Travis L. Eddleman is a Lieutenant Colonel in the United States Army and currently assigned to the U.S. Embassy in Mexico City. He earned his Doctor of Science (D.Sc.) in Civil Security Leadership, Management, and Policy from New Jersey City University. He has served in command and interagency intelligence roles supporting joint operations in complex environments. His work focuses on operational integration across military, law enforcement, and civilian agencies. Divergent Options’ content does not contain information of an official nature, nor does the content represent the official position of any government, any organization, or any group.

Title: Assessment of the Joint Warfighting Concept’s Limitations in Mexico’s Gray Zone

Date Originally Written: April 23, 2025

Date Originally Published: April 29, 2025

Author Point of View: The author is a U.S. Army National Guard officer currently serving in Mexico. The author believes the Joint Warfighting Concept is a critical framework for future conflict but argues that its applicability to gray zone environments, especially those involving sovereign constraints and interagency leadership, requires closer scrutiny and adaptation.

Summary: This assessment examines the Joint Warfighting Concept’s (JWC) limits in gray zone environments like Mexico. Designed for near-peer conflict, the JWC struggles in interagency, sovereignty-constrained missions, while legal/operational challenges emphasize the need for doctrinal flexibility. The Department of Defense’s (DoD) supporting role highlights the importance of interagency synchronization. Without adaptation, the JWC risks irrelevance in modern operations.

Text: The Joint Warfighting Concept (JWC) offers a visionary blueprint for United States military plans to integrate across all domains and prevail in future conflicts [1]. Designed primarily for high-intensity warfare with near-peer adversaries, the JWC emphasizes integration, expanded cooperation, and increased functionality across multidomain operations. However, in the current political environment with attention shifting south of the U.S. border, specifically focusing on the threat posed by transnational criminal organizations (TCOs) and other nontraditional security challenges operating in the “gray zone” of Mexico, the JWC’s utility becomes hazier. TCOs, more recently in the spotlight following numerous executive orders and a designation for some as violent extremist groups, fall into an ambiguous space that Morris et al. argue exists, “below the threshold of war” [2]. As DoD involvement in counter-cartel activities expands, senior leaders face a critical question: How effective is the JWC in guiding joint force efforts in politically constrained, interagency-led gray zone environments like Mexico?

The 2025 executive order titled “Designating Cartels and Other Organizations as Foreign Terrorist Organizations and Specially Designated Global Terrorists” serves as a decisive escalation in the U.S. government’s position toward TCOs. While the order does not explicitly authorize DoD direct action, it demands “the total elimination of these organizations’ presence in the United States” and the disruption of “their ability to threaten the territory, safety, and security of the United States through their extraterritorial command-and-control structures” [3]. The latter part of these objectives brings immediate operational and doctrinal questions to mind. Can the U.S. military significantly influence transnational command structures on foreign soil without combat authority? Additionally, does the JWC provide flexible response options to address these asymmetrical, interagency-driven missions? Absent integrated interagency coordination, the core tenets of JWC, specifically those focused on maneuver and fires, may find themselves strategically incompatible with this current mission set.

Looking south, it may come as a surprise to many that Mexico remains a sovereign nation, and that the United States has no authority to take direct action on Mexican soil to combat drug cartels or violent extremist organizations. It likely surprises no one that U.S. interests do not always align with those of the Mexican government. Given the constraints of sovereignty, meaningful progress and sustained influence require aligned interests. This holds especially true in gray zone environments like Mexico, where Joint Publication 3-08, Interorganizational Cooperation, emphasizes the importance of unity of effort across all stakeholders, including civilian agencies, foreign militaries, and, more critically, civilian-led operations [4]. In short, the success of bilateral security initiatives hinges on reciprocal commitment. U.S. support cannot compensate for a lack of host-nation will.

The Joint Warfighting Concept and its supporting literature paint a picture of high-end, maneuver-oriented operations centered on offensive dominance “designed to seize the initiative and give U.S. forces the advantage of the tactical defensive” [5]. Within this framework, kinetic superiority and unified command shape the military posture, which, while well-suited for great power competition scenarios involving Russia or China, may be ill-suited for addressing the wicked, interagency challenges that define the contemporary security environment in Mexico [6]. Intelligence stove-piping, legal constraints that bind and limit DoD actions, and the harsh and often unwelcome reality that operational leadership in these missions often resides with the Department of Justice (DOJ), Department of Homeland Security (DHS), or the Department of State (DOS), not the Department of Defense, all support the conclusion that the JWC, though focused on peer conflict, lacks operational flexibility in the gray zone [7] [8].

When examining the gray zone more closely, it may not be necessary to dispense entirely with the JWC, despite its origins in high-intensity conflict. Rather, a modification may prove more beneficial. In addition to adjusting the JWC’s dominant principles, recognizing that the DoD may be better suited to a supporting role in these environments also warrants consideration. As noted in the Joint Concept for Integrated Campaigning (JCIC), resolving gray zone conflicts may benefit significantly from layering DoD capabilities “in concert with the other instruments of national power” [9]. Through creative, pragmatic thinking, the DoD could identify roles outside the battlefield, such as focusing on information or legal dominance, allocating military surveillance and reconnaissance assets to DOJ entities operating in Mexico, or enhancing interagency synchronization to combine, support, and inform the other elements of national power [10] [11].

