Operational Art in the Age of Battle Networks

Operational Art in the Age of Battle Networks

Photo: U.S. Marine Corps photo by Lance Cpl. Colton Brownlee/DVIDS

The central idea is that these principles help assess crucial cases in recent wars and, in the process, illustrate the emerging importance of information effects and battle networks to modern operational art. A battle network is the fusion of sensors, shooters, and decisionmakers into a dynamic system capable of synchronizing effects across domains.¹⁹ These networks aim to shorten kill chains, increase survivability through dispersal, and maximize cross-domain fires. Unlike traditional force structures that emphasize mass formations, battle networks prioritize speed, precision, and adaptability, shifting from a platform-centric to a data-centric approach to warfare.

Battle networks encompass two key complementary concepts: (1) command, control, communications, computers, combat systems, intelligence, surveillance, and targeting (C5ISRT) and (2) kill chains/webs. C5ISRT networks are the backbone of modern operations, enabling real-time data fusion to match weapons with targets faster than the enemy can react. The core concept is that the faster a side can fuse data and allocate resources, the higher the tempo and more prudent the expenditure of resources becomes. This effect, in turn, allows states with robust C5ISRT networks, like Ukraine, to fight outnumbered by vectoring in small drones, such as first-person view (FPV) drones, and artillery fire to attrit assaults and even spoil attacks before they begin. This logic is also why the U.S. Department of Defense, despite ongoing struggles, has prioritized both combined joint all-domain command and control (CJADC2) and software-driven approaches to acquisition.²⁰

The concept of kill chains, increasingly called "webs," reflects the lethal application of fused data from a battle network.²¹ The term "webs" identifies the importance of more scalable and resilient networks consistent with earlier Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) concepts of mosaic warfare.²² This idea has diffused rapidly through the international system, including references in the People's Liberation Army (PLA) Science of Military Strategy and Russian doctrine before the war in Ukraine.²³ This concept, in turn, reflects the maturation of an earlier idea of reconnaissance-strike complexes, which has dominated Russian military thought for decades.²⁴ Kill webs support operational targeting through concepts like kill boxes, which define geographic areas where forces have deconflict engagement authority. This accelerates tempo, including rapidly shifting authorities and attack guidance based on feedback loops analyzed at machine speed. In other words, increasing tempo requires a robust network, structured data, and analysis-including AI-driven analysis-to create advantage, a dynamic on display in Ukrainian innovations like the Delta common operating picture and multiple fires applications.²⁵ It also speaks to the logic of pulsed operations and other core concepts in the U.S. Joint Warfighting Concept.²⁶

Information, Operational Art, and the Changing Character of War

Modern warfare is undergoing a transformation in which information is no longer just a combat multiplier-it is the battle space. The ability to collect, fuse, and disseminate information now defines military power, shaping how forces mass, maneuver, and achieve surprise. On increasingly transparent battlefields where commercial satellites, drones, signals intelligence, and human networks operate in real time, the traditional calculus of force ratios and firepower must be reimagined.

Two recent campaigns illustrate this shift. In July and August 2024, Ukraine launched its boldest cross-border operation of the war, penetrating deep into Russia's Kursk region using a combination of reconnaissance-strike networks, mobile brigades, and electronic warfare to fracture Russian battle networks. Months later, Israel executed a meticulously sequenced campaign against Iran's missile infrastructure and regional proxies, blending airpower, cyber operations, and psychological warfare to target not just enemy systems but also enemy perception. In both cases, operational success depended not on overwhelming force alone but on the ability to shape the information environment, degrade adversary coherence, and achieve tempo through decision dominance. Together, these cases point to a new theory of combined arms-one in which intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR), cyber, electromagnetic operations, and influence campaigns are not supporting fires but central to the correlation of forces and means in twenty-first-century conflict.

Maneuver on a Transparent Battlefield: The 2024 Kursk Offensive

One of the core challenges of modern war is how to conduct large-scale maneuvers-whether by ground, air, or sea-when the adversary has access to constant intelligence feeds fusing commercial satellite imagery with classified signals and human intelligence. This dynamic has been characterized elsewhere as a "transparent battlefield," implying that massing forces has diminishing marginal returns, essentially a self-defeating proposition.²⁷ The first challenge of modern operational art is therefore how to align surprise, maneuver, mass, and objective on a transparent battlefield. Ukraine's initial push into Kursk offers a crucial case.

