This has been one of the lessons from Ukraine’s plight against Russia: that while conventional warfare tools, like artillery, still matter, there must be non-kinetic companions to these weapons.

“We need a combination of precision and accuracy and we need a combination of conventional, because what are the other things that Russia is doing in that war? They’re very good at jamming,” Young Bang, principal deputy assistant secretary of the Army for acquisition, logistics and technology, said during a presentation at the Potomac Officers Club’s Army Summit on Thursday.

In U.S. military parlance, the term “kinetic” generally refers to traditional weapons that explode, like missiles, while “non-kinetic” refers to capabilities like electronic warfare, cyber and others.

There have been several reports highlighting how Russia has been able to jam the precision-guided munitions the U.S. has provided to the Ukrainian military.

To be successful in future conflicts against a larger military like Beijing’s and offset their advantages, the U.S. Army sees the need to marry its kinetic capabilities with non-kinetic ones.

“The big thing that China has on us is volume — people, equipment, artillery, all of that,” Bang said, adding that the math isn’t in the United States’ favor in a matchup between kinetic systems.

The Army’s newest cross-functional team is working on synchronizing capabilities. Announced in March, the new All-Domain Sensing CFT — born out of the Assured Position, Navigation and Timing team — is taking a look at how to integrate all the sensors on the battlefield into an architecture that will be able to rapidly pass data and enable effects.

“We don’t have a sensing problem. We’ve got a lot of sensors. It’s about taking advantage of the sensing that we have out there and do it at the speed and scale that we need to, and apply machine speed technologies and capabilities to that,” Mike Monteleone, the team’s director, said at the summit, paraphrasing senior Army leaders.

As part of his team’s big operational enablers, they are looking at the synchronization of kinetic and non-kinetic effects on the battlefield from a multi-domain perspective, with an intent focus on EW capabilities.

“As we talk about the command-and-control piece of that, making decisions faster, getting that command-and-control systems to create the effect, will have other electronic warfare implications as well as a situational awareness aspect or understanding aspect,” he said.

Electronic support capabilities will have to be able to pass their data to inform commanders of the potential threat signals in their area, but also the attack capabilities that can jam them, which in some cases are the same platform given their dual-use nature.

“Traditionally, for using terms like ‘electronic warfare,’ you had a lot in a box that did electronic warfare,” Monteleone told DefenseScoop following his remarks. “Future battlefield might look a little bit different. You can have small, attritable, low-cost sensors scattered throughout the battlefield [that] could be employed through a variety of different mechanisms that are now through a next-generation command and control data-centric network, [and] be able to pull that data in, make sense of it, and then be able to push out command-and-control requirements to effectors, which may be something different.”

This concept could be applied to joint capabilities.

“It could be a joint capability that we’re recommending, ‘Hey if you put this type of effect here, I can now synchronize that with other effects on the battlefield,'” Monteleone said.

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The term “non-kinetic effects,” in Pentagon parlance, generally refers to capabilities that don’t blow up or explode such as cyber, electromagnetic spectrum, or space-based tools. They have come into sharper focus in recent years and the U.S. military has sought ways to expand their use and integration as a complement to more traditional weapon systems.

The Navy’s first cyber strategy, released in November, placed significant importance on non-kinetic capabilities for future warfighting, stating that they will be a deciding factor and those who effectively synchronize non-kinetic effects will have a decisive advantage on the battlefield.

“We have now matured that integration of our non-kinetic effects so significantly with the joint force maneuver that there isn’t a difference between what we do and what the traditional joint force and kinetic forces do. In fact, one can’t succeed without the other,” Vice Adm. Craig Clapperton, commander of Fleet Cyber Command, 10th Fleet and Navy Space Command, said last week at the annual WEST conference.

“We have worked very closely with [Indo-Pacific Command], [Pacific Fleet], U.S. Forces Korea and others across the Indo-Pacom theater to integrate these non-kinetic effects, synchronize them in a way that we have never been able to before, and then properly synchronize them into the joint force maneuver so that we’re providing greater battlespace awareness, we’re providing greater survivability and significantly improved targeting and lethality for the integrated force,” he added.

Clapperton, in an interview with DefenseScoop, stressed that what these teams can provide, and what the Navy is looking for, is more than just cyber tools.

“I think initially, everyone got too focused on that a non-kinetic team meant that we were going to do cyber specifically from a ship,” he said. “I’m not saying we’re not going to do that. When we talk about non-kinetic effects teams right now, cyber specifically from a ship, okay, that’s one thing, but there’s a dozen things.”

