Multidomain Operations: The Pursuit of Battlefield Dominance in the 21st Century

by Amos C Fox (Editor), Franz-Stefan Gady (Editor)

In Multidomain The Pursuit of Battlefield Dominance in the 21st Century, Amos Fox and Franz-Stefan Gady challenge one of modern war's most influential MDO. Is it the right framework for 21st-century conflict-or a concept rushed into service without sufficient grounding? Through the lenses of origin, field application, academic critique, and international perspectives, the authors examine MDO's theoretical and practical shortcomings. They argue that MDO is a solution in search of a problem-strategically narrow, tactically vague, and ill-suited for America's allies. This book calls for a doctrinal one that addresses precision strike overreach, rising attrition warfare, and the enduring need for land forces. With rigorous policy and PME recommendations, Fox and Gady offer a vital roadmap for rethinking military doctrine. Essential reading for defense leaders, scholars, and warfighters alike, this book reshapes how we must think about future battlefields.

335 pages, Kindle Edition

Published January 9, 2026

Reviews

[Robert Ellis]

I am divided on this book. There is a clear anti-doctrinal bias that permeates through the essays in this collection, and some of them do have merit; however, it seems like there was quite the attempt made to stubbornly refuse the higher calling that MDO seems to elicit. As though old land warriors would rather squirrel back into their limitations and focus on brigade-level tactical solutions to specific operational problems such as the Baltics and the Suwalki Gap, essential war planning sure, but not sufficient to contain a colossus that spreads the extents of human imagination and technical ingenuity to spread an inexorable global reach, one that appears to require an evolution from "jointness" to unified service beyond any one nation, service, or domain - yet, the small-minded retreat into tactical knowns, complaints with fundamentals of operational artistry and mission command that have actually tried to give military officers back both their freedom of decision-making, as much as indicate to the armies of the west that there is an omnipresent need this century to rely more on the art of warfare than any specific school of historical thought. The demand for top-down specificity and onerous constraints is worrying, but I won't condemn the authors for their disagreement, rather simply caution them for such myopic approaches rather than take the opportunity to reinterpret what was given loosely and make some damned lemonade. Word salad and corporate buzz aside, which is endemic in all corners of the intelligentsia, it should not be laid upon the plate of a concept called multidomain. Pigeon-holing maneuver as a fight against industrial scale mass attrition, human or material, is not a creative solution to the difficulties of stagnant fronts, and while the nobody gets to decide when any given balloon goes up, there should be a strategic tempo shift of adjustment adopted that qualifies both the normality of war in human affairs as much as the impossibility of continuing to hope for short conclusions to political snafus. More work needs to be done, and one day we may just graduate into a space-age force capable of transcending the 20th century history or 19th century thinking reinforcing a regression of philosophical meanness. My advice to readers is this: read the essays but do not just accept them or their critiques at face-value; prepare yourselves (I presume you're officers) and your troops for the inevitable turbulence in store; and, remember that the profession of arms is both ancient and natural to man and place the activity of your studies under the right divine light when assessing the extents of blood and treasure next expended - with a human heart and mind, bear the spirit of this tragic endeavor willingly and seize both the opportunities that this current doctrine permits, as well as work it as just another step in the ascension of the process of discovery - be the warfighters to set the future precedents by knowing the material and practicing your calling. Read the book, but don't love its conclusions.

[Dale]

MDO

This a rather critical look at the evolving concept of multi domain operations (MDO) and how the army will build and employ forces for MDO. From the book: “the reader has encountered the reality of MDO’s development, implementation, theoretically and applied shortcomings. What’s more, the book has addressed how the US’s allies and partners think about and try to implement MDO. A set of themes regarding these shortcomings have emerged throughout the book.” Recommended for ARMY strategists, planners, and future MDO soldiers.