By Ann Roosevelt
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Mike Mullen signed off on the Capstone Concept for Joint Operations (CCJO) that will guide how the joint force operates in response to a variety of security challenges 2016-2028.
The concept proposes future joint force commanders “will combine and subsequently adapt some combination of four basic categories of military activity–combat, security, engagement and relief and reconstruction–in accordance with the unique requirements of each operational situation.”
The CCJO offers a way to solve problems, while a companion document, the U.S. Joint Forces Command’s Joint Operating Environment (JOE) sets out the potential problems and provides a context for the future joint force (Defense Daily, Dec. 8).
In his forward, Mullen wrote that the concept’s purpose is to guide force development and experimentation. It does so by creating a common framework for military professionals to think about joint operations and to help policy makers and others visualize future joint operations. It also creates a conceptual foundation for subordinate joint and service concepts, and a way to motivate and guide study, experimentation and evaluation of joint concepts and capabilities.
While current forces are extremely capable and technologically advanced, “this will not be enough” to meet future challenges, the CCJO said. “We will need to develop new capabilities and change the capacities of existing ones.”
The CCJO is to be the catalyst from which will flow a series of operational concepts from joint and service organizations.
At the same time, the CCJO and JOE will inform the coming Quadrennial Defense Review.
The document incorporates the work of the JOE in describing a future operating environment rife with “uncertainty, complexity, rapid change and persistent conflict.” This results in a complex unpredictable environment, the CCJO said. This will see U.S. security and prosperity linked in a global future, requiring continuous engagement and persistent presence. Such conditions lead to the requirement to conduct and sustain joint operations at global distances.
The CCJO describes three broad ideas on how the future force will operate: by addressing each situation on its own unique terms; using a combination of combat, security, engagement and relief and reconstruction activities in operations designed for that unique situation, and finally, continually assessing results “in relation to expectations,” and modifying operations as the situation and circumstances as required.
The common operating precepts that underlie future joint operations are not unfamiliar, including to: “achieve and maintain unity of effort within the joint fore and between the joint force and U.S. government, international and other partners,” to “plan for and manage operational transitions over time and space,” and ” to combine joint capabilities to maximize complementary rather than merely additive effects.”
The joint force must “markedly improve the ability to integrate with other U.S. agencies and other partners, and improve capabilities and capacities for covert and clandestine operations; markedly increase language and cultural capabilities and capacities, and institute mechanisms to prepare general-purpose forces quickly for mission changes.”
The CCJO has “significant implications for policy, force structure, doctrine, organization, training, materiel, leader development, personnel and facilities.” New capabililties and capacities could also require change to existing structure and “historic budgetary percentages.”
The joint force of the future must have greater competence in different areas, and be more effective in dealing with a wider range of threats.
“The common theme to all these implications is creating greater adaptability and versatility across the force” to address the future, the CCJO said.
Thus, it means deeper analysis and experimentation and “close and continuous coordination” within the Defense Department.
“[T]his concept constitutes my vision for the future joint force,” Mullen writes.