Synchronizing MDO Effects: Putting the Commander Back in Control through Converged NLE and NKA Operations

Introduction: Regaining Command Through Synchronization

Modern battlefields are shaped by data saturation, multi-domain complexity, and the accelerating convergence of effects across physical, informational, and human dimensions. While advanced sensors and AI promise rapid decision-making, commanders often face fragmented data streams, stovepiped staff processes, and poorly integrated fires. This is more than a technical problem—it undermines mission command by limiting how leaders orchestrate tempo and capitalize on opportunities.

Synchronizing Multi-Domain Operations (MDO) with non-lethal effects (NLE) and non-kinetic activities (NKA) is therefore not just an innovation; it’s an operational necessity. Done right, this integration restores commanders’ decision space, creates information advantage (IA), and forces adversaries into dilemmas they cannot easily solve.

Reframing Command and Control: Beyond Firepower

U.S. formations—cavalry, armor, and combined arms teams—have long relied on mobility, firepower, and shock. But today’s adversaries challenge these strengths through layered denial strategies and continuous information campaigns. In Ukraine, Russian attempts to use cyberattacks and propaganda to shape the fight before kinetic blows largely failed against Ukrainian resilience and agile strategic messaging. Meanwhile, Azerbaijan’s operations in Nagorno-Karabakh demonstrated how synchronizing drones, electronic warfare (EW), deception, and narrative shaping can collapse defenses and will to fight through multi-dimensional pressure.

Maneuver alone is no longer sufficient. As operational studies have argued, true advantage comes from “baking in” information forces alongside maneuver—forcing adversaries to react to our timing, not theirs.

Synchronizing Across Domains: The COP as the Centerpiece

A fused, trusted Common Operational Picture (COP) lies at the heart of effective MDO. It must go beyond depicting friendly and enemy maneuver units to overlay electronic attacks, cyber campaigns, psychological operations (PSYOP) narratives, and anticipated adversary decision points. Only then can commanders visualize crucial convergence windows where synchronized effects deliver compounding impacts.

Recent doctrinal evolution, including the shift from traditional air tasking orders to the Integrated Tasking Order (ITO), reflects this reality. The ITO treats “an effect as an effect,” whether delivered by rocket batteries, PSYOP broadcasts, or cyber payloads—embedding non-kinetic alongside kinetic from the start.

From Decision Space to Decision Dominance

The goal is not simply to add more effects—it’s to compress the enemy’s Observe, Orient, Decide, and Act (OODA) loop while expanding our own. Barton Whaley’s seminal research on deception and surprise found that multi-faceted timing and coordination were decisive in over half of the conflicts analyzed.

Modern convergence means using NLE/NKA to fracture morale, blind ISR networks, disrupt command cohesion, and delay adversary reactions—precisely when maneuver forces strike. The resulting order-of-effect cascade magnifies tactical gains into strategic leverage.

Consider Ukraine: HIMARS strikes on Russian command nodes, guided by fused intelligence and amplified through real-time strategic communication, not only shattered local coordination but also eroded Moscow’s political unity. This demonstrates how synchronized multi-domain effects turn battlefield blows into enduring dilemmas.

Designing Convergence: A Structured Approach

Too often, convergence windows are treated as simple overlay charts at a late stage in planning. A more rigorous framework ensures NLE/NKA are identified, sequenced, and codified alongside maneuvers from the start.

Drawing on recent fieldwork and doctrine, a five-step approach stands out:

1. Build the Menu of Options: Catalog all NLE/NKA capabilities by means of delivery method, authorities, and effect timelines.
2. Match Effects to Targets: Utilize Non-Lethal Critical Vulnerability Analysis (NLCVA) to identify adversary cognitive and informational weaknesses.
3. Design the Convergence Window: Plan lead times, durations, and sequencing to ensure that multiple effects peak simultaneously.
4. Synchronize with Maneuver and Fires: Overlay non-kinetic actions onto the same planning tools as artillery and movement graphics.
5. Codify in OPORDs and Target Lists: Embed effects in orders and targeting products to secure resources and pre-approvals.

This planning model illustrates how NLE/NKA effects are developed, postured, and executed to culminate precisely with maneuver. It ensures cognitive and informational disruption sets conditions for physical assault, forcing adversary decisions under duress.

This approach forces planners to treat NLE/NKA with the same rigor as kinetic fires. It visualizes how layered effects accumulate—like compound interest—until adversary cohesion breaks at precisely the moment maneuver requires it.

The Role of AI/ML, Institutional Reforms, and Doctrinal Support

Emerging tools, such as AI/ML-driven Target System Analysis, promise to map adversary center-of-gravity systems—cognitive, informational, and physical—at speeds that humans alone can’t match. Meanwhile, new multi-domain planning frameworks, as reflected in TRADOC’s latest operational environment assessments, explicitly call for blending information operations, cyber, and deception into core targeting and maneuver schemes. As the Army’s primary unit of action, the Theater Information Advantage Detachment (TIAD) could demonstrate how these assessments ‘grow legs’ and rapidly deploy into the operating environment.

Combined with doctrinal advances, such as the ITO and revised Joint publications, these initiatives move the Joint Force from fragmented integration to deliberate, predictive targeting of adversary decision-making.

Recommendations

1. Standardize NLE/NKA Overlays: Include them on all COP and fires graphics, rehearsals, and wargames.
2. Treat Information Fires as Core: Plan them as pre-coordinated effects with defined convergence windows, not as “extras.”
3. Invest in AI-Enabled Targeting: Develop tools that identify adversary psychological and informational pressure points.
4. Stand Up Persistent Multi-Domain Cells: Create enduring analytic hubs to provide cross-domain target development.
5. Train the Force for Convergence: Require IO, cyber, and maneuver leaders to learn each other’s disciplines through shared courses and exercises.

Conclusion: Putting the Commander Back in Control

Synchronizing MDO with NLE and NKA is not futuristic theory—it is the current battlefield reality in Ukraine, the Indo-Pacific, and every theater where rivals contest narratives before terrain. Restoring genuine mission command in this environment requires commanders to wield all-domain effects holistically, forcing adversaries into dilemmas while preserving our tempo and freedom of action.

A structured approach to convergence, underpinned by new targeting frameworks and institutional support, ensures commanders lead multi-domain fights with clarity and initiative, not just as orchestrators of kinetic fires, but as masters of the entire competitive space.