{"id":33093,"date":"2026-06-05T03:08:09","date_gmt":"2026-06-05T03:08:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gsrra.com\/?p=33093"},"modified":"2026-06-05T03:08:12","modified_gmt":"2026-06-05T03:08:12","slug":"analysis-beyond-the-multi-domain-operations-buzzword-pakistans-new-commandspro","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gsrra.com\/?p=33093","title":{"rendered":"Analysis: Beyond the \u2018Multi-Domain Operations\u2019 Buzzword \u2013 Pakistan\u2019s New CommandsPro"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Pakistan’s military is quietly building “unified sub-commands” \u2014 the ARFC, Space Command, and a possible Drone Force \u2014 that cut horizontally across the Army, Air Force, and Navy, presided over by a single CDF-led chain of command.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Military<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Since the May 2025 conflict with India, the leaders of each of Pakistan\u2019s tri-services \u2013 the Army, Navy, and Air Force \u2013 have championed the military\u2019s adoption of multi-domain operations<\/a> (MDO), which, in the words of Lt General Nauman Zakria, amounts to the \u201cintegrated use of cyber and electronic warfare, ISR, space-based capabilities, and synchronized maneuver generating cross-domain effects.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In its most distilled form, Pakistan\u2019s MDO is its capacity to deploy a single \u2018enablement\u2019 infrastructure \u2013 such as ISTAR \u2013 across the tri-services, allowing each service arm to tap into that infrastructure for its respective strike or attack operations; a straightforward example is the Army Rocket Force Command<\/a> (ARFC) tapping into Space Command, stewarded by the PAF, for targeting information drawn from the country\u2019s satellite constellation<\/a>. There are many more aspects to this, but the basic point is that one service arm can now readily leverage systems managed by another.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Evolving Organizational Structures in the Tri-Services<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Where it gets notably interesting is that beneath the terminology, an emerging organizational structure is also at play \u2013 i.e., \u2018unified sub-commands.\u2019 To be clear, the armed forces have not explicitly defined the term, so these insights are this author\u2019s observations. The short of it is that each of the main service branches is beginning to employ a sub-service arm that would integrate deeply with a sub-service arm within another branch.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Returning to the earlier example, the ARFC operates under the Army but arguably serves as Pakistan\u2019s primary surface-to-surface strike arm, using a growing mix of guided artillery rockets, tactical ballistic missiles, and subsonic and supersonic cruise missiles; yet for the ARFC to be as impactful as it could be, its ISTAR net requires input from the PAF\u2019s Space Command<\/a>, the steward \u2013 at least from a military perspective \u2013 of Pakistan\u2019s growing satellite constellation (i.e., PRSC-EO1<\/a>, EO2<\/a>, EO3<\/a>, S1<\/a>, HS1<\/a>, and, in the future, InSAR<\/a>). The term \u2018MDO\u2019 implies that the ARFC is, or will be, directly connected at the technological level with Space Command.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thus, if one views the traditional main arms as vertical silos, one now has \u2013 via the ARFC and Space Command \u2013 a horizontal line cutting across each of them, and where it gets particularly noteworthy is that adjacent to this horizontal line is, potentially, a command-and-control (C2) structure that takes ownership of that horizontal \u2018kill-chain.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Necessitating the CDF Role<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

This is the essence of Quwa\u2019s thesis: that Pakistan is seemingly constructing \u2018unified sub-service\u2019 arms \u2013 i.e., MDO chains that operate horizontally across each of the main service arms but ultimately report to a well-defined chain of command, one that would likely, in this author\u2019s assessment, feed directly back to the Chief of Defence Forces (CDF) \u2013 and understandably so.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

First, the ARFC\u2019s capabilities are evidently evolving: not only are its attack modes growing \u2013 e.g., the recent announcement of the Fatah-3<\/a> as an apparent supersonic-cruising missile \u2013 but in all likelihood so is its reach, with a Pakistan Army officer recently disclosing that a \u2018Fatah-5\u2019 had been tested. Although details were not provided, one can infer from the trajectories of SSM and TBM programs in other countries that the minimum outcome for a \u2018Fatah-5\u2019 would be additional range.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How that translates is open to speculation \u2013 there could be an evolution of the Fatah-2 into a medium-range ballistic missile in the 1,000 km to 2,000 km range, a new hypersonic platform, or new longer-ranged subsonic-cruising missiles building on the\u00a0Fatah-IV\/Babur lineage \u2013 but even with the specifics unknown, one can safely infer that additional range is in the pipeline, since it meets the requirement. Pakistan\u2019s military planners fully understand that India will keep pulling its most valuable assets away from the northwest border, so it stands to reason that the imperative, whatever the attack mode, to reach those targets will be there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That growth in conventional strike capability, especially when paired with real-time or near-real-time ISTAR and compressed decision-to-response timeframes, means the decision to enable strikes must reside somewhere: if the decision to strike escalates the situation and risks war, who will be accountable for that choice, and who will take ownership of stopping strikes when the calls for talks enter the equation?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As one will recall, in the May 2025 conflict<\/a> \u2013 and, in fact, the preceding February 2019 conflict<\/a> \u2013 if the responsibility for carrying out offensive strikes were left solely to the PAF, there would be a delay, since the PAF would always need to prep its offensive air group(s), creating an actual buffer during which de-escalation or a truce can occur. In the context of the ARFC-led horizontal layer, however, that buffer need not exist; rather, Pakistan can theoretically strike at any point in the conflict, even preemptively, should it choose to do so, and the power vested in the ARFC will be far from trivial, as it could one day house long-range and\/or hypersonic strike systems further complemented by a credible ISTAR enablement net.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the ARFC-led context, chaining it to the CDF ensures strong controls to keep escalation in check, but it also invites discussion of whether that consolidation is beneficial: Pakistan is the smaller force in a fight with India, and in light of this asymmetry, speed of action \u2013 with a preemptive element \u2013 is one of the few advantages it can leverage. Iran played to this via its \u2018mosaic defence\u2019 strategy<\/a>, disaggregating the C2 of its stand-off weapon (SOW) assets, thereby allowing it to fight nimbly while operating in the absence of its top<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Reference Link:- https:\/\/quwa.org\/pakistan\/market-intelligence\/analysis-beyond-the-multi-domain-operations-buzzword-pakistans-new-commands\/<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Pakistan’s military is quietly building “unified sub-commands” \u2014 the ARFC, Space Command, and a possible Drone Force \u2014 that cut horizontally across the Army, Air Force, and Navy, presided over by a single CDF-led chain of command. Since the May 2025 conflict with India, the leaders of each of Pakistan\u2019s tri-services \u2013 the Army, Navy, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":33094,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"aside","meta":{"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[2],"tags":[23760,30103,23759,30101,30102,483,30104,30105,23836],"class_list":["post-33093","post","type-post","status-publish","format-aside","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sample-category","tag-advance-technology-3","tag-arfc","tag-defense-2","tag-multi-domain-operations","tag-new-commanspro","tag-pakistan-2","tag-sdf-led-chain-of-command","tag-strog-desfense","tag-upgradation-2","post_format-post-format-aside"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gsrra.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33093","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gsrra.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gsrra.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gsrra.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gsrra.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=33093"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/gsrra.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33093\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":33095,"href":"https:\/\/gsrra.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33093\/revisions\/33095"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gsrra.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/33094"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gsrra.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=33093"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gsrra.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=33093"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gsrra.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=33093"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}