Mosaic warfare

Mosaic warfare is a U.S. defense concept advanced by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) beginning around 2017, most prominently articulated by then-DARPA Strategic Technology Office directors Tom Burns and Dan Patt. It reimagines force design by replacing small numbers of large, monolithic, multi-mission platforms (such as aircraft carriers or fifth-generation fighters) with large numbers of smaller, lower-cost, networked systems that can be rapidly composed and recomposed into mission packages — much as individual tiles form a mosaic.

The central idea is decision-centric warfare: imposing complexity on an adversary while simplifying choices for friendly commanders. Rather than each platform performing sensing, command-and-control, and effects internally, these functions are disaggregated across many nodes — manned and unmanned, across domains — linked by resilient communications and increasingly by artificial intelligence. If one tile is lost, the mosaic reconfigures around it, complicating adversary targeting and degrading the value of any single kill.

Key attributes typically associated with the concept include:

• Disaggregation of kill chains across many platforms
• Composability of forces at machine speed
• Attritable (low-cost, expendable) unmanned systems
• Human command, machine control — humans set intent, AI manages tactical composition
• Cross-domain integration of air, land, sea, space, and cyber assets

Mosaic warfare informs related U.S. initiatives such as Joint All-Domain Command and Control (JADC2), the Air Force's Advanced Battle Management System (ABMS), and the Replicator initiative announced by Deputy Secretary of Defense Kathleen Hicks in August 2023 to field thousands of attritable autonomous systems. Analysts at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments (CSBA), notably Bryan Clark, have published influential studies linking mosaic concepts to competition with China in the Indo-Pacific.

Critics question whether the required networking, electromagnetic spectrum access, and AI maturity exist under contested conditions, and whether procurement systems built for exquisite platforms can pivot to high-volume, modular acquisition.