Operating in the Dark

When Your Technology is Useless

Updated: 09 August 2025

Not easy, but simple.

Strategic Insights: At a Glance

• A formation can move like lightning when the net is green—but fights like it’s in molasses when the lights go out.

• Near-peer conflict will contest space, spectrum, and cyber—by design.

• Mission command without comms is discussed in doctrine but rarely exercised.

• The Joint Force must normalize “off-grid” execution as a baseline, not a contingency.

• Victory favors the force that can act with clarity when blind and cut off.

---

“The commander must lead his troops into battle as if he had no radios and no GPS. If the technology fails, the plan must still work.”

— Paraphrased from a forgotten staff huddle, Afghanistan, 2010

We’ve built a military that can talk, stream, and share with unprecedented speed—but not necessarily fight through friction, loss, or confusion. The further we push toward seamless connectivity, the more brittle our formations become when the lights go out. This isn’t theoretical. It’s already happened—just not to us. Yet.

We’ve Trained for the Fight We Can’t Fight

Walk into any command post and the glow will blind you. Dozens of screens, chat threads, and synced battle rhythms. The assumption? Our systems will work. Our servers will hold. Our networks are secure against stress, jamming, deception, or attack.

But in a fight against a near-peer—where space is contested, spectrum saturated, and cyber is a live-fire domain—those assumptions don’t hold. Russia’s failures in Ukraine offer a case study—not because their connectivity collapsed entirely, but because formations faltered once digital systems were degraded, fracturing command and eroding cohesion.

And this isn’t just “another army’s problem.” I can recall, as a young Rifle Platoon Leader in a division-level training exercise in the early 2000s, operating independent from the rest of my company—alone and unafraid. At some point, we lost radio contact with the Company Command Post. After a predetermined time, I took a squad and moved toward the Company Headquarters’ last known location, leaving my Platoon Sergeant with a Five Point Contingency Plan. When I arrived, I discovered there’d been a tactical pause in the exercise—and the word had never reached my platoon. It was a small lapse in a training environment, but in combat, that kind of break in comms can fracture cohesion, stall maneuver, and waste precious time.

Yet, the Joint Force habitually tucks “degraded comms” into a caveat buried within a CONOP. That’s not planning. That’s hope—and hope isn’t an acceptable Course of Action.

What Happens When the Network Dies?

• Mission command becomes theory when leaders cling to constant updates from higher.

• Digital fires stall when chat-based systems and server-based approvals go offline.

• Situational awareness collapses when maps, feeds, and trackers are server-dependent.

• OPTEMPO slows when planning tools falter offline.

Worse still, it’s not just junior leaders: many senior commanders and staff officers lack experience in full-throttle, comms-denied operations. Mission command gets briefed, not executed. Decentralization is talked about, not practiced.

Why It Matters

In LSCO, the enemy votes—and they’re choosing to blind us. China explicitly targets U.S. C2 networks, working to degrade satellite links, jam comms, inject misinformation, and delay decision cycles (Military and Security Developments Involving the People’s Republic of China 2023).

Picture it: a brigade moving to contact when, suddenly, every radio hisses static. Fire missions hang in limbo. Units maneuver out of sync. Orders die in inboxes. The map freezes, but the battlefield doesn’t. The enemy keeps moving.

“Victory in future wars will go to the side that first seizes control of information.”

— Science of Military Strategy (2013), PLA doctrine, via CASI translation

We’ve optimized for complexity through digital systems—but lost the muscle memory for operating without them. In denial environments, simplicity and initiative—not bandwidth—decide the outcome.

The Hard Truth

• Your JADC2 concept crumbles on first contact if it depends on bandwidth you don’t control.

• Your MDMP slides are useless if no one sees them in time to act.

• Your maneuver plan is fragile if subordinates can’t execute with nothing but a mission, commander’s intent, compass, watch, and left/right limit.

This isn’t a call to abandon technology. It’s a demand to quit designing around best-case assumptions. The enemy isn’t impressed by our servers—they’re targeting them.

Simple, Not Easy: Three Field-Tested Principles

1. Every C2 plan must include an off-grid mode—the operation continues if the network dies.

2. Every formation must routinely rehearse comms-out operations—not as an annual checkbox.

3. Senior leaders must stop excusing, “We can’t operate without [X system].” If that’s true, [X] is a liability.

What Right Looks Like

If you’re seeking a doctrinal flowchart, you’ve missed the point. What right looks like isn’t a diagram—it’s a mindset.

CPT John Miller (Saving Private Ryan) didn’t need bandwidth to hold the bridge at Ramelle. Radios were down. Reinforcements uncertain. Orders vague. He didn’t freeze, escalate, or ask for more guidance. He assessed, adapted, issued a plan, and fought—not because he had perfect clarity, but because he had mission clarity.

Lt. Andrew Rowan (A Message to Garcia) was told: “Get this note to Garcia.” No staff. No updates. No comms. Just trust. He didn’t ask how. He didn’t ask when. He took the message and moved. That’s disciplined initiative in its purest form.

We don’t need new apps. We need more leaders who act like Rowan—self-reliant and mission-focused—and more formations that fight like Miller’s: led with intent, trained to adapt, capable without connectivity.

Comms-Reliant vs. Comms-Denied

Mindset

• Comms-Reliant: “Wait for higher.”

• Comms-Denied: “Execute the mission.”

Dependency

• Comms-Reliant: Digital systems, approvals, network sync.

• Comms-Denied: Commander’s intent, discipline, initiative.

Real-World Example

• Comms-Reliant: Staff refreshing COPs and chat threads.

• Comms-Denied: CPT Miller holding Ramelle.

Historical Archetype

• Comms-Reliant: Theater-level JADC2 CONOP.

• Comms-Denied: Lt. Rowan delivering Garcia’s message.

Reaction in Crisis

• Comms-Reliant: Freeze or escalate when guidance fails.

• Comms-Denied: Adapt, act, report later.

Training Focus

• Comms-Reliant: Slide-deck and server-driven rehearsals.

• Comms-Denied: Repetition under no-comms stress.

Doctrinal Alignment

• Comms-Reliant: Aspirational mission command.

• Comms-Denied: Practiced mission command (JP 3-0, III-4).

In the end, we won’t rise to our level of technology—we’ll fall to our level of training.

Learn from others’ mistakes so you don’t become the lesson.

⸻

AI Summary:

Overreliance on digital connectivity risks turning the Joint Force into a brittle entity in high-end conflict. Drawing on lessons from Ukraine, PLA doctrine, and a real U.S. degraded-comms incident, this essay argues that mission command must be executable under full comms denial. It demands routine training for offline execution, disciplined initiative, and design around degraded conditions—not ideal ones. Victory favors those who act clearly when cut off.