Moscow’s nuclear doctrine, sanctioning the use of the atomic option in response to an attack supported by a nuclear power. A few days later, North Korea unveiled a uranium enrichment facility, accompanied by weapons equipped to fire long-range missiles.

These developments follow Putin’s declaration that Western long-range weapons firing into Russian territory would constitute an act of war. The past summer saw a series of warm meetings between Putin and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. In June, the two leaders signed a mutual defense pact that promised military aid to the party embroiled in war. Then, for the first time in 24 years, Putin visited Pyongyang to exchange gifts and positive assurances. Goats, artillery shells, and pledges for further cooperation were traded in August as Russia directed its attention to the Kursk oblast and North Korea attempted to mitigate its food shortages.

Biden is letting Israel and Ukraine call the shots

Daniel R. DePetris

Secretary of State Antony Blinken recently wrote a long piece for “Foreign Affairs” arguing that the Biden administration has put the U.S. back on the map as the guardian of the rules-based international order. This is a theme President Joe Biden has run with since his first month in office, when he gave a speech extolling the U.S. as the “indispensable nation” and promising stronger American leadership abroad.

Yet for all the talk about reasserting its leadership in the world, the U.S. is often remarkably hesitant to exhibit those leadership qualities when dealing with friendly states. In what is one of the most blatant paradoxes in international relations today, the strongest country in the world frequently finds itself being led by smaller powers whose interests and agendas contrast with its own.

The U.S. is a superpower seemingly stripped of agency, and American policy on Israel and Ukraine demonstrates this well.

THAAD Attitude: What to Make of the Air Defense System’s Combat Deployment to Israel

Peter Mitchell

In an unprecedented move, the Department of Defense announced over the holiday weekend that it would be deploying a Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) battery to Israel to assist in defending Israeli airspace against Iranian ballistic missiles. By the time you’re reading this, it’s almost certainly already operational.

The deployment of US air defense systems to an allied country isn’t what’s unprecedented. It isn’t even the deployment to Israel, specifically. THAAD participated in a joint readiness exercise on Nevatim Air Base and later at an undisclosed site in the Negev back in March 2019. And Patriot battalions have regularly rotated through the biannual Juniper Cobra missile defense exercise. What’s different this time is that the United States has never before overtly deployed troops to Israel during an ongoing war. The combat deployment of THAAD marks a significant step in US-Israeli integrated missile defense cooperation, but it is also sending a strategic signal to Iran and other regional actors. While THAAD provides a substantial asset in terms of air defense capabilities, three important takeaways go beyond the technical details and tactical significance.

Inside a secretive Ukrainian drone unit targeting Russian territory

Sebastian Shukla

The spluttering roar of a propeller punctuates the perfect silence. Car headlights flick on, splitting the darkness. Their beams reveal not just a section of tarmac ahead, but one of Ukraine’s most top-secret weapons, controlled by its most clandestine agency.

Stuck to the nose of the gray machine is a yellow emblem of an owl, wings spread and grasping a sword – the unmistakable logo of Ukraine’s defense intelligence, the GUR.

Two pilots sporting the same owl patches on their fatigues make their final checks inside the car before a thumbs up: “Let’s go!”

A high-speed, 50-second chase ensues, before the 13-foot long, 23-foot wingspan AN-196 Liutyi drone disappears in an instant into the inky-black Ukrainian night.

The drone’s destination is a target deep inside Russian territory.

CNN was granted unprecedented exclusive access to one of Ukraine’s long-range drone units, part of the GUR. Its members call themselves the Long-Range UAV Unit.

How the Army’s chief of staff plans to modernize the service

Jen Judson

The U.S. Army will ramp up its efforts to transform its formations with next-level technology including capabilities to counter drone threats much faster, Army Chief of Staff Gen. Randy George said at the Association of the U.S. Army’s annual conference Tuesday.

“We have to buy smart and fast,” George said in a speech at the annual Eisenhower luncheon. “Our budget is tight, our numbers are lean and that requires us to prioritize and make informed investments.”

When George became Army chief a year ago, he announced he would focus on using units in the field to transform the service “in contact,” putting capability into the hands of soldiers in realistic operational environments to advance things that work and scrap what doesn’t.

George said there are four major areas where “we will step on the gas” to continue the momentum established over the past year through a collection of initiatives to move faster, from working to obtain more flexible funding for specific capabilities to getting equipment into soldiers’ hands rapidly.

US Army rushes to boost defenses as Russia ups strike-drone autonomy

PATRICK TUCKER

Russia is giving its armed drones more autonomy as Ukraine’s defenses tighten, a dynamic that has the U.S. Army working harder to bulk up its own anti-drone and -missile systems, service and industry officials said.

Defense One caught up with Sgt. Maj. Kellen Rowley, the top enlisted leader of the 10th Army Air and Missile Defense Command, at the AUSA conference in Washington, D.C. We asked him whether Russia is increasingly relying on autonomy software for drone attacks in order to thwart defensive measures that target the connection between the weapons and their operators.

