Persistent surveillance, unmanned systems, commercial satellite imagery and increasingly compressed sensor-to-shooter timelines have made concentration and movement far more vulnerable on the modern battlefield. This Insight Paper argues that manoeuvre warfare is not dead, but that armies must increasingly earn the right to manoeuvre by disrupting, delaying and deceiving the enemy’s reconnaissance and decision-making system. Drawing on lessons from Ukraine, autonomous maritime systems and contrasting environments such as Southeast Asian jungle, the paper develops the concepts of decision denial and temporary “windows of opacity” and examines how future forces can restore surprise, concentration and operational manoeuvre in an increasingly observed battlespace.