Those teams could include a mix of space, electronic warfare, and offensive and defensive cyber capabilities that can be deployed from a ship, airborne assets, fixed locations or expeditionary.

“The effects teams, I think you’re going to start seeing them be present in both deployable and expeditionary sites as well as traditional sites. You’re going to start to see more synchronization of the space, cyber and EW capabilities coming together,” Clapperton said.

This could take a variety of different directions. For example, it could be small watch teams of two to five sailors at a headquarters element operating under the authorities of Fleet Cyber Command, or a detachment of 30 to 50 sailors at an expeditionary location.

The Navy has been on a path in recent years to develop its own organic cyber forces and integrate them with additional non-kinetic capabilities.

In 2019, upon becoming the top officer in the Navy, now retired Adm. Micheal Gilday released a fragmentary operations order to the force directing, among many things, the creation of small tactical cyber teams for fleet commanders by 2020.

Last year, officials announced the intent to create fleet non-kinetic effects teams to augment afloat forces with information warfare capabilities.

U.S. Cyber Command owns the offensive cyber capabilities within the Department of Defense, and the services conduct offensive cyber ops through Cybercom and the cyber mission forces that each service provides to the command. Each of the services, in one way or another, has been developing forces and capabilities to deliver tactically focused, on-the-ground cyber and electronic warfare effects, known as radio frequency-enabled cyber.

Clapperton said some of the capabilities on the higher end could be similar to the combat mission teams (CMT) that the services provide to Cybercom — teams that conduct cyber operations on behalf of combatant commands, mostly in the offensive realm.

“Some of them might be more EW focused. Some of them might be more space focused. Then some of them might be EW focused that are not CMT trained, but might work very closely with a CMT mission element,” he said. “Maybe the CMT mission element is deployable with them, maybe they’re back at a traditional site. There’s 100 different ways to mix that combination together.”

As the Navy builds out these forces, Clapperton said it needs an enabling infrastructure between them and his headquarters, given he owns the authorities within the service.

“I don’t want a three-star headquarters trying to command and control, say, an O4 [detachment] across the globe. I need an O5, O6 command structure that enables and guides in between,” he said, referring to lieutenant commander, commander and captain levels in the Navy. “We’ll be following that as we work with [Naval Information Forces] and the Navy of exactly how we want to do the command structure that’s going to go in between it.”

That command-and-control and authority must flow back through Clapperton’s command, given the sensitive nature of many of these digital operations.

While there are some local or proximal effects and operations that cyber can perform, most of them occur beyond traditional geographic boundaries and must be carefully synchronized.

“The majority of those things tend to have effect in a much broader construct, across a significant piece of the [area of responsibility] or a joint operation area,” he said. “If given that that’s the case, you have to be very careful about letting a very small, hyper-focused tactical unit drive that kind of stuff. Because while it might seem like a great idea for them, well in the broader scape, hey, that wasn’t the right time to do it and had you synchronized that with other things and done it a little bit later, a little bit sooner, in a different way, it would have been more impactful. That’s why we get a little worried about trying to drive that down too far.”

Integration of space

While 10^th Fleet had been the Navy’s space entity for years, this past January it officially also became Navy Space, the service’s component for U.S. Space Command. Increasingly, space-based capabilities are falling into the fold of information warfare within the Defense Department. The Marine Corps has also made its cyber component its space component as well.

This approach from the Department of the Navy allows unique insights and integration of all these non-kinetic capabilities.

“From our perspective, bringing that space piece in with cyber — and I think MARFOR sees it in the same way, so in the naval perspective — that yes, it has forced us to think in a very integrated way. Hey, I don’t want to just look at a cyber aspect, I don’t want to just look at an EW or a space or in an information ops aspect. We have authorities across all of them,” Clapperton said. “Putting them all together has really forced us to do that and it sort of empowered us to do it in different ways.”

As Fleet Cyber is building out its space portion and bringing on space personnel — for which the office of the chief of naval operations approved missions, functions and tasks that are driving the manpower — it is seeking to build integrated firing elements to help operational organizations understand and integrate non-kinetic capabilities.

“These integrated firing elements would then be pushed forward to Echelon II and III headquarters and work with that staff,” Clapperton said, which could include a numbered fleet or even a combatant command staff. “The integrated firing element, that’s more of the operational planning and joint fires integration element. They should be in the planning of the O-Plan, they should be in the [concept of operations] development, the CON employment development and then no kidding, actual operationalization of it, but that’s at the staff level.”

