Army launches new Indo-Pacific multi-domain command

The Army on Thursday launched a new Indo-Pacific command that combines traditional formations with some of the service’s cyber, space, unmanned systems and electronic warfare capabilities, the service announced Friday.

Soldiers at Joint Base Lewis-McChord cased the colors of the 1st Multi-Domain Task Forces Headquarters and 7th ID Headquarters Support Company and uncased the 7th Infantry Division (Multi-Domain Command-Pacific) Headquarters and Headquarters Battalion colors, in a merger that was first announced earlier this year.

“We are merging the operational endurance, flexibility and protection of our proven Stryker formations with the long-range sensing and precision fires of our multi-domain task force,” Maj. Gen. Bernard J. Harrington, the commanding general of the 7th ID (MDC-PAC), said in the Army release.

Central to the new command is what the Army calls the Cross Domain Contact Layer, a framework designed to connect intelligence gathering, electronic warfare and artificial intelligence into a continuous network.

It will combine sensors, drones, precision weapons and digital networks into a single architecture spanning land, air, sea, space and cyberspace.

“Through our emerging Cross Domain Contact Layer concept, our division will employ capabilities such as unmanned surface vessels; long-range, one-way attack drones; and launched effects to penetrate the adversary’s anti-access/area-denial network,” Harrington said in the release. “Every radar that emits, every node that transmits, every headquarters that commands, we aim to hold continuously at risk alongside our joint partners and allies.”

The change is part of the Army’s broader transformation initiative. According to the release, the redesignation reflects the service’s push to distribute advanced capabilities across maneuver formations operating in contested environments.

The redesignation builds on years of innovation in the Indo-Pacific, the Army said, including deployments by the 1st Multi-Domain Task Force, or MDTF, and collaboration with the Armed Forces of the Philippines.

“These soldiers have invested wholeheartedly in experimenting, deploying, and employing capabilities that work from the heavens to the earth, from the air to the sea, and flow with all the digits that go in between,” said Col. Charles W. Kean, the 7th ID (MDC-PAC) deputy commanding officer-effects and former 1st MDTF commander. “It has truly been inspirational to watch them in action.”

Eve Sampson is a reporter and former Army officer. She has covered conflict across the world, writing for The New York Times, The Washington Post and The Associated Press.

J.D. Simkins is Editor-in-Chief of Military Times and Defense News, and a Marine Corps veteran of the Iraq War.