[Editor’s Note: Crowdsourcing remains one of Army Mad Scientist’s most effective tools for harvesting ideas, thoughts, and concepts from a wide variety of interested individuals, helping us to diversify thought and challenge conventional assumptions about the Operational Environment.
A year ago, we launched our Operational Environment Wicked Problems Writing Contest, seeking to explore how Twenty-first Century warfighting could evolve, given contemporary convergences of battlefield transparency, autonomous systems, and massed and precision fires that have resulted in an increasingly lethal Operational Environment. We asked our readers to address the following topic using either a non-fiction essay, a fictional intelligence (FICINT) story, or a submission incorporating a short FICINT vignette with an accompanying non-fiction essay expounding on the threat capabilities described in the vignette:
How have innovations in asymmetric warfare impacted modern large scale and other combat operations, and what further evolutions could take place, both within the next 10 years and on towards mid-century?
Today’s post by Sherman L. Barto was the second runner up in our contest. His submission provides us with a fascinating FICINT scenario exploring how China could successfully reintegrate Taiwan into the People’s Republic of China in a four-phased assault — dominating operations in the Sea, Land, Air, and Cyber Domains, while ceding the Space Domain’s Precision, Navigation, and Timing (PNT) for a terrestrial-based and un-jammable alternative for its autonomous swarms. Read on to learn how the day after tomorrow’s China could integrate Information Warfare, Battlefield Autonomy, and Mass to achieve a swift (3-month) victory — Enjoy!]
December 31st, 2027: The year passes without significant conflict in the Taiwan Strait to much acclaim for the U.S. and Allied nations’ deterrence of Chinese aggression. The U.S. political machine summarily forgets Taiwan as a geopolitical priority.
Phase 0: Gathering Forces
November 2029: Large scale deployment for Joint service exercises of the Peoples Liberation Army (PLA), Peoples Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF), and Peoples Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) forces in the Taiwan and Luzon Strait begin. This is the first large-scale Joint exercise incorporating all three PLAN aircraft carriers, supporting surface and subsurface vessels, and full complements of personnel and military weapons and hardware. Multiple amphibious assault exercises accompanied by hundreds of sorties of PLAAF fighters, bombers, and Airborne Command and Control (C2) systems commence.
March 2030: The PLAN fleet encircles Taiwan, taking up positions 14 nautical miles from shore – at the edge of international waters – to cap off month’s long exercises.
Phase 1: Seizing the Initiative
An offensive cyberspace operation spreading a deepfake video of an “Official Message from the President of the United States” across social media and streaming video services internationally states all official and unofficial ties with Taiwan are immediately suspended, and that the U.S. would recognize the CCP as the only governing body when dealing with the island. Traditional media outlets pick up and run the story without fact checking the release. The Executive Branch begins damage control and attempts to regain the narrative that the message was fraudulent, and the U.S. and its Allies should support Taiwan.
PLAN ships launch a swarm of agricultural style octocopter Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), each with a 20-gallon payload of Infrared (IR) marking solution. Flying low over the water with an obscured radar cross section (RCS), these UAVs evade early warning radars and air defense systems. Once over land, the UAVs are uncontested — given the fear that engaging them would cause civilian casualties and provide the CCP with an information warfare advantage. They begin spraying military positions, government offices, and essential services locations and personnel. The IR marking, once illuminated with IR imaging devices, remains detectable for up to 45 days. Taiwan defense forces engage the UAVs as they depart the island, wasting fuel and ammunition on expendable systems. The remaining drones are left to crash as their batteries die, mission complete.
Phase 2: Attack Taiwan Defense Forces and Deter U.S. Intervention
Unmanned Underwater Vehicles (UUVs) launched from the PLAN fleet ferry Unmanned Ground Vehicles (UGVs) to the shore. The UGVs land on Taiwan, establishing self-healing mesh networks with adjacent systems – building an ad hoc swarm – and begin the first wave assault. Each system, outfitted with an IR imaging capability, attacks everything marked by the IR marking solution. The large language models used to train the UGVs’ onboard AI reduced learning time and targeting errors by designating valid targets by IR marking instead of positive identification of specific equipment, uniforms, or facilities. Five waves of UGV deployments are launched with each wave bringing to shore one thousand assault UGVs. The indiscriminate marking of the spray leads to civilian casualties on an order of magnitude unheard of in living memory.
The PLAN deploys the air net swarm. Thousands of cheap UAVs deploy as a protective net around the surface ships. The sheer mass of the swarm, coupled with solid-state batteries allowing for substantially increased loiter time once airborne, prove fatal to the first few aircraft that attempt to counterattack. The air net swarms only purpose is to cause catastrophic damage to the attacking airframe through collision. Aircraft that pull away from the net avoid damage but open themselves to attack from waiting PLAAF 5th generation fighters.
