From Concept to Capability: US Army rises to meet the challenge in the Indo-Pacific

HONOLULU—It was less than a decade ago, during the 2017 AUSA LANPAC Symposium, then US Indo-Pacific Command commander Adm. Harry Harris challenged the Army to develop capabilities to sink ships, neutralize enemy satellites, shoot down missiles and deny adversaries command and control. At this year’s LANPAC, current INDOPACOM commander Adm. Samuel Paparo commended the Army’s decisive response to this challenge, stating that “…the Army responded decisively with the creation of Multi-Domain Task Forces.”

The Army began answering that call on March 8, 2017, by launching a Pacific-aligned pilot program to inform the development of its first MDTF—designed specifically to counter China’s anti-access anti-denial (A2AD) capabilities. The 1st MDTF was officially activated on Sept. 16, 2020, at Joint Base Lewis-McChord, Wash., followed by the activation of the 3rd MDTF on Sept. 23, 2022, at Fort Shafter, Hawaii.

“Multi-Domain Task Forces in the field now…represent the centerpiece of this response, bringing land-based counter-command, control, communications, computers and information surveillance, reconnaissance and targeting capabilities, and this fundamentally alters the strategic calculus in the contested environment,” said Paparo.

In addition to delivering counter-C5ISR capabilities to the joint force, MDTFs also provide sensing across terrestrial, aerial, stratospheric and space domains. These integrated capabilities, Paparo said, are “enhancing our ability to mass fires and effects precisely at the time and place of our choosing.”

To underscore the progress made by the Pacific MDTFs, 3rd MDTF commander, Brig. Gen. Michael Rose, and 1st MDTF commander, Col. Charles Kean, delivered a joint Commander’s Corner presentation during this year’s LANPAC Symposium.

Operating across the vast expanse of USINDOPACOM—spanning half the globe, touching every combatant command, and home to over half the world’s population, the Pacific MDTFs are built for the region’s scale and complexity. “Those extended ranges are why we need to have a capability to project power from the land into the other domains,” said Rose.

Rose emphasized that both geography and a growing threat environment make MDTFs essential. “It’s not just China, but other threat actors in this region contesting our ability to maintain freedom of navigation and maneuver at the operational level,” he said.

MDTFs deliver decisive land power across key terrain that is distributed, survivable, persistent and lethal.

“Our ability to move through that key terrain, in proximity to the adversary—inside weapons engagement zones, which are mostly oriented against other elements of the joint force—provides us a comparative advantage in this region,” he added.

True to its nature as a task force, the MDTF will never be a finished product, because the environment, the technology, and adversaries are constantly changing.

“People ask, ‘Is it a concept or is it a capability? Can you provide combat-capable and combat-credible forces forward now?’ And I can say yes—because we can,” Kean said. “But when you go back to that idea of concept versus capability, the answer is both. We’re continuously learning.”

Kean added and emphasized that these formations are designed to integrate within the joint force and alongside allies and partners.

“It’s about how we integrate those capabilities to create a period of relative overmatch that the joint force or our partner force can exploit,” he said. “We can do that in a supporting role—layering our effects with joint assets—or in a supported role, where we’re given a discrete, temporal problem set and integrate with joint capabilities to help solve it.”

Kean also noted that the MDTF's capabilities are expansive, quipping that they span “from the heavens to the earth, from the air to the sea, and all the digits that flow in between,” and are deeply integrated across all levels.

Adm. Paparo echoed that sentiment in his closing remarks on the importance of land-based fires, emphasizing the strategic importance of MDTF capabilities. “These capabilities—across space, cyber and electronic warfare—operate from key terrain in the First Island Chain and near strategic maritime choke points, creating distributed, survivable, persistent and lethal effects,” he said.

“That’s why fires is the capability from the Army and the land force that I most treasure in this region.”