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Non-kinetic effects, or capabilities that essentially don’t blow up or explode — such as cyber, electromagnetic spectrum or space-based tools — are often less understood than their kinetic counterparts. Commanders know what traditional types of weapons are capable of, as an exploding target can be easier to visualize than electronic warfare.

However, commanders may not always have these non-kinetic capabilities resident within their organization due to either authorities constraints or the fact they are more specialized and require unique units that might have to be assigned.

“If you don’t have the capability resident within your formation, then you have to call for fires. That’s part of the rehearsal is calling for fires. But what’s become clear to me in the world of … non-kinetic, cyber and space effects, [is] I don’t always know what those fires are or where to go to call for them or have any understanding,” Vice Adm. Michael Boyle, commander of 3rd Fleet, which has responsibility in the Pacific, said during the annual WEST conference. “We need to build the expertise within our headquarters to know what fires exist within the joint force. That’s in kinetic, non-kinetic, across joint capability and partner capability and beyond, and at any classification level.”

Boyle later noted that commanders and organizations don’t know what they don’t know, and they have to build expertise and liaisons to help educate people about the tools that are at their disposal.

“Whether it’s a carrier strike group, or a three-star headquarters or a four-star headquarters, within the planning element, they have to know what’s available, what’s the full capability,” Boyle told DefenseScoop, noting that calling for fires is nothing new within the military.

“If you’re a JTAC on the ground, a joint [terminal] air controller, who is supporting troops on the ground, you call for close air support from the sister service of the Air Force. I’m just talking about calling for close air support that may be a cyber effect, a space effect, an exquisite capability of a sister service. But I have to know that it exists,” he said.

Several years ago, the Navy created O-6 level information warfare commanders as permanent fixtures within carrier strike groups, with other pilots elsewhere in the force. The Marine Corps also created the Marine Corps Information Command at the beginning of 2023 to help integrate and explain non-kinetic capabilities and authorities across the globe.

However, Boyle said they’re stovepiped right now within the Navy, and in a future fight against a sophisticated adversary like China, the carrier strike group — the main fighting unit for the Navy in the past — might not be suitable on its own.

“I’m not saying that the carrier [strike group] doesn’t have applicability or capability. We just have to evolve in this maneuver fight. We’re no longer an island that’s being protected by our strike group. We are a maneuvering element of the fight and I want to be able to give the carrier strike commander battlespace to own,” he told DefenseScoop. “In some cases, it may be very limited because I am not authorized to push target engagement authority down to him. In other cases, I am, then he’s got to be able to plan and call for joint fires.”

Fleet Cyber Command/10^th Fleet, which is the Navy’s cyber organization and cyber component to U.S. Cyber Command, is working to build some of that expertise to send around to organizations within the cyber, information and space communities.

“Our goal really there is to create expertise … I need experts, not generalists when we’re going against the kinds of adversaries that we are with the capabilities that they have. We need people that can bring that expertise to bear,” Vice Adm. Craig Clapperton, commander of Fleet Cyber Command, 10th Fleet and Navy Space Command, said during the conference.

While 10^th Fleet had been the Navy’s space entity for years, this past January it officially also became Navy Space, the service’s component for U.S. Space Command. Increasingly, space and space-based capabilities are falling into the fold of information warfare within the Department of Defense, such as in the Navy and Marine Corps, including space in their cyber and information warfare commands.

As the command brings on its space personnel, for which the office of the chief of naval operations approved missions, functions and tasks that’s driving the manpower, they are seeking to build integrated firing elements to help organizations integrate non-kinetic capabilities.

“Pushing forward what I call integrated firing elements that are going to go around to the Echelon 2 and Echelon 3 staffs and then work to do exactly that. These are going to be specially trained people … There will be [warfare tactics instructors] within them, but they will also be a broader group,” Clapperton said. “Then they will rotate through these Echelon 2 and Echelon 3 staff to talk about exactly how we use space as a force multiplier for you and how we can work together to synchronize and integrate those capabilities.”

Clapperton noted that the final manpower assessment for space is not complete yet, but officials believe it could drive an increase within their staff by up to 250 people.

While the addition of Navy Space brings more responsibility to the command, Clapperton said it provides a boost when added to the other capabilities resident within the command.

“When you step back and look at it, the blending of those authorities and those capabilities, and then creating those experts in space, in cyber and information technology, and then bringing all of their skills together — it’s actually been really powerful and a force multiplier for us,” he said.

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