DOD’s JADC2 Concept is Now CJADC2

There’s a somewhat new, but familiar, acronym with a foothold in the defense community. CJADC2, or Combined Joint All-Domain Command and Control, was out in full force at the annual AUSA conference in Washington, D.C. last week.

Introduced earlier this year, the term is somewhat of an update to JADC2 — the military’s concept to put actionable data in the hands of the warfighter and improve decision-making.

Putting the ‘Combined’ in JADC2

According to a Defense Department strategy document, CJADC2 will “empower our joint force commanders with the capabilities needed to command the joint force across all warfighting domains and throughout the electromagnetic spectrum to deter and, if necessary, defeat any adversary at any time and in any place around the globe.”

The “combined” term emphasizes the role allies and coalition forces bring into the strategy to bring all military action and coordination under one umbrella.

Defense officials see a united collective network key to enabling commanders to be able to make quicker decisions on the battlefield and coordinate those decisions across domains of land, air and sea. The network will also enable better coordination with the nation’s coalition and ally partners.

The name rebrand does not change anything about the strategy itself, but rather puts the notion of a collective effort at the forefront.

“Zero trust, data centricity, mission partner environments, interoperability and defensibility. Those are all foundational concepts of CJADC2 to execute globally integrated operations around the world,” said Col. Anne-Marie Wiersgalla, communications director at SouthCom, at AUSA.

“You have to build synergy, not just joint cooperation after joint cooperation,” Army Futures Command Commanding Gen. John Murray said back in 2020. “It has to be joint synergy across all warfighting domains. And, I would add, it has to be done with our closest allies and partners. … We won’t do it without other nations along with us as well.”