In the late summer of 2024, Ukraine launched its largest cross-border assault into Russia since the start of the 2022 war in an effort to point Moscow on the horns of a dilemma. A mix of Ukrainian special operations and elements of the 80th Air Assault Brigade infiltrated the front line, conducting special reconnaissance that complemented larger intelligence operations and combined a mix of commercial satellite imagery analysis, signals intelligence, and extensive human intelligence networks. These infiltration operations made extensive use of drones and electronic warfare-both attack and collection-to map adversary battle networks and weak points along the front line.

Combined, these operations created a new operational picture that maneuver commanders could use to visualize the battlespace and identify when and where to launch their initial assault. This assault consisted of mobile groups conducting armed reconnaissance designed to identify and exploit gaps in the Russian line based on intelligence reporting. Once a mobile group had attacked in depth, Ukrainian forces could commit entire brigades to exploit the advantage. The case was a textbook example of maneuver warfare but was conducted in a manner consistent with emerging trends in drone and electromagnetic spectrum warfare.

Turning to the principles of war, the campaign highlighted key features of modern conflict: rapid mechanized thrusts, electronic warfare, and deliberate surprise against a more numerous but potentially slower-to-adapt adversary. In terms of the principles of offense and mass, Ukraine transitioned from a largely defensive posture to a fast, deep penetration based on infiltration that exposed gaps. The high tempo of mechanized thrusts and the swift capture of Russian territory reflect a desire to stun the Russian command structure-what military theorist John Antal calls "battleshock."²⁸ Instead of using brute-force numbers, Ukraine is using "affordable mass" via FPVs and other drones to support mechanized brigades maneuvering based on real-time intelligence and electronic warfare. By synchronizing multiple brigades in at least two axes of advance, Ukraine seeks to overload Russian response efforts rather than simply present a large, static force.

In terms of the principles of maneuver and security, the Kursk campaign demonstrated how to place the enemy in a position of disadvantage through the flexible application of combat power. Ukraine's deep incursion-potentially tens of kilometers into Russian territory in the opening stages-enabled them to keep Russian forces off-balance. Maneuver encompassed not only physical envelopment but also electromagnetic and cyber elements. Ukraine jammed Russian communications and integrated intelligence from multiple sources to target Russia's weak points. This ability to rapidly identify and exploit gaps in the Russian line was related to Ukrainian operational security measures. Ukraine's success underscored how effective security in planning can achieve operational surprise. By masking intent, ensuring tight operations security, and possibly feeding deceptive indicators to Russian intelligence, Ukraine prevented Russia from reinforcing Kursk quickly. In withdrawing from Kursk, Ukraine also demonstrated the impost of securing its long supply lines and flanks within Russian territory-a key tactical vulnerability.

Battle Shock and Broken Networks: How Israel Fused Conventional and Unconventional Operations to Rewire Deterrence

In the early hours of October 25, 2024, over 100 Israeli aircraft launched Operation Days of Repentance, a coordinated multi-wave strike on Iranian military targets across the country.²⁹ The operation, unprecedented in scale and precision, hit over 20 high-value sites, including solid-fuel missile production facilities, long-range radar systems, and key components of Iran's integrated air defense network.³⁰ Although framed publicly as retaliation for Iran's massive October 1 missile and drone salvo, the strikes were far more than a proportional response. Rather, these complex attacks were the visible climax of a meticulously sequenced campaign-months in the making-that fused airpower, cyber operations, electronic warfare, and covert action into an integrated operational design. Israel did not just strike infrastructure; it targeted the logic of Iran's battle networks, disrupted proxy coordination, and used information as a weapon to generate psychological shock across the enemy system. What looked like an air strike was, in reality, a campaign to undermine Tehran's confidence in its ability to withstand future strikes and launch retaliatory strikes, a reality brought to fruition in Israeli's punishing 12-day campaign in June 2025. In other words, the campaign targeted the enemy's sense of coherence and leaders' perception of survivability while setting conditions for follow-on operations.

