ABSTRACT: Widely available precision strike platforms, increasing weapons costs and systemic constraints on major war are altering how military actors prepare for future conflict. As the costs increase and the utility of fielding massed formations decreases, actors seek speed and surprise to force decisions short of escalating into costly major wars. The character of conflict is therefore evolving to favor small, multi-domain forces, which will require new approach to crisis management. ********** Multiple US military services are experimenting with how to use smaller formations for missions ranging from crisis response to forced entry. The Unified Quest 2014 exercise, the deep futures war game run by the Army Capabilities Integration Center, featured units engaged what the new operating concept refers to as combined arms megacity. (1) Bold Alligator 2014, the annual multinational littoral warfare exercise, experimented with smaller amphibious assault formations operating from Joint High-Speed Vessels and dry cargo ships, as well as long-range raids using MV-22 Osprey. (2) The force under examination was composite, linking distributed units with fly in command echelon. Other nations are also beginning to experiment with smaller, multi-domain (i.e., air, sea, land, cyber) formations designed to fight short, intense conflicts. As part of an ongoing conventional force modernization since 2008, the Russian military is fielding modernized brigade combat team formations and smaller battalion tactical groups. (3) Based on lessons learned from the near-war with Pakistan 2001, and the ongoing challenge of balancing China, India is testing integrated battle groups and formations able to launch short-notice attacks beneath the threshold major theater war. (4) The trend extends to armed proxies. As seen Crimea 2014, and ongoing Iranian support to groups like Hezbollah, regional powers are arming their proxies with increasingly sophisticated weapon systems. Despite different core missions and mandates as well as external threats, multiple security actors are clearly signaling preferences for smaller, modernized joint forces. What do these initiatives tell us about potential changes the character of modern war? Are the reforms simply local adaptions to anticipated conflicts, or do they indicate larger pattern? This article analyzes the trend towards smaller, multi-domain force capabilities global and regional powers. It argues that the character of contemporary conflict is being changed by the proliferation of precision strike and associated command, control, communication, computer, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (C4ISR) systems combined with an assumption that conflicts will be fought beneath the threshold of major war. These forces are altering how officers imagine future war. As result, military thinkers appear to be developing new concepts and forces substituting speed and multiple domain maneuver for mass on the battlefield. The end result may be new theory of victory. (5) Multiple nations are planning to use smaller, modernized combat formations to signal their capabilities and gain advantage crisis, and if necessary, fight and win short wars either directly or through proxies. Character(s) of War? Analyzing emergent trends across armed forces is an old idea military studies. Helmuth von Moltke the Elder (1800-1890) hypothesized the changing character of war was function of how new material conditions, from railroads to telegraphs, changed the speed of mobilization and the character of war. Reflecting on his time, Moltke observed, a change the tactics of all branches based on the fact that ... the firepower of an infantry platoon [today] surpasses the range and destructive effect of the case-shot of six-pounder cannon. (6) Despite their differences, Russian military theorists Marshal Aleksander A. …