Perspecti ve
Expert insights on a timely policy issue
August 2018
C O R P O R AT I O N
S
ince the end of the Cold War, the U.S. Army and the U.S.
Air Force have pursued separate and sometimes competing
visions of how air and ground power should be employed
to win wars. is interservice rivalry was allowed to sim-
mer while the nation focused on low-intensity counterinsurgency
operations and did not face a peer adversary. However, the emer-
gence of Russia and China as great-power competitors has brought
new urgency to the question of how the United States leverages its
air and ground—not to mention sea, space, and cyber—power to
prevail against a formidable adversary. e National Security Strat-
egy and National Defense Strategy envision the need for greater
coordination across warghting domains to meet future threats.
e Army, in collaboration with the Air Force, is developing the
concept of Multi-Domain Battle to better coordinate air and
ground forces to meet shared challenges.
1
Yet this is not the rst
time that the Army and the Air Force have sought closer collabora-
tion: In the 1980s, the Army’s 31 Initiatives and AirLand Battle
doctrine were similarly focused on closer Army and Air Force
cooperation to counter a perceived overmatch in Warsaw Pact capa-
bilities. How did these eorts proceed? Why did they not continue?
What lessons do they oer for today’s Multi-Domain Battle?
Multi-Domain Battle
Multi-Domain Battle is intended to wrest the advantage from
potential adversaries and restore a credible conventional deter-
rent and warghting capability against peer competitors.
2
General
David G. Perkins, until recently the commander of the U.S. Train-
ing and Doctrine Command (TRADOC), and General James
M. Holmes, commander, Air Force Combat Command (ACC)
coauthored the article “Multidomain Battle: Converging Concepts
Toward a Joint Solution,” stating that “TRADOC and ACC are
working collaboratively today to blend their warghting concepts
into a joint doctrine for the future.”
3
In an earlier article, “Multi-
Domain Battle: e Advent of Twenty-First Century War,” General
Shared Problems
The Lessons of AirLand Battle and the 31 Initiatives for Multi-Domain Battle
David E. Johnson
