🔷 Here’s the DDIL

DDIL

Shoot-Move-Communicate: the essence of maneuver warfare.

To do that requires command, control, and communication (C3). If C3 is disrupted, it impacts the ability to coordinate movement and fires.

Electronic Warfare (EW) is one of the most efficient and effective means of doing this.

REC

During the Cold War, the Soviet Union employed an EW doctrine called REC (radio-electronic combat, derived from radioelektronnaya borba (REB)).

REC focused on breaking down Allies’ C3 and was an intrinsic part of the Soviet Union’s military strategy. Today, the concept of REC is seen all over Ukraine, with widespread comms and GPS jamming.

But there is nuance—jamming doesn’t always mean jammed, and it doesn’t always mean inhibited.

DDIL

In 2015, the US military formalized a term for this nuance in joint doctrine: Denied, Degraded, Intermittent, and Limited (DDIL) environments. Here’s a breakdown of what they mean:

• Denied: complete loss of signal/connectivity, often due to physical separation, jamming, or damage to infrastructure

• Degraded: signal/communication quality is reduced, such as slower data transfer rates, lower signal quality, or increased errors 

• Intermittent: signal/communication is available only sporadically, with frequent and unpredictable disruptions

• Limited: restricted signal/communication where bandwidth, range, or data transfer rates are significantly constrained. 

The DDIL framework more accurately reflects warfighter’s operational realities f, highlighting the need for robust, adaptable systems and strategies.

It recognizes that the electromagnetic environment isn't binary but exists on a spectrum of contested conditions, requiring dynamic, flexible responses.

Adoption

Although DDIL has been a formal US doctrine term for almost a decade, mileage varies among the US military—which is maybe why you’ve never heard of it before.

The Army, Navy, and Marine Corps have mostly adopted DDIL, whereas the Air Force and Space Force went in a different direction.

The Air Force dropped DDIL from its doctrine in 2022, replacing it with Contested, Degraded, and Operationally-Limited (CDO-L), an evolution of the mostly-retired phrase contested and degraded operations (CDO).

This is confusing to everyone, including the Air Force and Space Force—who use them interchangeably on occasion.

That said, the reason was less about semantics and more about context: the Air Force uses CDO-L to reference the entire operational environment, whereas DDIL describes the electromagnetic and information environment. 

K.I.S.S.?

A counterpoint is this is all unneeded nuance—simply solving for the stressing condition (denied operations) inherently solves for the others.

But in this case, dodging a wrench does not solve for dodging a ball.

For starters, DDIL is simply the electromagnetic environment—it’s not the mission. Outside of one-way effects (ammo, cruise missiles, etc.), almost no military mission can be completed without receiving or transmitting information.

Furthermore, as every warfighter knows, every new capability and tactic introduced also comes with inherent limitations and weaknesses.

For example, overcoming a GPS-denied environment often involves a technical counter that often works using degraded precision. That solution is a willing tradeoff.  What kind of degraded precision is acceptable (there are several types) and how much of that kind of degradation is tolerable are not static questions.

The answers vary depending on the mission type and mission phase in which it occurs.

and

Know the DDIL

If this sounds complicated, that's because it is.

DDIL’s 4 operating environments help frame a set of information/precision trade-offs, which are all factors to weave into a decent PACE plan (a topic for another day).

Acknowledging this operational realism is essential—and lets people know that you know the DDIL.

In That Number

24

The Netherlands announced it will deliver 24 F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine over the coming months. On top of that, they will also provide $440m to jointly develop and produce advanced drones.

TRIVIA

On this day in 1987, the US Navy deployed dolphins to the Persian Gulf as part of Operation Earnest Will. What mission did they perform?

A) Locate sea mines
B) Attach mines to enemy ships
C) Attack enemy divers trying to infiltrate US ships

On the Radar

Another CCA program is revealed, but this one’s from [checks notes]…France. The stealth drone will be built by Dassault Aviation and based on their futuristic-looking nEUROn drone from the 2010s. The CCA is planned to team with the Rafale F5 fighter in the early 2030s.

• The Merge’s Take: These decisions will shape the French Air Force through 2060, so expect to see other announcements in the coming year.

The Space Development Agency is throwing up 200 more satellites for its low-Earth orbit sensing and communication megaconstellation. This is Tranche 3 of SDA’s PWSA program (Proliferated Warfighter Space Architecture), an effort to build and deploy a resilient, low-latency surveillance and data transport system in space.

• The Merge’s Take: This will change soo many things in targeting, communication, and navigation, and it'll happen before you know it. Don’t let tranche and layer confuse you, though. Each tranche is an evolution—not necessarily a layer. The cadence of each tranche is every 2 years, and there are 7 capability layers in total.

Hurricane Milton hit Florida, and we hope everyone is safe and sound. Whether you were there or not, the Waffle House kept tabs on the storm in real-time.

• The Merge’s Take: What does this have to do with the military? If you live in the Southeastern US, you know of the Waffle House index, a status tracker of which of the chain’s 1,900 24-hour stores remain open. This modern-day crowd-sourced intel has shown uncanny accuracy in forecasting deteriorating conditions from weather and after-effects, and things like indirectly showing power outages—before the news reported it. Leaning into this and the national security theme, someone started selling Waffle House Joint Intelligence Center T-shirts, and we now know what we want for Xmas. This light-hearted X thread is worth the click, too.

They Said It
“It's only natural for an entity in the IC that's used to building really badass systems and is anointed on behalf of the entire government to do it, to bristle at the fact that someone else is going to come in and say they have a new way of doing things. For sure, there will be resistance when Space Force tries to scale it, if for nothing else other than it's going to require moving someone's cheese.”

— Eric Jensen, CEO of ICEYE US, a SAR imagery provider

Knowledge Bombs

• Baykar’s Bayraktar TB3 naval carrier drone made its public debut

• Anduril released a kamikaze drone product, and they are competing in a Marine Corps program

• Epirus was tapped by the Army to build a second-generation microwave-based drone killer

• Steadicopter unveiled a rotary drone that employs Rafael Spike missiles

• The Space Force’s secretive X-37B experimental spacecraft is going to do aerobraking in space to dispose of its service modules in the atmosphere

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ANSWER
Correct Answer A. A pod of dolphins named MK-6 was sent to protect the USS LaSalle by locating underwater mines