This html article is produced from an uncorrected text file through optical character recognition. Prior to 1940 articles all text has been corrected, but from 1940 to the present most still remain uncorrected. Artifacts of the scans are misspellings, out-of-context footnotes and sidebars, and other inconsistencies. Adjacent to each text file is a PDF of the article, which accurately and fully conveys the content as it appeared in the issue. The uncorrected text files have been included to enhance the searchability of our content, on our site and in search engines, for our membership, the research community and media organizations. We are working now to provide clean text files for the entire collection.
Activated with its new mission on 1 October 1993, the restructured Atlantic Command became unique in the U.S. unified command network.
Until then, unified commanders were only employers of forces; the four services were the providers. Now, the United States has a unified commander who also is a provider of forces—specifically, joint forces and jointly trained service forces. This means significant changes in ways of doing business, and USACom (vice LantCom—the new acronym highlights the new mission) is having an interesting time fitting itself in.
The CinCUSACom is still double-hatted as NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander Atlantic. In his U.S. operational role he remains responsible for the former CinCLant’s area of operations. In addition, CinCUSACom is responsible for “planning for land defense of CONUS [the continental United States], security operations to assist government agencies, and execution upon order [and] planning for combined Canada-United States land defense of Canada.” Among other things, this means that U.S. troops of any service who come to the assistance of civil authorities in earthquake, flood, hurricane, or fire— or even in rescuing stranded mountain climbers—are set in motion by CinCUSACom and will operate under his orders, in a temporary joint task force where necessary, usually through a tasking of one of USACom’s components.
The new Unified Command Plan spells out CinC USACom’s provider responsibilities:
► “Conducting joint training of assigned CONUS-based forces and JTF staffs,” and . . .
> “In coordination with other copibatant commanders, identifying and preparing for review by the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff joint force packages for worldwide employment.”
USACom’s “assigned CONUS-based forces” make up about three-quarters of all active Army, Navy, Marine Corps, and Air Force forces.'
Admiral Paul D. Miller, CinCUSACom, had been CinCLant since mid-1992; before that he was the Com- mander-in-Chief, U.S. Atlantic Fleet, which is one of USACom’s components. USACom’s other components are the Army’s Forces Command, Air Force’s Air Combat Command, Marine Corps Forces Atlantic, and the Special Operations Command Atlantic. Admiral Miller’s Deputy CinC and Chief of Staff is the Army’s Lieutenant General William W. Hartzog. USACom’s joint staff has been restructured and augmented to reflect the command’s new scope and greater all-service composition.
96
As CinCLantFIt since 1990, Admiral Miller had sought new ways of packaging naval forces, such as placing Marine air and ground elements on carriers for forward deployment. On becoming CinCLant, he developed combinations using elements of the Army and Air Force. Although the idea of joint task forces and task groups is far from new, Admiral Miller has given it new dimensions with his “adaptive joint force packaging.”
Admiral Miller describes adaptive joint force packaging as “assembling tailored joint force packages that are trained at an advanced level and deployed for a fixed period, supported by designated surge units in the United States.”2 He writes that “by selecting an appropriate configuration, we can flex compensatory capabilities needed for a specific operation or contingency.” He cites four LantCom/USACom deployments, beginning in 1993 with a force built around the carrier Theodore Roosevelt (CVN-71) and ending in 1994 with Joint Task Group George Washington (CVN-73), in which he says that the “George Washington will be groomed for employment of U.S. Army Rangers”.
Through CinCLantFIt Admiral Miller has tasked Vice Admiral William J. Flanagan, Commander Second Fleet, to train and deploy to the U.S. European Command beginning in October 1994 the “JTF-95” adaptive joint force package, the first two task groups of which will be the Eisenhower (CVN-69) carrier battle group and the Nassau (LHA-4) amphibious ready group, already scheduled. Remaining in CONUS, but preparing for surge forward as required, will be Joint Task Group 95.3, to which the XVIII Airborne Corps will contribute a brigade task force. Patriot air-defense units, and logistic and intelligence capabilities and the Air Combat Command will provide a composite wing to include fighter/attack aircraft, tankers, recce aircraft, and B-l and B-2 bombers. In March 1994 Admiral Flanagan was working with USACom’s service component commanders and with CinCEur on the way JTF-95 is to be organized, trained, and employed.
