Multi-domain, Multi-dimension, and Multi-direction: Expanding Regional Cooperation in a Multi-Threat Environment
ABSTRACT
While policymakers focus on a “fait accompli” seizure of Taiwan as the pacing scenario in the Indo-Pacific, this scenario will not occur in isolation. The People’s Republic of China (PRC) has clearly messaged its willingness to accomplish this limited objective through an infinite number of measures – Diplomatic, Informational, Military, and Economic (DIME). Emerging agreements amongst partners throughout the region provide an opportunity to provide flexible deterrence and, if necessary, response options to this aggression to prevent hostilities and multiple crises from spreading across the region. By effectively integrating multi-domain, multi-dimension, and multi-direction to the joint force, the US will be able to build itself for challenges in all – land, air, sea, space, and cyberspace – domains against the PRC.
When will China invade Taiwan? According to the US intelligence community, General Secretary Xi Jinping has instructed the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) to be ready for a Taiwan invasion by 2027, a warning recently echoed in official documents from the Taiwanese Defense Ministry. 2027 is significant because it marks both the centennial of the PLA and the beginning of Xi’s fourth term in office. Xi faces increased scrutiny both at home and abroad with significant economic and political challenges. Although he successfully gripped onto power for more than a decade of internal unification, this time is different. He is forced to demonstrate tactical flexibility within the Chinese Communist Party while having to achieve China’s overarching strategic goal: “One China Principle.” For the US, the emerging National Defense Strategy will likely continue emphasis on China as the sole pacing threat with a fait accompli seizure of Taiwan – along with simultaneous defense of the homeland – as the pacing scenario. As such, this invasion scenario will shape force design, posture, and regional planning throughout the Indo-Pacific for Washington policymakers.
While this prioritization appropriately reflects the scale and urgency of the threat, one must also consider that a Taiwan contingency will not incur in isolation. Instead, it will trigger a series of cascading crises across the Indo-Pacific, with opportunistic aggression from malign regional actors and coordinated gray-zone activities by Beijing. By their own strategic framework, the Chinese Communist Party envisions a Taiwan contingency as inseparable from simultaneous actions intended to cause regional disruption and complicate allied decision-making. Placing disproportionate emphasis on a single contingency could leave the US and its Indo-Pacific allies – especially Japan, South Korea, and the Philippines – less prepared for concurrent or unforeseen challenges in the region. Along with the appropriate positional advantage and capabilities to respond to the pacing campaign, these forces must also retain the flexibility to respond to the likely actions the pacing threat will take to achieve information dominance, which would effectively counter deterrence efforts. To ensure they do not find themselves out of position to respond to simultaneous threats in the region, the US and its regional allies must take a multidomain, multidimensional, and multidirectional approach to deterrence in the Indo-Pacific.
The Likeliness of a Supranational Invasion
Based on the increased scale of Naval rehearsals of the Chinese Communist Party around Taiwan and extending into the West Philippine and East China Sea, Beijing has signaled potential for a naval blockade or a full-scale military invasion to accomplish Xi’s One-China principle should he decide to pursue an option for coerced unification. These rehearsals are not limited to a single domain. The close coordination of these activities with “gray zone” operations in other domains signal preparation for multidomain operations. From the recent Russia-Ukraine war, China recognizes that one-dimensional war will presumably fail. Beijing knows such an attack will not be enough to distract and divert Washington and regional allies’ focus away from Taipei. Accomplishment of a limited objective (i.e. the reunification of Taiwan) must be pursued through an unlimited number of measures. Therefore, it is probable that an invasion is conducted with some level of multidimensional coordination with another state actor to achieve this specific objective. Even if assuming some level of strategic risk in other parts of the globe where Beijing is actively exerting influence (with notable examples in Africa, Latin America, and Europe), Washington’s ability to focus on an ongoing Taiwan scenario will compete with increased regional activities stretching thousands of miles across the Indo-Pacific. These scenarios confirm the PRC views deterrence through a comprehensive national power. Beijing’s ability to integrate DIME to achieve its objectives across multiple domains signal a necessity for multidimensional deterrence against the PRC.
