This month, senior U.S. Army officers proposed establishing a “new triad” comprised of cyber, special operations and space and missile defense. The stated goal: to integrate these capabilities to “conceptualize more complex and effective battlefield strategies for modern warfare.”

Such a combination certainly has potential to help deter and defeat America’s enemies but calling it a “triad” is a mistake—one that risks confusion with the existing set of capabilities that has kept America safe from strategic attack for over seven decades.

The term “triad” was coined during the Cold War to explain how the nuclear arsenal deters America’s adversaries. It refers to a specific set of platforms, each of which has particular roles and deterrence functions: nuclear-capable bombers for flexibility and to signal intent; nuclear ballistic missile submarines providing a survivable second-strike capability; and intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) offering promptness, escalation control, and the ability to complicate our adversaries’ targeting efforts.

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The Army’s new triad concept, by contrast, was presented as a data-gathering function that will better deter an adversary, defend critical cyber infrastructure, and create information warfare cells. Gen. James Dickinson, commander of U.S. Space Command, pitched the promise of the concept like this: “The fusion of traditional space-based capabilities with cyber and [special operations] can generate new and responsive deterrent options.”

Lt. Gen. Jon Braga, commander of the Army’s Special Operations Command, said that the “new modern day cyber space and [special operations] triad concept is not meant to replace the nuclear triad, but to actually enhance integrated deterrence.”

On its face, all this sounds good—but there is little detail on how integration will be accomplished, what the specific roles and functions of these efforts will be, or how the new triad will actually contribute to integrated deterrence. Additionally, the notion of a “new triad” suggests the old one is now irrelevant or outdated.

Although some have tried to articulate how Space, SOF, and Cyber will form a new triad, the details remain fuzzy and do not elucidate what problem the new triad seeks to address. 

Yes, it is refreshing to hear that the Army seeks to leverage emerging capabilities to better deter our adversaries. But the proposal for a new triad sounds like a concept in search of a mission or an identity.

This is not the first time that the Defense Department has attempted to redefine the triad. The 2002 Nuclear Posture Review recast the triad into a “New Triad” of strike capabilities, responsive infrastructures, and various defenses. 

This construct quickly fell into disuse and obscurity, however, as most in the Defense community failed to differentiate the New Triad from the existing nuclear triad (or, as seen in the below figure, triads within triads) and how the disparate capabilities interacted to achieve strategic effect. In short, the 2002 New Triad was a source of more confusion than clarity.

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Words matter. With China and Russia on the warpath, actively expanding their nuclear arsenals, and engaging in nuclear coercion, now is the time for clarity in our terminology. The Defense Department must focus on revitalizing the existing nuclear triad of ballistic missile submarines, nuclear capable bombers, and ICBMs. Hijacking existing terms and applying them to ill-defined and emerging missions and experimental constructs will only confuse Congressional appropriators and authorizers, defense strategists, and policy makers at a time in which confusion is highly undesirable, if not outright dangerous.

The Army would be better served to use different terms to describe the strategic effects of the confluence of Space, Cyber, and Special Operations capabilities, rather than appropriate a term that describes the strategic arsenal that has deterred our adversaries for over seven decades.

A better approach might be to incorporate these efforts into the Army’s “multi-domain operations” construct, which it unveiled last summer. Or, if a new nomenclature truly is required, “integrated strategic operations” or “integrated enabling operations” might fit the bill. Any of these approaches would better serve national requirements than poaching on decades-long established strategic concepts such as “the triad.”