In 2010, the largest effort by the Department of Defense to establish aviation jointness in the armed forces will be realized when the Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) enters initial operational capability. With the amount of money involved—estimates range from $200 to $400 billion for roughly 3,000 airframes—DoD must ensure that the country receives the most effective and lethal aviation capability possible. Success will be measured by the interoperability developed among the services to facilitate integration of the JSF into joint operations.
To provide joint air interoperability to the combatant commanders and to fully integrate the JSF, the armed forces must establish a joint aviation training program. Hardware and software incompatibilities within the air services have been identified and efforts are ongoing to eliminate them. Complete joint interoperability in aviation, however, has not been achieved because forces from the separate services do not train together significantly at the operational level. With procurement of JSF, the aviation communities have a unique opportunity to break the paradigms of service-specific cultures, doctrine, and training to provide a more lethal and interoperable force to the combatant commander.
Background
By the close of World War II, aviation units routinely were conducting operations together and, at the tactical level, fighting together. During both the Korean and Vietnam Wars, however, though common aircraft were flown throughout the armed services, operations largely were segregated.
Operation Desert Storm was the first opportunity for the services to conduct operational-level missions after passage of the Goldwater-Nichols Act. From a joint interoperability perspective, the operation was not a success. Lieutenant General Bernard Trainor, former Deputy Chief of Staff for Plans, Policy, and Operations at Headquarters, Marine Corps, notes, "When it came to operations, land, sea, and air forces tended to operate autonomously, ignoring colleagues in differently colored uniforms." His observations are supported by comments by Otto Kreisher of Copley News Service: "The Navy had stationed six huge aircraft carriers in nearby waters. However, the communications systems on the carriers were not equipped to handle [the U.S. Air Force] computer-generated air tasking order (ATO), the blueprint that was supposed to guide all coalition combat air operations in the theater."
Air operations have not changed much since Desert Storm. The ATO is distributed to the requisite units, but it serves only as a large-scale deconfliction tool, not an interoperability facilitator. The services do not combine aircraft to form mission strike packages that would exploit the strengths of individual platforms. Instead, they rely on their own assets that may or may not be as well suited for the task, but whose aircrews are familiar with service-specific doctrine.
Aviation Training & the Joint Strike Fighter
The Air Force, Navy, and Marine Corps do conduct initial pilot flight training in a joint environment. Student pilots learn basic flight skills in squadrons manned with members from all three services. This is a step in the right direction, but it stops short.
After primary flight training, aircrew are separated into service-specific advanced flight training programs and then into aircraft-specific training. Any inroads into reducing cultural and doctrinal barriers are soon mitigated when aircrew are brought back into the folds of their respective services. This training paradigm is a major roadblock to achieving true joint interoperability. The services must combine aviation training into a comprehensive program to establish cohesion among the separate services and identify cultural and doctrinal incompatibilities—and procurement of the Joint Strike Fighter offers a chance.
Beyond primary flight training, the Joint Strike Fighter will allow the armed forces to consolidate and combine basic jet trainingincluding formation flying, instrument condition flying, air-to-ground ordnance delivery, and air combat maneuvering. Once aircrew have completed this phase of the program, the Navy can pull off future aircraft carrier pilots for the extra training necessary for carrier operations. Students from all services should be assigned to a combined JSF training squadron programmed to continue the melding of operational planning and execution and the teaching of tactics, techniques and procedures (TTPs) and understanding of service cultures.
Student pilots and instructor pilots from the different services should man these JSF training squadrons or combat crew replacement squadrons (CCRSs) proportionally. This will provide young aviators exposure to the cultural and doctrinal differences specific to each service. During their two years of flight training, aircrews will develop trust and an understanding of the unique tactics, techniques, and procedures of all the services. The camaraderie that results will enable more open interaction between the aircrew and will provide an opportunity to overcome cultural stereotypes. The common TTPs that are developed will lead to the advancement of functional joint doctrine that will enhance joint interoperability and provide the combatant commander a much more capable and efficient force.
The Role of U.S. Joint Forces Command
The U.S. Joint Forces Command, the command responsible for training our military forces to ensure they are ready to fight as part of a joint team, should develop an advanced training program that integrates the Air Force aerospace expeditionary force (AEF) and Navy carrier battle group assets. This training would offer an opportunity to identify doctrinal and cultural differences that must be addressed and mitigated in the Joint Strike Fighter CCRS training. With fewer forces and growing national commitments, the combatant commanders can ill afford to have doctrinal and employment differences confound already intricate and demanding operational plans. They need to know that no matter which service is assigned a JSF mission, the results will be the same.
