By : Muhammad Bilal Iftikhar Khan
There are few similarities between Multi Domain Operational Doctrine and Iran's Decentralized Mosaic Defense doctrine. My understanding is (and I am a student who has recently started working on my thesis proposal) that
Multi-Domain Operations is a high performance computer network (across Multi domains (Land Air, sea, Space and Cyber) in which each component is dependent on high speed data to operate at peak performance and the Mosaic Defense Doctrine is a chain of guerrilla warfare, highly redundant, intentionally fragmented, slow, but extremely hard to kill with one blow.
Western Multi-Domain Operations is based on high-speed data fusion to attain temporal dominance, whereas Iran's Mosaic Defense is based on fragmentation and pre-delegation to attain survivability. The similarity is superficial (both are domain independent). MDO solves the problem of complexity through integration. Mosaic Defense solves the problem of vulnerability through fragmentation.
MDO is a revolutionary concept to achieve dominance in war across domains by achieving synchronization but it has its own challenges. for example in case of India Pakistan, as Marx famously said Quantity has the quality of it self, India has the quantity and Pakistan always maintained quality. But quality has limitations faced by quantity of opponent. Pakistan has tried to achieve parity through its quality but for long conflict Pakistani policy makers must not underestimate the quantitative superiority of adversary.
Yes there is balance of terror and our adversary in the region knows our doctrine and capabilties but recent conflicts proves that although we climbed escalation ladder to shut up our adversary but this had was temporary. The conflict with our adversary is an ideological conflict and it will remain until one side bows. Secondly the global politics is in flux and multipolarity is entrenching . there fore in this globalized multipolar world , in addition to traditional and non traditional threats we must be prepared for unexpected threats in unexpected ways and evolve our strategy accordingly to be prepared for contingencies. Pakistan's warfighting capabilities and preparations must embrace and develop new Hybrid Doctrine of Dual-Mode Deterrence.
Last year Pakistan's domination in Marka e Haq was largely due to its domination in electromagnetic spectrum, India must have studied it and will be seeking doctrinal and capability adjustment, meaning Pakistan must work and concentrate on R & D to further enhance its capabilities. secondly , we need to learn from Iranian DMD doctrine and synthesize our doctrine , India should not be treated as a single threat and for any eventuality Pakistan should prepare. the way global politics is progressing ,Pakistan must be prepared to face those who may seems to be our allies and must actively pursue dominance across the region and near region. for it steps should be taken across all levels.
India has also announced its doctrinal evolution to MDO and in its latest upgraded Maritime doctrine 2025 , it has included MDO concept.
In fighting war on MDO concept ,electro magnetic spectrum is the most important single vector , the most important pivot of MDO. Control EMS, and you dominate but when two forces both capable of executing MDO come face to face , the side which dominates in Electro Magnetic Spectrum wins , but in long battle quantity plays its part there for we must learn from Iranian decentralized Mosaic defense doctrine , One lesson is that when MDO capable force faces DMD , situation differs if side with DMD survives initial hit , it will dominate. DMD preach survival therefore in long run DMD checkmates MDO.
Summing up ,our capability in Electromagnetic spectrum along with dependency on networks along with no dependency on networks will define our deterrence.