Israel's 2024 campaign against Iran and its proxy network was not a single air strike or even a week of bombardment. It was the culmination of a phased multidomain operation that fused conventional precision, unconventional disruption, and psychological warfare into a coherent effort to degrade Iran's capacity to project power and force its leaders to question their networks, decisions, and security.

At its core, this was a campaign against battle networks, which for Tehran consist of command and control systems, sensor architectures, and proxy infrastructure that allow Iran and its regional allies to operate as a distributed but connected strike complex. Israel took an indirect, sequential approach, opting to generate effects over time as opposed to seeking one decisive knockout blow that was almost certain to draw it into a larger war. By conducting a series of shaping activities targeting Iranian networks over months, striking them with precision and sowing cognitive dislocation among their operators, Israel demonstrated how information is no longer just about passing data across systems; it is about how leaders perceive the world around them-and whether they still believe their systems will hold.

This campaign began not with a missile, but with a message. In late July 2024, a senior Hamas official was assassinated in central Tehran-one of the most secure areas in the Islamic republic.³¹ The strike was not random; it was symbolic and surgical. It punctured the idea that Iran could protect key nodes in its regional proxy network, and it forced senior officials in Tehran to ask a dangerous question: If they got him, who is next?

This covert action was followed by escalating strikes in southern Lebanon, including a September attack on a Hezbollah command site and a sabotage campaign that took thousands of fighters off the battlefield by blowing up their communications devices (i.e., pagers, radios).³² These operations reflected a deliberate focus on battle networks-degrading not just shooters or missiles but also the communication and coordination layers that allow Iranian and proxy forces to act as a system.

This shaping phase-covert, psychological, and electromagnetic-laid the foundation for what came next. And it was not just about killing leaders or destroying assets; it was about fragmenting adversary situational awareness. In modern war, battle networks are the central nervous system. Israel was not trying to defeat a massed army; it was disabling a distributed brain to gain a position of advantage over its much larger rival, Iran.

When Israeli aircraft launched a multi-wave strike on October 25, 2024, targeting 20 Iranian military sites across the country, it was the kinetic crescendo of a campaign designed to change Iran's decision calculus. The targets included missile production facilities essential to Iran's solid-fuel ballistic missile arsenal and high-end radar systems like the S-300.³³ This shaping would prove critical in the June 2025 campaign in which Israel demonstrated its ability to attack targets across Iran.

From an operational perspective, the campaign aligned with key principles of war, adapted to an area of war by and through battle networks. First, consider the principle of objective and the need to ensure every military action is directed toward a clearly defined and achievable end. In the campaign, the objective appeared to be eroding Iran's ability to mass and launch precision missiles at Israel. By degrading missile production nodes and battle network infrastructure, Israel reduced near-term threats without widening the war.

Two additional principles help frame the campaign: offensive and maneuver. Israel seized and retained the initiative through a three-wave strike campaign, using air-launched standoff munitions to force Iran into a reactive posture.³⁴ And this strategy was not just geographic. Israel maneuvered in the electromagnetic spectrum-jamming, spoofing, and disabling radar systems-and in cognitive space by compelling Iranian leaders to question the integrity of their command networks and the accuracy of their information picture. Rather than strike symbolic or escalatory targets (e.g., oil infrastructure, nuclear sites, or regime leadership), Israel concentrated advanced munitions and assets in the October campaign on key enablers of Iran's strike complex, essentially reducing its viability and signaling its ability to hold other targets at risk. This preserved missile defense reserves, ensured strategic restraint, and sustained readiness for follow-on operations. Perhaps the most profound aspect is that Israel did not just protect its forces, it made Iranian commanders feel insecure. By striking deep targets without warning, disrupting early warning networks, and demonstrating the ability to kill leaders in the heart of Tehran, Israel demonstrated its ability to impose costs.

Taken as a whole, Israel's campaign demonstrates that modern battle networks exist not just in servers, satellites, or sensor arrays but also in the minds of their operators. Israeli planners understood that disrupting data links and radar systems would go only so far. The real target was perception, which is why Israel likely integrated cyber operations to delay enemy reaction time, degrade command coordination, and injected doubt into decision chains. Israeli Air Force F-35Is, with their suite of passive sensors and electronic warfare capabilities, likely mapped and disrupted Iranian air defense systems in real time. Paired with standoff jamming platforms and coordinated decoy operations, these actions rendered Iran's most advanced radar systems functionally blind.