Failure to adapt the JWC to gray zone realities runs significant risks, allowing the concept to become increasingly ineffective in the real-world environment where many operations fall below the threshold of armed conflict. If the JWC cannot fluidly realign from the near-peer battlefield to the gray zone purgatory of combating drug cartels in Mexico, the DoD could easily become sidelined or misapplied in a supporting role absent clear guidance from existing doctrine and directives. The U.S. Embassy in Mexico City hosts more than 30 interagency components, comprising personnel from across the U.S. government [12]. In an interagency environment as complex as Mexico, challenges remain persistent, unique, and often require a tailored, multi-agency approach to achieve resolution, not to mention complicity and support from the Mexican government [13]. The rigidity inherent in the JWC, if not combined with and tempered by the tenets of the JCIC, will make the former resemble the proverbial square peg ill-suited for a round hole.

As noted, the JWC in its current form was developed to address near-peer conflict, but it does not adequately account for operations that fall below the threshold of armed conflict. While the JWC remains relevant for confronting high-end threats posed by China or Russia, its structural rigidity limits its application in interagency spaces, civilian-led missions, or scenarios where the Department of Defense does not hold the lead role. Future conflicts will continue to unfold in the gray zone, arguably more so than in the past. The Department of Defense must retain the ability to operate flexibly in both traditional battlefields and environments where legal and diplomatic concerns carry equal, if not greater, weight than military objectives. The true test of the JWC will not lie in its capacity to address the possibility of near-peer war, but in its ability to navigate the increasingly complex waters of the gray zone conflicts that lie ahead.

Endnotes:

[1] Walsh, T., & Huber, A. (2023). A Symphony of Capabilities How the Joint Warfighting Concept Guides Service Force Design and Development. https://ndupress.ndu.edu/Portals/68/Documents/jfq/jfq-111/jfq-111_4-15_Walsh-Huber.pdf

[2] Morris, L. J., Mazarr, M. J., Hornung, J. W., Pezard, S., Binnendijk, A., & Kepe, M. (2019). Gaining Competitive Advantage in the Gray Zone: Response Options for Coercive Aggression Below the Threshold of Major War. https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RR2942.html

[3] The White House. (2025, January 21). Designating Cartels And Other Organizations As Foreign Terrorist Organizations And Specially Designated Global Terrorists – The White House. The White House. https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidentialactions/2025/01/designating-cartels-and-other-organizations-as-foreign-terrorist-organizations-and-specially-designated-global-terrorists/

[4] Interorganizational Cooperation. (2016). Department of Defense. https://irp.fas.org/doddir/dod/jp3_08.pdf

[5] Hammes, T., & Montgomery, M. (2024). Defense Paper Series: Joint Warfighting Concept 2034-2044 (pp. 1–20). Special Competitive Studies Project. https://www.scsp.ai/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/DPS-Joint-Warfighting-Concept-2034-44-.pdf

[6] Baldor, L. (2025, April 8). Pentagon official: US military has no authority to do drone strikes on drug cartels in Mexico. AP News. https://apnews.com/article/pentagon-drone-strikes-drug-cartels-mexico

[7] Coulthart, S., & Vázquez, G. (2025). Uncertain Times Ahead for U.S.-Mexico Intelligence Cooperation. Lawfare. https://www.lawfaremedia.org/article/uncertain-times-ahead-for-u.s.-mexico-intelligence-cooperation

[8] Baldor, L. (2025, April 8). Pentagon official: US military has no authority to do drone strikes on drug cartels in Mexico. AP News. https://apnews.com/article/pentagon-drone-strikes-drug-cartels-mexico

[9] Joint Concept for Integrated Campaigning. Department of Defense, (2018). https://www.jcs.mil/Portals/36/Documents/Doctrine/concepts/joint_concept_integrated_campaign.pdf

[10] Boyle, T. (2024, November 27). Joint Operations in the Legal Environment: A Framework for Legal Competition, Expanded Maneuver, and Deterrence. Lieber Institute West Point. https://lieber.westpoint.edu/joint-operations-legal-environment-framework-legal-competition-expanded-maneuver-deterrence

[11] Joint Concept for Integrated Campaigning. Department of Defense, (2018). https://www.jcs.mil/Portals/36/Documents/Doctrine/concepts/joint_concept_integrated_campaign.pdf

[12] Sections & Offices. (2021, June 23). U.S. Embassy & Consulates in Mexico. https://mx.usembassy.gov/sections-offices/

[13] Morris, L. J., Mazarr, M. J., Hornung, J. W., Pezard, S., Binnendijk, A., & Kepe, M. (2019). Gaining Competitive Advantage in the Gray Zone: Response Options for Coercive Aggression Below the Threshold of Major War. https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RR2942.html