Adding components of an AEF that is slated to deploy to the same theater as a carrier battle group to large-force stateside training exercises will create a synergistic effect. Representatives from the services would discuss exercise requirements, review theater-specific doctrine that applies to joint training exercises, and explore how to best integrate forces and capabilities. They should identify existing doctrine or formulate comprehensive doctrine and TTPs that support the combatant commander's requirements. Development should proceed with a limited cultural bias and more mission focus because the aircrews involved will have known each other for many years-flying, training, and working together in pilot training and in the combat crew replacement squadrons.
In addition, if predeployment training exercises are joint, they can include scenarios from the actual theater of operations, which also will help eliminate doctrinal differences and increase interoperability and understanding among forces. With the services flying the same aircraft, with the same warfighting capabilities, delivering ordnance within the same parameters, the combatant commander will see predictable results.
Doctrine & Culture
A key component in interoperability is joint doctrine. As Army General William Hartzog, former deputy commander of Atlantic Command, writes, "Doctrine ... represents a consensus of how forces conduct operations today. ... [It] evolves as questions about concepts are answered or as concepts are validated through analyses, experiments, exercises, or actual operations." The problem, within the aviation communities of the armed forces, is that joint doctrine is nearly nonexistent. Many assume incorrectly "that by fighting jointly (two or more military departments operating in the same medium) we will be fighting as an interoperable team," but this has not proved to be the case because "service parochialism ultimately leads each branch to procure incompatible systems. Each service recruits, trains, educates, and even fights independently."
One option to help the services meld doctrine while avoiding parochialism is to use the JSF as a test-bed for joint air doctrine. Doctrine that is developed from the ground up, integrated into JSF training exercises, and comprehensively evaluated during theater exercises will facilitate a synergism in operating capabilities and provide the combatant commander air combat effectiveness not available today. In addition, as AEFs and carrier battle groups forward deploy, combatant commanders can test doctrine effectiveness in their areas of responsibility during joint exercises prior to committing forces to combat. The result is that no matter what the color of the aircrew's uniforms or what configuration the JSF, the joint force air component commander will have the flexibility to assign any JSF squadron or airplane to any mission—with the same results.
To maximize joint combat effectiveness, service personnel also must recognize and understand the traits that define the cultures of the other services. Integrating Joint Strike Fighter training and enhancing joint training between AEF and carrier battle group aircrew will increase contact and thus understanding, which should minimize cultural clashes and lead to doctrine that creates a more cohesive and lethal fighting force.
This is not to say we should seek an armed force that is lock-stepped into a single operational mind-set. As General Trainor asserts, "If for [joint culture's] sake conformity is achieved at the expense of uniqueness, we could end up with a military that is inflexible, uncreative, and most importantly, predictable."
Predictability would of course be an unwelcome attribute if it provided opportunity and advantage to the enemy. However, operational predictability in terms of common force employment and interoperability is a valuable tool for the combatant commander. In any case, integrated training should not breed one-minded, inflexible military officers. In fact, it is arguable that the services would develop a more combat effective and creative operational capability as they take the best facets of each service's doctrine and culture and apply them to employment of the JSF.
No Time to Lose
The armed forces cannot wait until the Joint Strike Fighter enters service to start to exploit its capabilities, for by then service inflexibilities might already be institutionalized. Separate training programs will promote service-specific culture and doctrine in the employment of the aircraft, and an opportunity to create a highly cohesive, interoperable force will be lost.
"True jointness is nothing more than the trust and understanding that soldiers, sailors, marines, and airmen have in their comrades as, above all, experts in their service competencies." To fulfill that trust, soldiers, sailors, Marines, and airmen must train together. They also must understand each other's cultures and be participants in the development of joint doctrine.
Commander Nichols, an F-14 pilot, has deployed with Carrier Air Wing 17 in the USS Saratoga (CV-60) and with Carrier Air Wing9 in the USS John C. Stennis (CVN-74). A graduate of Top Gun and the Naval War College, he is assigned to the National Military Command Center of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He recently was selected for promotion and for command of a fighter squadron.