But even more important, the campaign created informational fog for Iran's leadership. In a regime where trust is already precarious and decisionmaking centralized, the sudden loss of awareness-combined with fear of further targeted assassinations-frayed coherence across Tehran's national security apparatus. This is the modern adaptation of battle shock: not just sudden violence but calculated disorientation; a break in trust, not just a break in infrastructure; a feeling that no network is safe, no command center secure, no bunker deep enough.

As a result, Israel's 2024 campaign was more than a response to missile salvos. It was a case study in how operational art adapts to an age of systems warfare and cognitive contestation. By attacking the connective tissue of Iran's battle networks, Israel degraded not only strike capabilities but also the belief that those capabilities could function under fire. These effects set the conditions for the deeper campaign Israel launched in June 2025 that significantly set back Iran's missile inventory, nuclear sites, air defenses, and even military leadership.

This is the essence of modern deterrence: not just the ability to retaliate but also the ability to create persistent uncertainty-a psychological edge that makes adversaries hesitate. In this campaign, Israel did not just pass data faster or fire further. It weaponized perception, shattered battle networks, and rewrote the strategic calculus in Tehran-not through occupation but by eroding confidence from the inside out.

Conclusion

From the campaign in Kursk and the skies of Tehran, contemporary military operations reveal a world in which the decisive terrain is not just geographic-it is digital, electromagnetic, and psychological. The integration of sensors, shooters, and decisionmakers into fused battle networks is redefining how states generate combat power. These cases show that operational art in the twenty-first century is no longer about massing forces at a decisive point. It is about generating converging dilemmas at speed across domains and denying adversaries the ability to process what is happening until it is too late. The campaigns examined here reflect more than adaptation in real time; they offer blueprints for the future of warfare.

From the campaign in Kursk and the skies of Tehran, contemporary military operations reveal a world in which the decisive terrain is not just geographic-it is digital, electromagnetic, and psychological.

Implication 1: Future campaigns will be built around adaptive kill webs.

Ukraine's battlefield innovation demonstrates that modern campaigns will be increasingly defined by software-defined kill webs that can be rapidly reconfigured under fire. In Kursk, Ukraine combined drone reconnaissance, open-source targeting, and decentralized command nodes to fracture Russian battle networks. These operations were not linear. They were modular, pulsed, and responsive to real-time intelligence. Future military formations, particularly for smaller or outnumbered states, will need to emulate this model by fusing civilian and military ISR, applying real-time analytics, and pushing decision authority down to frontline echelons. In this world, survivability is not just about armor; it is about adaptation at the speed of relevance.

Implication 2: Strategic effects will come from information-driven shock.

Israel's 2024 air campaign revealed that the most powerful strike is not always kinetic. It is the one that fractures an adversary's perception of control. From the assassination in Tehran to coordinated cyber and electronic warfare attacks, Israel targeted not just radar sites and missile factories but also the cognitive coherence of Iran's battle network. The lesson for future deterrence and coercion campaigns is clear. The side that can inject uncertainty into decisionmaking loops, fracture trust in systems, and make leaders feel personally vulnerable will shape strategic outcomes long before a single brigade deploys. Information is not just a force multiplier; it is a weapon of war.

Implication 3: Multidomain operations will prioritize tempo.

Israel's multidomain campaign-synchronizing F-35 sensor fusion, cyber operations, decoys, and standoff munitions-demonstrates that the future of operational art is about shaping time more than terrain. Maneuver now happens across the electromagnetic spectrum, cyberspace, and strategic narrative, all while creating tempo that overloads adversary systems. In this vision, "seizing the initiative" means disrupting adversary kill chains, fragmenting their information picture, and making their battle rhythm irrelevant. Tomorrow's campaigns will succeed by making adversaries hesitate, misallocate resources, and react to illusions until their networks and confidence collapse.

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Benjamin Jensen is the director of the Futures Lab at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C.