100 Essential Military Buzzwords for 2022

Doctrines, concepts, code names and acronyms...(Oh my)

BY WILLIAM ARKIN and MARC AMBINDER

This post is not for the faint of heart. The national security community produces an avalanche of buzzwords, code names, jargon, and acronyms that explains increasingly fine-grained explanations of basic concepts, policy, and doctrine. It is a constantly changing and evolving terminology, most of it introduced in documents that are a formal part of the overall military planning process.

Some of this terminology fades away or is further refined to go deeper into “operationalizing” broad concepts, some softened or homogenized to find common mmm ground amongst disparate and competing organizations.

Other terms and concepts stick and become the bread and butter of an articulated present and future, that is, until the entire military has at least a cursory understanding of concepts. When that happens, terminology finds its way into common usage. That would apply, for instance, to such terms like “information warfare” or “effects based operations” or “homeland security”. Once brand new concepts, today they are common usage. Other such as “cyber” become so broadly applied that they live precariously, begging for more precise clarification.

The military is on the cusp of a transformation from the global war on terror (GWOT) – a concept itself invented in 2001 – to a return to a second Cold War. “Great power competition” is what this is called, a concept codified in the 2018 National Defense Strategy.

Coincident with the focus is a shift in terms: away from counterterrorism, unconventional warfare, irregular warfare, counter-insurgency warfare, special operations – all terminology with specific meaning – back to conventional warfare, peer and near-peer “competition,” and large scale combat operations. You can’t even talk about this shift without resorting to the specialized terminology.

With the shift then comes a new terminology, some of it brand new, some of it jargon that is itself ready to enter the invisible Webster’s. The terminology applies to all aspects of the “thinking” and working of the military, intelligence community, and domestic national security scene. The 100 terms and phrases collected here are more centrally describing or driving what exists today and aspirations for what will come in the future. The terms describe broad concepts of warfighting (“anti-access/area denial” or “multi-domain operations”) that bring the military into the present and the future. There is a elaboration literature behind every one of these terms and concepts.

The very definition of buzzword – “a word or phrase, often an item of jargon, that is fashionable at a particular time or in a particular context” – applies here as well, and many of these terms are destined for obscurity. What is hot today often is hot because some Secretary or some chief (e.g., chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff or a Chief of one of the services) endeavors to put their stamp on direction or doctrine. Until the next person comes along.

Though the 2018 National Defense Strategy – the highest level current articulation of the state of the military – springs from the mind of former Secretary of Defense James Mattis and nominally follows some Trump administration thrust, there is already formal change afoot. The Biden administration has already produced an Interim National Security Strategic Guidance, which is influencing the writing of the 2022 National Defense Strategy, now in preparation.

And on and on ... In the meantime, here are 100 new and not-so-new terms that describe much of what the military is doing and aspiring to master or transition to.

Without further ado….

1. “2+3”

2. 2030 Space Vision

3. Activity Based Intelligence (ABI)/Structured Observation Management (SOM)  

4. Agile Combat Employment (ACE)

5. All-domain/Joint All-Domain Operations (JADO)/Combined Joint All-Domain Command and Control (CJADC2)

6. Analytical Modernization (AMOD)

7. Anti-Access/Area Denial (A2/AD)

8. Anticipatory intelligence

9. Army Aimpoint for 2035/Force Design 2030

10. Artificial Intelligence/Machine Learning

11. augmented reality (AR)/virtual reality (VR)

12. Autonomy/autonomous systems

13. “big data” analytics

14. C2IE (Command and Control in the Information Environment)

15. Cloud/ICITE Cloud

16. CNO’s Navigation Plan

17. Commercial Solutions for Classified (CSfC)

18. Competition continuum

19. Continuous evaluation/User Activity Monitoring (UAM)/Continuous Monitoring (CONMON)

20. Counter Transnational Organized Crime (CTOC)

21. Counter Unmanned Aerial Systems (C-UAS)/Counter-small Unmanned Aerial Systems (C-sUAV)

22. Cross Domain Solutions

23. cross-functional

24. Cyber Resiliency of Weapons Systems (CROWS)

25. Cyber Tasking Orders (CTOs)

26. DCO-IDM missions (defensive cyber operations-internal defensive measures)

27. Defense Intelligence Strategy (DIS)

28. Directed energy weapons

29. Disruptive energetics

30. Distributed Maritime Operations (DMO)

31. Dynamic force employment

32. Expeditionary Advanced Base Operations (EABO)

33. extremism

34. FADE/MIST

35. FIVE-O (facility, individual, virtual, equipment, or organization)

36. Full Spectrum GEOINT (FSG)

37. Ghost Orders

38. Global Campaign Plan

39. Global military integration

40. gray zone operations and activities

41. Great Power Competition (GPC)/Strategic Competition

42. Guidance for the Development of Alliances and Partnerships (GDAP)

43. High Altitude ISR (HAISR) beyond line-of-sight

44. heuristic techniques

45. Human machine teaming (HMT)

46. hybrid warfare

47. hypersonics

48. Identity management (IdM)/signature reduction

49. INDUSEC (Industrial Security)

50. Insider threat

51. Integrated deterrence

52. Intelligence preparation of the Battlefield/Battlespace/Environment (IPB)

53. Interim National Security Strategic Guidance, 2021

54. JIIM (Joint, Interagency, Intergovernmental and Multinational)

55. Joint all domain command and control (JADC2)

56. Joint Force 2030

57. Joint Operating Environment 2040

58. large-scale combat operations (LSCO)/large force employment (LFE)

59. Littoral Operations in a Contested Environment (LOCE)

60. long-range fires

61. machine learning techniques (clustering, decision tree learning, artificial neural networks)

62. Missile Defense Review

63. Mobilization Operations Planning and Execution System (MOPES)

64. Multi-Domain Operations (MDO)

65. multi-INT

66. multi-mode operations

67. National Defense Strategy 2022 (NDS)

68. National Intelligence Strategy (NIS)

69. Navigation warfare (NAVWAR)

70. Near Peer Competitor

71. Nuclear Posture Review

72. ODTAAC (Outside Declared Theater of Active Armed Conflict)

73. Open Source Intelligence (OSINT)

74. Operations in the Information Environment (OIE)/Joint Concept for Information Advantage

75. OPIR (Overhead Persistent Infrared)

76. Overmatch/Project Overmatch

77. Pacing challenge

78. Position, Navigation and Timing (PNT)

79. predictive analytics

80. Project Convergence

81. Protect and Defend (P&D) mission

82. publicly available information (PAI)

83. Purpose-Built Task Forces (PBTFs)

84. Quantum research/information sciences

85. random forests

86. resilience

87. “Road-to War”

88. Senior Leader Command, Control, and Communications Services (SLC3S)

89. Set the Globe

90. Social media exploitation (SOCEX)

91. Space Control/Offensive Space Control/Defensive Space Control

92. Space Domain Awareness (SDA)/Space Situational Awareness (SSA)

93. Space superiority/Space supremacy

94. Spectrum warfare

95. Supply chain protection

96. Synthetic biology/biotechnology

97. threat-based strategy

98. Tri-Service Maritime Strategy

99. unmanned systems

100. “Whole of” everything