The U.S. military doctrine of multidomain operations has a fundamental blind spot: it assumes that precision decapitation strikes at the outset of a campaign will cause the rapid collapse of enemy resistance. If that does not happen, there is no plan B — except to keep striking targets. This is the core critique from defense analysts Amos C. Fox and Franz-Stefan Gady.
As "Hvylya" reports, citing Foreign Policy, the two experts argue that multidomain operations — the Pentagon's premier warfighting concept — "widen, rather than narrow, the gap between the tactical, military level of warfare and the strategic, political one."
The doctrine envisions tightly coordinated, intelligence-led operations across air, land, sea, cyber, information, and space domains. The idea is to penetrate and disintegrate enemy systems with such speed and precision that adversaries cannot adapt fast enough to respond. But this approach presupposes "an almost perfect information environment and in-depth knowledge of the enemy" — conditions rarely achieved in actual combat.
Fox and Gady point to multiple real-world failures of standoff warfare to deliver quick decisions. The Allied bombing campaigns of World War II, precision strikes over the past two decades, and Israel's recent operations in Gaza all demanded costly ground operations and extended commitments that no amount of remote firepower could shortcut. Despite overwhelming conventional superiority, Israel was unable to force an enduring political settlement in Gaza.
The Russia-Ukraine war offers another cautionary example. Both sides possess drones, long-range fire, and sophisticated command systems, yet technological sophistication has not produced rapid, decisive results. Instead, the war has devolved into a grinding contest dominated by precision firepower that fails to achieve significant operational breakthroughs.
The analysts argue that the current Iran campaign is testing the same assumptions — and may produce the same result. What happens if the United States runs out of targets after a week of strikes and the Iranian regime has not collapsed? "Will the White House simply stop and call it a victory?" they ask. The doctrine, they warn, has no answer.
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