US military urged to act faster on interlinked warfare system as China catches up

China’s so-called Multi-Domain Precision Warfare seen as aiming to counter Pentagon’s Joint All-Domain Command and Control initiative

US system aims to link troops and databases across land, air, sea, space and cyber for faster, more efficient and more long distance strikes

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China’s Multi-Domain Precision Warfare aims to align all its forces “from cyber to space”. Photo: Shutterstock

Published: 10:03pm, 9 Jan 2023Updated: 10:07pm, 9 Jan 2023

The United States must speed up the building of its interlinked warfare system as China pursues its own version to counter the US platform, American media reported its defence officials as saying.

The so-called Chinese Multi-Domain Precision Warfare (MDPW) was mentioned by the US Department of Defence in its annual China Military Power Report last November.

The MDPW aims to align all Chinese forces “from cyber to space”, US military website C4ISRNET.com reported last week.

US officials say the effort is “fuelled by a need to counter” the Pentagon’s Joint All-Domain Command and Control initiative (JADC2), it added.

The People’s Liberation Army first tested the MDPW in 2021 to interlink command and control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance to quickly coordinate firepower and expose foreign weaknesses, according to the Pentagon report in November.

The PLA sees “systems destruction warfare as the next way of war”, C4ISRNET quoted an anonymous senior US defence official as saying last year.