The Joint Force in a Contested and Disordered World

to deploy blockers and grapplers to impede the free operation of commercial and military satellites,
and they will use ASAT weapons launched at space assets from the ground as well as from other
satellites. Ultimately, this may generate space debris leading to a runaway chain reaction which
destroys other satellites and threatens the integrity of many important orbits.
The near-uncontested freedom to operate on the seas, through the air, in orbit and over the
electromagnetic spectrum has provided the United States with a high degree of freedom of
maneuver and the ability to securely trade with partners around the world. It has also when
necessary allowed the Joint Force to project power and concentrate force in order to effectively
conduct military activities on other continents. However, it is very unlikely that future adversaries
will allow U.S forces to move through the commons to forward positions and await a set-piece
U.S. onslaught as, for example, the Serbs or Iraqis did in the past. The next two decades will see
adversaries building the capacity to control approaches to their homelands through the commons,
and later, translating command of the nearby commons into the connective architecture for their
own power projection capabilities.
Use of the commons is central to influencing events abroad, and as the sea, air, space, and
electromagnetic capabilities of others grow, competitors will increasingly use the commons for
their own military purposes. In the future, the Joint Force will encounter “combined swarms”
featuring seabed, subsurface, surface, and aerial unmanned, autonomous platforms. These will be
used to observe more of the commons at high resolution and complicate defensive efforts.
Conflicts in the commons will feature repeated attempts by adversaries to mutually disrupt one
another’s power projection capabilities – often from great distances, and to develop and safely use
bases at home and within the commons themselves to influence events on land.
Context 5: A Contest for Cyberspace
The United States depends on an interdependent network of information technology that includes
the Internet, telecommunications networks, computer systems, embedded processors and
controllers – and the data, information, and knowledge that is stored in and flows through these
systems – for its economic, industrial, societal, and military well-being. This domain – cyberspace
– has emerged as a significant setting within which strategic competition takes place. The United
States will continue to be involved in a global struggle to define and defend this domain. State
actors will attempt to make clear distinctions between sovereign and non-sovereign parts of
cyberspace, while cyber-capable non-state actors, hacktivists, and other individuals might take
action to complicate or ignore these distinctions altogether. In 2035, the United States will need to
defend its sovereign cyberspace, protect the use
of non-sovereign cyber commons, and control
key parts of cyberspace (both sovereign and nonsovereign).
Character of Conflict
“…because cyberweapons are not overtly violent, their use is unlikely to fit the traditional
criterion of interstate war; rather, the new capability is expanding the range of possible
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