Swarm communication protocols are not interoperable across US military branches

The Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marines are each developing separate drone swarm programs (OFFSET, CCA, MQ-25, LOCUST) with proprietary communication protocols. An Army swarm cannot coordinate with a Marine swarm in the same battlespace because their mesh networking protocols, command message formats, and swarm behavior algorithms are incompatible. Joint operations -- the fundamental principle of US military doctrine since Goldwater-Nichols -- breaks down when each service's drones cannot talk to each other. This persists because each service's program office has independent funding, requirements, and contractors, and the DoD's Joint Staff lacks the authority to mandate a single swarm communication standard before each service has fielded its own system.