The Joint Force in a Contested and Disordered World

groups in politically-sensitive and non-permissive environments, where adversaries have low-tech
but effective air defense and other A2/AD capabilities.
The U.S. homeland will be increasingly vulnerable to a wide range of emerging adversary strike
capabilities. Therefore, the Joint Force must be prepared to conduct a Protective Spoiling Attack
in order to disrupt adversary operations against the United States or its citizens and to degrade their
ability to credibly threaten both. These missions will include protection of the aerospace and
maritime approaches to the United States from hypersonic weapons, highly maneuverable ballistic
missiles, stealthy cruise missiles, and small, smart, and autonomous surface and subsurface
platforms. Furthermore, the Joint Force must be capable of contributing to the identification and
disruption of global terrorist groups, state sponsored proxies, criminal networks, and other threats
capable of clandestinely organizing, arming, and operating within the United States. This might
include actions to forcibly disconnect these groups from their sources of foreign support, including
offensive operations through the electromagnetic spectrum and cyberspace to disorganize and/or
interrupt adversary attacks against the homeland.
Future adversaries are likely to conduct offensive operations to seize key objectives, protect gains
through advanced A2/AD capabilities, and establish stand-off by leveraging flexible nuclear
deterrent capabilities. In these situations, the United States might be inclined to disrupt or degrade
countervailing powers or coalitions while avoiding cost-prohibitive, potentially catastrophic
escalation. Consequently, the Joint Force must be prepared to conduct Global Maneuver and
Seizure to defend important interests, retake key terrain, or seize critical objectives captured by an
adversary. In these missions, the Joint Force will delay further adversary aggression through
defensive actions while simultaneously conducting targeted strikes and raids to disrupt adversary
initiatives. To reverse adversary gains, the Joint Force will conduct entry operations, establish
lodgments with effective air defense umbrellas, and use other offensive operations to seize terrain
from adversaries who will be increasingly capable of assembling very capable military forces.
Finally, the Joint Force must prepare for offense operations to rollback adversary gains and restore
the status quo.
The Joint Force must be prepared to conduct Global Commons Defense to disrupt the ability of
adversaries to interdict the seas, air, space, and electromagnetic spectrum, or otherwise degrade an
adversary’s ability to operate in the commons in ways unfavorable to U.S. interests. These
missions might involve the creation of forward-projected, multi-domain blockades to impede
adversary use of the commons. The Joint Force will establish these area-denial zones through a
flexible combination of surface and subsurface sea control capabilities, air defense measures,
offensive space operations, and electronic warfare. This mission is likely to be complicated by an
adversary’s use of strike assets positioned on sovereign territory or the deceptive placement of
sensor systems on commercial platforms, to include space assets. Despite these challenges, the
Joint Force must maintain the ability to conduct targeted command and control warfare, counter
ISR operations, and discriminate sensor interdiction and spoofing in all commons. Furthermore,
the Joint Force should be capable of responding to the threat of adversaries creating debris fields
in important orbits. The Joint Force should explore ways to enhance operations in the commons
by leveraging anticipated advances in long-range robotic and autonomous systems.
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