“They are,” Rowley said. “They are becoming more adaptive. We saw them struggle quite a bit with dynamic targeting. As time has gone on, they’ve adapted.”

He declined to comment further.

An official from Epirus, which makes advanced counter-drone defenses, said greater autonomy was a growing trend in Russian drone attacks on Ukraine.

The Time Is Right for Ally-Shoring, and It’s About More Than Being Friends

John Austin, Author and Elaine Dezenski

After decades of reflexive globalism and tolerance of authoritarian economic coercion, a new vision of U.S. international leadership is emerging. On both sides of the political spectrum, there is an awareness that the United States must increase its investments in people, innovation, and infrastructure to strengthen the economy at home, while enhancing trade, sourcing, and the global coproduction system with countries that share American values and want to strengthen a rules-based global economic and political order. This is an approach we call ally-shoring.

Investments at home are vitally important to bring opportunity to those people and places feeling increasingly left behind in the global economy, as we wrote when we first introduced the idea of ally-shoring. But not every industry, supply chain, or ingredient should be simply reshored back to the United States. That is neither efficient nor productive for the U.S. economy. Rather, the United States should be leading an economic alliance of like-minded nations in a sub-global economy built around transparency, democracy, individual freedoms, and support for the rules-based order.

Ally-shoring and friendshoring (as the Joe Biden administration calls it) have become new buzzwords to describe a global supply chain rewiring that is already underway. Ally-shoring is about building new pathways for enhanced cooperation between like-minded nations in producing critical supplies and collaborating in key sectors in which democratic nations seek to maintain strategic advantages (such as artificial intelligence, quantum computing, next-generation energy, and biotechnology).

Hacking the Cosmos: Cyber operations against the space sector. A case study from the war in Ukraine

Clémence Poirier

Introduction

A few hours prior to the Russian invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022, Russia’s military intelligence (GRU) launched a destructive cyberattack against ViaSat’s KASAT satellite network. In specific, the GRU targeted thousands of ViaSat’s SurfBeam 2 modems in Europe, which the Ukrainian Armed Forces depended upon for their internet satellite communications. First, the GRU carried out a Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack against the modems and then exploited a vulnerability in a misconfigured Virtual Private Network (VPN) application. The vulnerability granted the GRU remote access to the KA-SAT management segment and allowed it to execute management commands on a large number of SurfBeam 2 modems simultaneously. The GRU used this ability to deploy a wiper malware (dubbed AcidRain) to overwrite the memory of thousands of SurfBeam 2 modems which rendered them unusable.

The timing of the ViaSat hack prevented the Ukrainian military from using its internet satellite communications to coordinate its response to the Russian invasion. Additionally, the cyberattack also affected military and civilian customers, as well as other infrastructure across Europe. The ViaSat hack is an important example of an offensive cyber operation that has been conducted to prepare the kinetic battlefield for a conventional military incursion.1

Jamestown FoundationChina Brief, October 4, 2024, v. 24, no. 19

PRC at 75: Xi Makes Dour Address While Critics Articulate Bleak Outlook

Understanding the PRC’s Selective Use of Military Hotlines

Diplomacy with Chinese Characteristics: PRC Consulate Gray Zone ‘Pop-up’ Events in New York and Beyond

The Qin Gang Saga Reveals Security Gaps

PRC Fertilizer Export Controls Provoke Derisking Abroad

Make counter-drone training as routine as marksmanship: Army general

Todd South

Soldiers recently deployed to the Middle East often had less than a minute to decide how to take down an incoming drone.

A unit detecting, intercepting and destroying a drone often took less than four minutes, said Maj. Gen. Scott Naumann, commander of the 10th Mountain Division.

To meet that threat, the two-star is working with his unit and using a soldier-created tool to prepare troops to counter drones more effectively.

“Training [counter-drone] should be as routine as drawing our rifles, going to the range and honing our marksmanship skills,” Naumann said at the Maneuver Warfighter Conference at Fort Moore, Georgia, in September.

The 2nd Brigade Combat Team experienced 170 one-way drone attacks between August 2023 and April 2024, according to Naumann.

This division is learning what multidomain means for small units

Todd South

As the Army adjusts its forces to a new way of warfare — multidomain operations — the division and corps focus of the fight can lead some subordinate units wondering about their roles.

One Army division is finding ways to practice the Army’s newest multidomain doctrine with partners, at home station and using space assets to test the mettle of its company and battalion commanders.

Soldiers with the 4th Infantry Division at Fort Carson, Colorado, recently conducted the first division-level command post exercise as they prepare for their warfighter exercise in 2025.

The division planned a year ahead of this summer’s events, all to tie together Army National Guard, Marine Reserve, Air Force, Space Force, special operations forces and conventional units in a series of fast-paced fire missions.