PLAN submarines deploy the sea net swarm. Each subsurface vessel deploys two dozen torpedo-sized autonomous UUVs — each with a 60lb warhead — to hold station 30 nautical miles off the capital ships arrayed against Taiwan. Each UUV communicates with its adjacent nodes via Extreme Low Frequency (ELF) pings. Once an object passes through the net, causing a minimum of two missed pings, the affected UUVs swarm towards the break and attach themselves to the intruding object. A single UUV might not be catastrophic, but two or more could prove fatal. Each deployment of the net is monitored by a submarine acting as mothership and second line defense.
The U.S. Executive Branch regains positive control of cabinet-level messaging, addressing world leaders and the population. The order for the DoD to rapidly deploy to and aid Taiwan is issued. The Pacific fleet and Marine forces rapidly deploy in support. The Army and Air Force begin deployment from South Korea and Japan.
Phase 3: Defeat Remaining Taiwan Defense Forces and Secure the Area of Operations
The second wave of the amphibious assault consists of PLA logisticians and maintainers. Their sole purpose is to recharge, repair, and replenish the ammunition magazines of the UGV assault force. The third wave sets up manned security positions and solidifies the CCP foothold. The fourth wave brings combat equipment, and the fifth wave sees the first human C2 elements of the operation set foot on Taiwan.
April 2030: The Taiwan Defense Forces are reduced to 30% combat power. The CCP suffers the loss of a brigade-sized element across all forces — from mishaps, human error, and faulty targeting of autonomous systems. U.S. and Allied forces begin combat operations.
Phase 4: Stability Operations
The PLA begins “stabilization” operations with the deployment of forces across the island in “transparent” armored combat systems. Armored personnel carriers, tanks, and combat support vehicles lack the soft skin vulnerabilities of materials such as glass. Vehicle-borne sensors in combination with UAV and UGV wingmen provide the driver and vehicle commander a view of their surroundings through an augmented reality “windshield.”
Vehicle crew members don headsets providing relevant sensor data to their assigned role. Gunners and weaponeers see terrain and target information, while SIGINT and EW personnel see an electromagnetic spectrum overlay. Infantry see map overlays showing their location, friendly units nearby, obstacles, and objectives in near real time and radio operators see nodes and links across the entire battlespace to ensure orders are issued and received. Supporting UGV and UAV systems ensure an integrated and near real time common operating picture is shared from the tactical to strategic level.
U.S. and Allied naval forces suffer losses to China’s sea net swarms and are forced to remain offshore, farther away from the contested areas than expected. Navy and Marine air power is limited by the air net swarms but achieve a modicum of success with standoff engagements against air and sea targets. EW achieves effects against manned systems and counter-space capabilities eliminate China’s use of Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS). The PLA’s uncrewed systems mostly ignore the EW and GNSS disruptions — to U.S. and Allied forces chagrin.
The jam-resistant swarms utilize permissioned blockchain encryption and the onboard AI adjusts Software Defined Radio (SDR) receivers in real time to ignore interference that does not transmit with proper encryption and authentication. The loss of GNSS satellite navigation was assumed by PLA military planners and is replaced with a ship-based Long Range Navigation (LORAN) system providing the location of the three PLAN aircraft carriers to UAVs which is then paired with UAV computer vision trained on detailed maps of Taiwan to recognize where they are. Each UAV transmits a location tag every second to each adjacent node in the swarm, enabling precision location within 20 meters. The one pulse per second geolocation tags perform double duty as a network timing protocol, ensuring all PLA networks remain in synch despite the loss of GNSS timing.
May 2030: U.S. and Allied forces are repelled at every turn and the cost in lives and materiel proves too high a cost for a polarized and partisan bureaucracy. The U.S. President acknowledges the loss of Taiwan and implements harsh sanctions on the CCP. Allied nations retreat as well.
Taiwan Defense Forces officially surrender following the loss of allied assistance, ending the democratic nation of Taiwan and expanding the CCP foothold beyond the mainland. The UN releases casualty estimates of 13 million people, mostly civilian.
The CCP achieves reunification. The loses include an aircraft carrier and three submarines, three quarters of their manned aircraft, 30,000 personnel, and an untold number of drones litter the island and the seas around it.