Proceedings / May 1994
Admiral Jeremy M. Boorda, then-Commander in Chief of U.S. Naval Forces Europe and Commander Allied Forces Southern Europe, was reported as having weighed in against Admiral Miller’s vision in an October 1993 cable to JCS Chairman General John M. Shalikashvili.3 Admiral Boorda was said to have “articulated views that i Defense Department sources contend are similar to those held by several of the commanders-in chief of the unified commands: that adaptive force packages do not necessarily fill the CinC’s warfighting requirements.” The logic is that the regional CinCs are responsible for organizing and employing their own forces, including any augmentation they receive from U.S. Atlantic Command. They ; need CinCUSACom to send them forces upon their request, as approved by the Secretary of Defense after recommendations by the JCS Chairman, but they do not want CinCUSACom to determine how those forces are to be organized.
The issue is “push” versus “pull.” Does CinCUSACom 1 design force packages and push them to the other regional CinCs; or do those CinCs develop their needs for forces, whether “packaged” or not, and pull them from CinCUSACom as recommended to the Secretary of Defense by the Chairman JCS and his Joint Staff? The answer is a little of both. USACom, the other CinCs, the Services, and the Joint Staff are now working to achieve a common understanding of exactly what adaptive joint force packages are and how the concept will work.
Admiral Miller offers his concept of adaptive joint force packaging as a way to make up with Army and Air Force forces the shortage of carrier and amphibious forward deployed forces that stem from new funding constraints. It allows those two services to come up with ways in which their forces that are already forward deployed—or that are rotated forward from time to time for training and exercises—-can step in when amphibious and other naval forces are not immediately on hand.
Imagine, for example, that the Mediterranean region is
lacking both a deployed carrier and an amphibious ready group, and an urgent need arises in that area for the evacuation of noncombatants. In such a case, the mission would go to an Army-Air Force task force, fully capable of executing it smartly. The Army element might come from the contingency brigade now being formed around a headquarters at Livorno, Italy, or perhaps from troops in Germany on a Reforger exercise that had been scheduled to take place during the period that the normal naval deployment was not available. The Air Force element would be put together from units already in-theater or quickly flown in from CONUS. The joint task force command element could be a European Command Army or Air Force headquarters, with other-service augmentation, that had been designated and trained for such a task. The responsibility for training these forces would rest with USCinCEur, but the joint training which CinCUSACom had been conducting with his CONUS-based forces would have contributed to the joint force’s effectiveness.
Because Admiral Miller came from command of the maritime LantCom and before that of Atlantic Fleet, his development of his naval force-based adaptive joint force packages, about which he had been thinking for some time, was well ahead of his considering ways to meet the new
Proceedings/ May 1994 97
USACom responsibility for “conducting joint training of assigned CONUS-based forces and JTF staffs.” With the assignment of General Hartzog as his deputy and with the gradual building of a more balanced joint staff,
USACom’s approach to this mission is taking shape.
USACom’s new joint training program calls for three “tiers” of training. Tier One, which will be the responsibility of each service component, will focus on the attainment of basic core competencies at the tactical level of war.
Tier Two, also to be executed by the components, will focus on both tactical and operational levels of joint field training. For Tier Two training exercises, USACom will establish “joint mission essential tasks” (JMET) and will support the component commander in achieving joint training objectives. Enhancement efforts will range from, say, helping to schedule a Navy F/A-18 squadron with an Air Force F-15 squadron for tactical level training to supporting a Navy/Marine forcible entry exercise with other-service participation and headquarters augmentation. The workup of Vice Admiral Flanagan’s JTF-95 will be an example of Tier Two training.
Tier Three will consist of commander/staff training for joint task force commanders; it involves no field training and will be accomplished through computer-assisted exercises and distributed simulation. CinCUSACom will prepare six service headquarters to function as JTF headquarters: the Army’s III and XVIII Airborne Corps, the II Marine Expeditionary Force, the Second Fleet, and the Eighth and Twelfth Air Forces.