The Most Immediate Secondary Threat: North Korea
With Washington’s attention fixed on the commencement of the pacing scenario; Pyongyang would post the greatest risk of sparking conflict on another front. Kim Jong-un’s support to the recent Russian-Ukraine war foreshadows how Kim would proceed during a potential Taiwan contingency. Kim sees these major conflicts in the region as a chance to bolster his domestic standing by using military actions or executing opportunistic provocative actions by launching short-range missiles. Kim achieved this by beginning to support Putin’s war efforts in late 2022 with the delivery of artillery shells and sent approximately . Nevertheless, Kim’s specific interest in providing aid was not necessarily to help Putin to win the war, but for North Korea to gain access to the latest Russian military technologies, and secure Moscow’s financial assistance to combat ongoing UN sanctions. Kim likely expects the same favor from Xi – to receive significant financial and technological incentives – for initiating provocative measures on the Korean Peninsula during a Taiwan invasion.
An incursion against Seoul could be conducted either as a seemingly opportunistic attack or perhaps acting directly on Beijing’s behalf as a proxy. North Korea may execute military provocations against the South at a time when South Koreans feel rather vulnerable while US Forces Korea increases their preoccupation with activities off the Korean Peninsula. Depending on how North Korea responds, coordinated action would disperse or at least distract the US and its allies from its effort of defending the Taiwan Strait. Regardless, indicators in the region demonstrate that an invasion could rapidly initiate conflict in the region with little regard for boundaries. While this is the most probable secondary front, it is only one piece of the broader challenge.
Beyond the Peninsula: Other Regional Flashpoints
Current events indicate that conflict over Taiwan would trigger wider instability across Asia, especially as it relates to neighboring states. South of Taiwan, the Chinese Communist Party has already intensified territorial incursions and catalyzed regional competition in the South China and West Philippine Sea by harassing resupply vessels, declaring its own exclusionary zones, and instigating a race to militarize artificial islands. In the East China Sea, Chinese military vessels have become a regular fixture of the Japan-administered Senkaku Islands along with incursions into both Japan’s airspace and economic exclusionary zones impacting activity for Japanese fisherman, the Japan Self-Defense Force, and even partnered military activity. In recent years, Beijing academics have also increasingly challenged Japanese sovereignty over the Ryukyu Islands, which includes the Okinawa Prefecture.
Beyond military actions, China wields the potential for economic coercion as a powerful tool in the region. They have demonstrated their ability to use both economic and other non-traditional tools to enforce their sovereign claims. Recently, this includes selective trade restrictions, import bans, challenge to port access, and targeted sanctions against ideological opponents. During a Taiwan crisis, Beijing would likely apply trade blockades, energy embargoes, and even measures to restrict critical resources against states that oppose its actions, forcing them into costly dilemmas. These actions are already evident in Beijing’s ongoing cyber-targeting of critical infrastructure, manipulation of transshipment routes to limit access to major ports in the Strait of Malacca (direct impact to Singapore, Malaysia, and Indonesia), and influence on the Mekong River in Lower Mekong Basin countries (Thailand, Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia). If executed in conjunction with military actions, the result would be a multi-directional campaign, combining military operations with economic, diplomatic, and informational measures designed to fragment US alliances and overwhelm regional capacity.
Seizing the Information High Ground: Beijing’s Campaign to Achieve Multi-Domain Superiority
What is more, the PRC seeks to achieve information dominance to control the battlefield and undermine its adversary’s ability. Information dominance along with precision strikes will fully integrate the PRC’s ability to conduct joint operations. Beijing’s ability to wage this level of unrestricted warfare stems not just from its positional advantage in the region but also from an information advantage provided by its network-centric and, more recently, data-centric approach to campaigning. Since the 1990s, Beijing has invested heavily in integrating sensors, cyber tools, electronic warfare, long range fires, and space-based assets under an authoritative yet flat system of command and control. Recent PLA military strategy places special emphasis on information dominance, which is foundational to decision-making and action advantages across services and domains. Since at least 2018, the Chinese Communist Party has also been employing social media manipulation capabilities to reshape global opinion. In more recent years, Beijing has increased its use of social media bots and generative AI towards targeted efforts that are proving significantly more effective at shaping public perception than broad messaging efforts.
In 2024, Beijing developed a new Cyberspace Force and an Information Support Force directly under the Central Military Commission, the highest-level body under the Chinese Communist Party’s armed forces, as part of a new transformation effort to better prepare its military to “fight and win wars.” Collectively, these efforts are not only reshaping the operational environment but have also effectively centralized information operations directly under the control and coordination of Xi. Deterring Beijing’s pursuit of information dominance, which underpins superiority in other domains, the US and regional partners must develop a competing information “ecosystem,” one that can share information and enabling decision-making at a speed to effectively challenge this position.