ENDEX: While all of the systems and capabilities described above are fictious, most technologies and concepts are not. Lessons learned from the Russian-Ukraine War from UAVs, autonomy, swarms, and information warfare aimed at our populations and elected leadership will shape all future conflict. Expensive and exquisite military systems will always have a place in war; however, expendable unmanned systems and the defense thereof will shape the conduct and evolution of warfare from this point forward. The most dangerous evolution will be human-off-the-loop autonomy for unmanned systems and the associated advancements in autonomous lethality that follow.
If you enjoyed this post, check out TRADOC Pamphlet 525-92, The Operational Environment 2024-2034: Large-Scale Combat Operations, laying out the 12 LSCO Conditions and 5 LSCO Implications of the Operational Environment, several of which are addressed in Mr. Barto’s submission.
Explore the TRADOC G-2‘s Operational Environment Enterprise web page, brimming with authoritative information on the Operational Environment and how our adversaries fight, including:
Our China Landing Zone, full of information regarding our pacing challenge, including ATP 7-100.3, Chinese Tactics, BiteSize China weekly topics, People’s Liberation Army Ground Forces Quick Reference Guide, and our thirty-plus snapshots captured to date addressing what China is learning about the Operational Environment from Russia’s war against Ukraine (note that a DoD Common Access Card [CAC] is required to access this last link).
Our Russia Landing Zone, including the BiteSize Russia weekly topics. If you have a CAC, you’ll be especially interested in reviewing our weekly RUS-UKR Conflict Running Estimates and associated Narratives, capturing what we learned about the contemporary Russian way of war in Ukraine over the past two years and the ramifications for U.S. Army modernization across DOTMLPF-P.
Our Iran Landing Zone, including the latest Iran OE Watch articles, as well as the Iran Quick Reference Guide and the Iran Passive Defense Manual (both require a CAC to access).
Our Running Estimates SharePoint site (also requires a CAC to access), containing our monthly OE Running Estimates, associated Narratives, and the 2QFY24, 3QFY24, 4QFY24, and 1QFY25 OE Assessment TRADOC Intelligence Posts (TIPs).
Then review the following related Mad Scientist Laboratory content addressing China, our pacing threat, and relevant aspects of the Operational Environment:
“No Option is Excluded” — Using Wargaming to Envision a Chinese Assault on Taiwan, Three Dates, Three Windows, and All of DOTMLPF-P, China and Russia: Achieving Decision Dominance and Information Advantage, and Seven Reflections of a “Red Commander” — Lessons Learned Playing the Adversary in DoD Wargames, by Ian Sullivan
The Most Consequential Adversaries and associated podcast, with GEN Charles A. Flynn (USA-Ret.)
Volatility in the Pacific: China, Resilience, and the Human Dimension and associated podcast, with General Robert Brown (USA-Ret.)
How China Fights and associated podcast
Flash-Mob Warfare: Whispers in the Digital Sandstorm (Parts 1 and 2), by Dr. Robert E. Smith
China’s PLA Modernization through the DOTMLPF-P Lens, by Dr. Jacob Barton
The PLA and UAVs – Automating the Battlefield and Enhancing Training
A Chinese Perspective on Future Urban Unmanned Operations
China: “New Concepts” in Unmanned Combat and Cyber and Electronic Warfare
The PLA: Close Combat in the Information Age and the “Blade of Victory”
China: Building Regional Hegemony
The U.S. Joint Force’s Defeat before Conflict, by CPT Anjanay Kumar
Intelligentization and the PLA’s Strategic Support Force, by Col (s) Dorian Hatcher
“Intelligentization” and a Chinese Vision of Future War
Unmanned Capabilities in Today’s Battlespace
Revolutionizing 21st Century Warfighting: UAVs and C-UAS
Death From Above! The Evolution of sUAS Technology and associated podcast, with COL Bill Edwards (USA-Ret.)
Jomini’s Revenge: Mass Strikes Back! by proclaimed Mad Scientist Zachery Tyson Brown
Insights from the Robotics and Autonomy Series of Virtual Events, as well as all of the associated webinar content (presenter biographies, slide decks, and notes) and associated videos
Insights from Ukraine on the Operational Environment and the Changing Character of Warfare
The Operational Environment’s Increased Lethality
About the Author: Sheman L. Barto retired from the U.S. Army in December 2020, having served as an Air Defense Artillery crewman, SATCOM and Network Operations team lead, and Division CEMA NCOIC for multiple divisions. After the Army, he went on to serve as a CUAS program manager for the Department of State, instructor for the EW Integration course at 1st IO Command, and is currently supporting the USFK Joint Electromagnetic Spectrum Operations Cell at Camp Humphries, South Korea.
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this blog post do not necessarily reflect those of the U.S. Department of Defense, Department of the Army, Army Futures Command (AFC), or Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC).