USACom’s May 1994 joint exercise Agile Provider does not come under the “tier” concept. As in previous years’ Ocean Venture exercises, only a half-dozen or so Army and Marine battalions and a handful of special-operations troops, along with corresponding Navy and Air Force contingents, will actually participate; there will be few “notional” forces. A joint task force built around II Marine Expeditionary Force will begin the exercise, to be relieved in place by another JTF built around XVIII Airborne Corps.
Agile Provider will be the last of the Ocean Venturelike exercises. USACom has decided that these are on too small a scale to train and shed light on a full range of joint operational issues. Logistics, for example, can be exercised hardly at all, nor can the problems of employing large maneuver formations while wielding an air effort in the deep and close-in battle, not to speak of air defense, airspace control, and the employment of sizable fleet formations. Only large-scale warfare simulation permits that level of exercise, so USACom will shift its exercise funds in that direction. The command has begun planning for CAX (computer assisted exercise) 95 in the spring of 1995, its first effort at Tier Three training.
Building on the Army’s experience in conducting dozens of corps and division-level computer-assisted “Warfighter” exercises under the “Battle Command Training Program” (BCTP). Like the BCTP, a “JBCTP” exercise will begin with a training seminar for the JTF commander and his staff, focusing on staff procedures, planning, and joint doc- trine-tactics-techniques-proce- dures. Some months later will come an exercise for operations- order development in which units subordinate to the JTF will participate, perhaps from home station; here the objective is team building. Shortly after that, the computer-assisted exercise itself will take place.
Whether the “JBCTP” is set in USACom’s area of operations or in that of another CinC, USACom hopes that the CinC in whose area the scenario is set will be involved personally. Retired four-star officers with joint command experience will act as mentors to the participants. The USACom J-7 staff will eventually have two teams that do what BCTP teams at Fort Leavenworth have been doing for Army divisions and corps. In two or three years, those teams will put each of the six designated JTFs through a three-phase JBCTP drill once every two years.
For CAX 95, the current planning is for the JTF headquarters to be the headquarters of III Corps at Fort Hood, Texas, augmented with people from other services. Linking the existing battle simulation facility at Fort Hood with simulations elsewhere, CAX 95 will exercise in a Southwest Asia scenario a force consisting perhaps of two or three Army divisions, a Marine Expeditionary Force, two or more Air Force wings, a multi-group Navy contingent, and a special-operations force. No troops will participate. The players will be brigade/regimentAving/group (and some lower-unit) commanders and up, most of them in command centers at home station. An OPFOR (opposing force), under its own chain of command, will contest the JTF action. USACom is creating a Joint Training and Simulation Center (JTASC) that will design the wargaming structure for Tier Three training and will provide simulation support as appropriate for Tier Two events.
Simulation has come a long way since 1976-78 when, commanding I Corps (ROK/US) Group defending the Western Sector of Korea’s DMZ, 1 was the first U.S. field commander to use two-sided free play air/land warfare simulation to train and exercise his force. We called our simulation, in which we rolled the dice for battle outcomes, “Korea First Battle” because it was based on “First Battle,” which, under my command, Fort Leavenworth’s Command and General Staff College in 1973-76 had developed for instruction. A series of seven “Caper Crown” exercises, culminating in a two-corps combined arms exercise with full air including naval air participation, play-
98
Proceedings / May 1994
cpe-
s of
am-
xer-
land
ike
eise
mi-
and
)ro-1
loc-
>ce-
vill
ms-
nits
)ar-
sta-
am
the
self
t in
3ns
iC,
ce-
;tar
en-
en-
ort
ind
of
rill
id-
ad,
ik-
ith
th- I
or
ivo
in-
ar-
up |
sm
3S-
;st
nd
m-
n-
:n,
he
Id
re
ur
:s, |
it-
n-
:1-
i”
x-
y-
94
ers to regimental level, and realistic logistics play, was invaluable in revealing our deficiencies and improving our readiness.