Deterrence Through Alliance: Countering Beijing’s Pursuit of Information Dominance
Integrated deterrence must occur on multiple levels (tactical, institutional, and strategic, which are the three levels of modern warfare to achieve national objectives) to ensure credibility and effectiveness. While policymakers tend to focus efforts at the institutional and strategic levels, tactical integration, which emphasizes interoperability through shared tactics and compatible equipment, is the most visible signal of a multilateral partnership. Thus, it is at this level of integration where agreements between nations must focus initial efforts, along with quantifiable deliverables, to signal commitment to regional stability. It is also the logical starting point towards broader efforts requiring more complex policy decisions.
While the US, Japan, and South Korea have all taken concrete steps towards regional deterrence, the newly formed Trilateral Security Cooperation Framework amongst the three nations creates opportunities to coordinate efforts and more fully establish a model for regional, multinational deterrence. Since 2019, the US Army and Japan Ground Self-Defense Force have bilaterally experimented with new multidomain and cross domain concepts extending into the Ryukyu Islands. Continued efforts between the US and Japan will transform US Army Japan and the scheduled fourth multidomain task force into a new Multi Domain Command Japan. Given its benefit of having operated as a combined force in the region for decades, the US-South Korea combined forces do not necessarily need their own combined multidomain task force on the peninsula—units initially designed to counter adversary anti-access / area denial networks. In fact, ongoing initiatives indicate that South Korea is already starting to think and act like a command preparing for multidomain operations. The South Korean military has already initiated steps to create its own multidomain operations division with an increased focus on the amalgamation of space and cyber domains into other operations along with responsibilities for the nation’s cognitive warfare efforts.
The sharing of tactics and reorganization of force structure across these nations is a strong indicator of the first steps towards tactical integration. However, multidimensional warfare will deliberately blur boundaries, both cognitive and physical. Geography and proximity to potential future threats in the region demands a truly combined approach in the establishment of a unified network with fully machine-to-machine interoperability across sensors, radars, and command and control nodes. All capabilities in the region possessing strategic detection or engagement ranges must be considered in combined exercises as flexible response options to emerging threats across the theater. These first steps will set the initial conditions for the advanced analytics, AI, and machine learning necessary to process massive datasets for rapid decision-making. This is especially necessary when supporting functions like missile defense, maritime domain awareness, and countering cyber misinformation efforts. While preserving options to retain parallel command structures, this trilateral approach must include policies and technical solutions to fuse, disseminate, and elevate critical information to decision-makers and units of actions. If expanded to other nations, these efforts could strengthen indicators and early warning and enable timely, coordinated responses to pacing threat aggression across the theater.
The Ability to Fight Tonight, Tomorrow, and Beyond: Integrating Trilateral Framework
Whether acting in coordination or independently, a crisis in the Taiwan Strait creates an opportunity for malign regional actors to exploit the US and its alliance, which would further create unavoidable involvement. This presents multiple dilemmas if not properly controlled as it would overwhelm the alliance’s ability to coordinate a response. To prevent such mishap, the trilateral alliance must reinforce a combined approach to its tactical activities conducted ahead of regional crises. South Korea, already a recognized leader in innovation, does not need to wait for a new US formation, a move associated with high costs and long acquisition timelines that would arrive late to need. Rather, their Joint Chiefs of Staff must continue to focus transformation efforts on a force ready to respond to threats in all domains and one that is able to coordinate across boundaries with other regional stakeholders. With new leadership for all three countries, this includes restructuring organizations with shared tactics and technology investments with compatibility across the three nations. These deliverables must be integrated and rehearsed during annual exercises (such as Ulchi Freedom Shield and Orient Shield) from positions of relevance. The trilateral partnership cannot rely only on mutual defense treaties that are only in play if a conflict arises. The current paradigm will be too late to provide strategic flexibility and swiftly deter China’s Taiwan invasion or a hostile North Korean attack. Unfortunately, Taiwan invasion and North Korea’s provocative actions on the Korean Peninsula occurring simultaneously is no longer a conjecture. Notwithstanding, with a concrete trilateral framework, the alliance can concurrently provide extended deterrence and signal to other malign actors that coordinated aggression would be met with multi-dimensional defense.
Disclaimer: The views expressed are those of the authors and do not reflect the official position of the Department of the Army or the Department of War.
