Joint All-Domain Command and Control moved from strategic aspiration to iterative reality over the last 18 months, but interoperability remains the pivot point between capability and capability that actually changes outcomes. The department has delivered a demonstrable minimum viable capability of a combined, joint, all-domain networked C2 construct and is now shifting attention from proofs of concept to scaling, hardening, and integrating coalition partners — a sea change in intent but not yet in operational practice.

What has been delivered so far

  • The Department has publicly declared a minimum viable Combined Joint All-Domain Command and Control capability, driven out of the CDAO-directed Global Information Dominance Experiment series. That milestone signals real end-to-end data flows across services in experimental and limited operational contexts.
  • The CDAO has used frequent, 90-day GIDE iterations to produce usable data pipelines and prototype mission threads rather than monolithic multiyear programs. Those experiments were explicitly intended to build a vendor-agnostic joint data integration layer and to exercise allied participation.
  • The services are fielding tangible nodes that show how an edge-to-enterprise fabric will look in practice. The Department of the Air Force’s Tactical Operations Center-Light (TOC-L) nodes and ABMS-derived digital infrastructure are early examples of tactical C2 nodes that can publish and subscribe to shared data at the edge. The Air Force has operationalized dozens of TOC-L kits in exercises and limited deployments while working to scale the capability.
  • Space is being integrated as a transport and tactical-data layer rather than only a sensor layer. The Space Development Agency demonstrated Link-16 network entry from LEO, proving the technical feasibility of space-borne tactical datalink relay that can materially expand the reach of JADC2 messaging. That demonstration changes the interoperability calculus between terrestrial tactical links and proliferated space relays.

Where the interoperability problems remain visible

  • Data contracts, not point solutions. The hard work is not the next demo but producing a set of enforceable data contracts and SLAs: schemas, latency limits, provenance, and trust assertions that let disparate systems act on the same information without ad hoc translators. The department’s legislative and governance work has pushed the Joint Data Integration Layer and related constructs to the top of the delivery backlog, but the operationalization of those contracts is still immature.
  • Classification and cross-domain boundaries. Moving information between classification enclaves and coalition enclaves without shredding timeliness or security requires production-grade cross-domain solutions and a zero-trust identity fabric. The demos have shown it’s possible in controlled settings, but production use demands automation, rigorous auditability, and fast accrediting pathways that the current policy and accreditation pipeline does not yet institutionalize.
  • Legacy system gravity. Platforms and legacy C2 stacks retain operational relevance and political visibility, but they also create “data gravity” that sucks development effort into bespoke integrations. Unless the department enforces modular, well-specified publish-subscribe interfaces, each new capability will reintroduce custom adapters and slow joint scale. Numerous service pilots illustrate this tendency.
  • Coalition interoperability. The addition of the word combined to the acronym CJADC2 reflects the necessary political and technical choice to design for partners from the outset. Allied participation shows up in experiments and select exchanges, but differing national security rules, comms standards, and national enclaves mean coalition interoperability will require both technical adapters and persistent diplomatic and legal machinery.

Recent acquisition and governance moves that matter

  • Congress inserted explicit requirements and reporting timelines into law to prioritize a joint data integration layer and Indo-Pacific prioritization. That statutory attention forces the department to produce schedules and to brief Congress on timelines and staffing for prototype deployment. Legal levers will remain important to force cross-service convergence.
  • The CDAO and OUSD(R&E) opened new acquisition pathways such as the Open DAGIR challenge and the Tradewinds marketplace to lower barriers for multivendor, government-owned interoperable repositories. That acquisition pattern signals a shift away from single-vendor lock and toward multi-vendor plug-and-play for data and apps. Industry can now bid to plug into CJADC2 testbeds faster than through traditional program-of-record paths.
  • Service-level prototypes like TOC-L and ABMS DI demonstrate that the services are investing in fieldable nodes that will be the flesh on the CJADC2 skeleton. These nodes remain prototypes, but their operational use in exercises and select deployments is producing the technical telemetry necessary to set realistic SLAs for the joint data layer.

Operational implications and risk profile

  • Tactical tempo vs accredited security. Field commanders want lower latency and higher fidelity. Accreditation cycles and cross-domain security controls still push many integrations back into manual or delayed processes. That trade-off is the single largest operational risk to JADC2: if data is delayed by hours for classification reasons while the adversary operates at minutes, the architecture will underdeliver.
  • Fragile single points of failure. The architecture is deliberately federated, but federated systems can hide brittle dependencies. Testing must focus on degraded and contested environments: partial satcom loss, degraded spectrum, and contested cyber environments. The SDA Link-16 demonstration is encouraging, but reliance on space relay must be paired with graceful degradation strategies.
  • Coalition trust is social as well as technical. Standardization alone will not produce trust. Persistent combined training, shared accreditation playbooks, and legally negotiated data-sharing agreements are prerequisites to operate as a true combined force under CJADC2.

Practical recommendations to move interoperability from experiment to operating baseline 1) Harden the data contract regime. Publish a narrow set of mission-thread contracts (ISR to fires, C2 to logistics, and air picture sharing) with test harnesses, synthetic datasets, and automated verification. Make adherence to those contracts an acquisition must-have. 2) Speed cross-domain accreditation. Create standing, pre-cleared accreditation lanes and a “cATO-lite” pathway for vetted vendors and partners to connect at defined impact levels under strict audit and revocation rules. This is a governance and resourcing problem as much as a technical one. 3) Fund modular edge nodes, not monoliths. Expand funding to procure and sustain interoperable tactical nodes like TOC-L across the services with a mandated common integration API and measurable SLAs. Use service deployments as burn-in for the joint data layer. 4) Treat coalition integration as an acquisition line item. Budget and program offices must be required to demonstrate coalition integration workstreams from day one. Exercises should require allied participation in at least one critical mission thread per year. 5) Force the red team. Institutionalize contested-environment wargames that stress the JADC2 stack under real cyber and EW pressure and publish after-action interoperability metrics. The metrics should drive funding reprioritization.

Bottom line The U.S. government has transitioned JADC2 from architecture slides to working experiments and prototypes. The CJADC2 minimum viable capability, frequent GIDE iterations, Open DAGIR acquisition experiments, TOC-L operational nodes, and space-based Link-16 demonstrations together make a credible pathway to a federated, allied-capable joint C2 fabric. However, the leap from prototypes to trusted, scalable, coalition-operable baseline will come down to data contracts, faster accreditation, and sustained joint funding and governance. Interoperability is no longer a technical nicety. It is the operational multiplier or the single point of failure. If policymakers want decision advantage, they must treat interoperability as a funded, governed, and measured program, not as a stillborn appendix to platform buys.