After leaving Korea I wrote that the particular unique contribution of these simulations was to make vivid for all to see the nature of the battle in the situation being wargamed. They allowed participants and observers to visualize the conditions and requirements of warfare, to critique the realism of the simulation itself, and to improve it. They provided a common framework for discussion and development of tactical and logistical solutions. They were especially valuable in knitting together the many components of battle. 1 wrote: “They permit fighting the war in advance, learning its lessons in advance, and improving the forces through adaptation in advance.”4
Since then the Army and Air Force have built a Warrior Preparation Center at Ramstein Air Force Base in Germany. A JCS-directed Joint Warfare Center exists at Hurl- burt Field, Florida; in October 1994, redesignated as the Joint Warfighting Center and responsible for joint doctrine development as well, that activity will move to Fort Monroe, Virginia. Its urgent task will be to assist USACom in building the simulation for CAX 95. In 1993 the ROK/US Combined Forces Command once again used an array of computer-based simulations to exercise that command’s field armies, corps, and divisions, the Seventh Air Force, the Seventh Fleet and their Korean counterparts, and the command’s logistics and intelligence support, in the annual theater-level exercise called Ulchi-Focus Lens. The Army, in a refurbished 50-family apartment
building known as the “Beehive,” has built at Fort Leavenworth a National Simulation Center, which uses its own computer-based simulations, plus communications to link air, naval, logistics, intelligence, and terrain simulations from around the world, to support Ulchi-Focus Lens exercises and, in mid-1994, a U.S. European Command air/land/sea joint task force exercise that takes to a new level Europe’s annual Reforger (“Reinforcing Forces in Germany”).
It is a particular satisfaction to see that USACom will be taking warfare simulation to a new level as it meets its responsibilities for providing CinCs worldwide with forces trained for joint operations.
'The relationship of USACom and other CinCs to Reserve and National Guard forces not on active duty is not resolved. The CinCs do not want to be involved in routine matters of the reserves; they prefer to leave that to the services. The CinCs are interested, however, in being able to say something about those reserve units (such as civil affairs, which are mostly in the Army Reserve) that are critical to certain contingency plans.
:Adm. Paul David Miller, USN,“The Military After Next,” U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings, February 1994 pp 41 -44.
’Margo McFarland, “Inside the Navy,” Pentagon Current News Supplement, 9 December 1993.
4LtGen. John H. Cushman, USA (Ret.), “Illuminating Force Requirements Through Analysis of Multiple Simulated Battle Experiences,” a paper prepared for the Mitre Corporation, Burlington, MA, 11 April 1978.
A steady contributor to Proceedings on joint-warfare matters. General Cushman is a former commander of the combined Field army that defends South Korea along the Demilitarized Zone, and was commandant of the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.
The War is Over...
Choose from more than 35,000 images that capture history. Order a photo of your ship, aircraft, or action. Our photo collection dates from the late 1800s to the present, and includes U.S. Navy ships, Coast Guard, Marines, maritime and military images, extensive aircraft shots, all of the wars, and much more. U.S. Naval Institute members save 20%.
BIHIHE IMAGES REMAIN.
YES! Please Send the Photos Listed Below.
Name _____________________________________________
Address__________________________________________
City__________________ State--------------------- Zip
Daytime Phone Number_______________________________
Naval Institute Member Number._________________________
Ship name, hull number, and year aboard OR aircraft type and year.
L________________________________ □ Matte □ Glossy
2._______________________________ □ Matte □ Glossy
h._______________________________ □ Matte □ Glossy
□ If photo is unavailable, please substitute sister ship photo.
□ Please send me a free Photographic Collection brochure.
BLACK & WHITE PHOTOS Qty, Price
Non-member price $12.00 x =$
Naval Institute Member price $9.60 x----- = $
Subtotal $ Maryland residents add 5% tax $ Shipping and handling $ Total enclosed $
□ Check enclosed □ Bill me (Naval Institute Members Only)
□ Charge my □ MasterCard □ VISA
Card No_____________________________ Exp. /
Cardholder’s Signature ------------------------------------------------------------------
Please allow four to six weeks for delivery.
Mail or Fax Your Order To:
U.S. Naval Institute, Photo Service, 118 Maryland Ave., Annapolis, MD 21402-5035, FAX 410-269-7940
Proceedings / May 1994
99
ft