The Joint Operational Access Concept (JOAC) released last week is the framework services can use to guide capability development, according to a senior officer on the Joint Staff.
“The JOAC is an important joint first step in the developing of the capabilities needed to gain and maintain access in any domain,” said Marine Lt. Gen. George Flynn, director of joint force development on the Joint Staff.
The concept document contributes to the development of the Joint Force 2020, one of the four top priorities of Army Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, by focusing on anti-access/area-denial (A2/AD) threats.
The concept describes in broad and general terms how the joint force will operate “in response to what we see as a growing challenge to our ability to achieve and maintain operational access and freedom of maneuver in the various domains,” Flynn said.
That growing challenge is to a bedrock U.S. military capability–the ability to project power. The capability to access all domains and counter anti-access/anti-denial capabilities of others is part of the new strategic guidance recently released by the Obama White House.
“We see a very complex and uncertain environment and we believe that one of the key challenges we’re going to have to deal with is how to gain and maintain access across domains,” Flynn said. “It’s all about developing the force that we think we’ll need in the future to execute the strategy.”
Underpinning the JOAC will be supporting concepts from the services. Air-Sea Battle is one, and the Pentagon recently opened an office to develop the ideas.
Other concepts need to be developed including entry operations, littoral operations and sustainment operations, Flynn said.
Thirty capabilities are described in general terms for the joint force to gain and maintain access across the domains.
Thus, the JOAC also is a tool to be used to “make sure that we have the right priority in the development of capabilities that we think we need in the joint force 2020,” he said. “It’s a guide and a way to see if we’re correctly developing joint capabilities, not just service capabilities, to be able to get where we need.”
Additionally, the JOAC document, as part of the joint force development process, provides a key framework to be used in acquisition and requirements processes, he said.
“The environment we’re going to operate in up to 2020 is unprecedented,” he said. “It’s going to be very complex and uncertain.”
Essentially to be an effective and efficient joint force in 2020, joint operations must move to a different level, and must be explored in greater detail, Flynn said.
For example, combined arms tend to be limited to the same domain. “What we’re saying in the Joint Operational Access Concept is we’re going to have multiple domain operations going on that have to be sequenced in a way they’ve never been sequenced before,” he said.
There are the traditional–air, sea, land and space domains, and now the new, manmade cyber domain.
Another idea to be further explored is that the joint force will be operating or coordinating at lower levels ever before.
Flynn said he has to take “jointness and push it deeper, sooner, in our force development process,” to achieve needed capabilities more effectively, efficiently and affordably.
“I think this is going to force more joint integration of capabilities,” he said. “I think this will force us to go joint maybe earlier than has been done in the past.”
Compared to today’s operations, in 2020 the joint force needs to synchronize operations across all domains and do it at speed, Flynn said. That means exploring materiel and non-materiel solutions to effectively operate.
The JOAC is neither threat nor country specific. “We want a joint force that has balanced capabilities that is able to deal with what you expect is going to happen and equally as important, that you can deal with the unexpected.”
Guarding against the unexpected also means remembering that the enemy has a vote.