Since 1999, U.S. Joint Forces Command (JFCom) has been responsible for joint integration, experimentation, and training. It exercises combatant command over the bulk of U.S. general purpose forces and is the prime joint force provider to the combatant commands. As General Richard Myers, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has underscored, the JFCom is the armed services' agent for transformation. Execution of these responsibilities accelerates transformation to ensure continued dominance against new adversaries and threats.
One of the most significant early milestones on the road to transformation was Millennium Challenge 2002 (MC 02). The JFCom and its combatant command, service, and government agency partners completed this joint experiment last August, following more than two years of concept development, experimentation, and integration of operational lessons learned from the global war on terrorism.
Millennium Challenge 2002 was the largest joint field experiment ever conducted. More than 13,500 soldiers, sailors, airmen, Marines, and members of the interagency community participated in an integrated test that employed simulated and live forces nationwide. It was the result of a deliberate, comprehensive process that comprised numerous concept development workshops, war games, and limited objective experiments involving the various partners. This process developed the necessary technical architecture, trained participants in required concepts, tactics, techniques, and procedures, and enhanced planning for the execution of military operations in a complex and realistic scenario.
Although detailed analysis continues, initial assessment indicates that many of the experiment's more than 90 concepts, capabilities, and initiatives hold promise for the future.
- Effects-based operations (EBO) are the integration and synchronization of all elements of U.S. power to ensure the right capability is employed at the right place and time. It provides a foundation for an overarching 21st-century joint warfighting concept. The EBO approaches warfare from the fundamental precepts of Carl von Clausewitz, acknowledging first that warfare is the continuation of politics by other means. Starting at the strategic level and working to the operational level provides an intellectual framework that can be used to concentrate on the range of operations from peace to war and ensures full application and synchronization of all instruments of national power.
- The Standing Joint Force Headquarters (SJFHQ)—the command-and-control organization necessary for the rapid establishment of a joint task force (JTF) headquarters—is the key to flexible and decisive crisis response. The SJFHQ reduces the ad hoc nature of forming a JTF headquarters by accelerating plans and actions. In MC 02, an effective joint headquarters was created quickly by combining a service headquarters with a small cadre of joint operations specialists and equipment. As a result, the Army's III Corps smoothly assumed the JTF mission from XVIII Airborne Corps when the latter was deployed to Afghanistan—doing in days what took weeks in past experiences. The value of the SJFHQ has been confirmed, and the concept is sound. Refinements of its form and function will be the subject of follow-on experiments and actual operations.
- The Collaborative Information Environment (CIE) is a joint command, control, communications, computers, and information (C4I) system that link together the theater headquarters, JTF headquarters, component forces, and external agencies. The CIE greatly enhances unity of command and improves the speed of planning, decision making, and execution. Integral to it is the Joint Enroute Mission Planning and Rehearsal System-Near Term that enables the JTF commander to continue to remain fully connected while on the move. He can plan, coordinate, and execute operations to the assault-- force level with the same real-time intelligence, video, voice, and other capabilities resident in his headquarters. This planning and rehearsal system frees the commander from static command posts with almost no loss in command, control, and situational awareness. It is a common sense, inexpensive solution that is ready and available to fulfill the requirements of the national leadership, regional combatant commanders, and JTF commanders. (In addition, the system has mobile command-and-control applications below the JTF level for tactical commanders and special operations force teams.) In all cases during MC 02, standardization of CIE tools and systems was imposed by JFCom to create a coherent network. Although these systems proved useful and are in use at several headquarters, their vulnerabilities will be tested further in future experiments.
- The Operational Net Assessment is a comprehensive array of systems analyses—such as political, military, economic, and social—of the enemy, region, and friendly forces. Although it showed the potential to provide usable knowledge to the commander, there are policy, procedural, and systems problems that have yet to be resolved. The assessment concept will be further refined through additional development, experimentation, and prototyping in other joint commands.
- The Joint Interagency Coordination Group (JIACG) provides a critical link among the national policy, theater, operational, and tactical levels. It complements interagency operational planning activities to ensure success in complex contingencies. The JIACG assists combatant commanders by harmonizing interagency activities within his area of responsibility. It plays a key advisory and planning role in coercive diplomacy, regional access, and post-hostilities transition. This organization is employed currently in Central Command, Pacific Command, and European Command. It is productive and effective, and JFCom will continue to stress its importance in dealing with other agencies.
- Millennium Challenge 02 provided insights into the formation of a national joint training capability. Widespread live, virtual, and constructive training capabilities would give joint forces the means for integrating joint and service training while preserving service core competencies. It will be accomplished by enhancing information technology and range integration, and introducing those aspects of warfare unique to joint operations. This capability is moving from a vision to reality: the first test of the concept is scheduled for this spring and will include all four services.
No venture as broad and far reaching as transformation of the armed forces is going to occur without controversy, critics, and detractors. At JFCom we encourage intellectually grounded criticism—in fact, we seek it. The conduct of MC 02 was not exempt from the controversies of transformation or the need to balance the desires of the few against the overarching requirements of the experiment. Thus, some insight into the groundwork leading up to the experiments may help to shed light on a controversy that, in the words of Shakespeare, is "full of sound and fury."
Millennium Challenge 2002 was designed to examine new concepts and capabilities by testing them in high-stress environments to determine their potential for further development and examination before considering implementation. Subjected to rigorous testing in more than 23 workshops and 16 limited objective experiments, the concepts and capabilities evolved and improved dramatically over time.
Contrary to what has been reported by some, MC 02 united JFCom's transformation partners—military and civilian—to challenge the status quo and move the U.S. military forward. It facilitated exploration of 11 concepts, 27 joint initiatives, 46 service initiatives, and assessed 22 warfighting issues drawn from the regional combatant commanders. It examined these initiatives in a vigorous experimental environment that incorporated rich mixes of live and simulated forces, current and future capabilities, aggressive and asymmetric opposing forces, a new federation of more than 40 models and simulations, and service training ranges in complex scenarios based on real-world threats.
Less than 60 days before MC 02 began, the assigned JTF headquarters, XVIII Airborne Corps, was deployed to the war on terrorism after having had trained for the experiment through several months of preliminary events and supporting experiments. The headquarters mission fell to III Corps, commanded by then-Lieutenant General B. B. Bell, U.S. Army. After MC 02, General Bell noted in after-action comments that JFCom's conceptual approach was "professionally sound, follows historically tried and true combat development principles, and will produce a more capable and lethal force in the future. It won't be without failures along with the successes. Let there be no doubt, however, that from my seat, MC 02 was a huge success."
The experiment was not an end state, but a comprehensive way point on the transformation journey. The central purpose of MC 02—to improve the operational capabilities of our armed forces—remains a work in progress as JFCom continues to assess its myriad data points. Although many initiatives show great promise (and already are benefiting operational commanders), some require further development and others have us back to the drawing board. No concept or capability will be validated until it is ready. The warfighting needs of the combatant commanders and the lives of U.S. service members remain uppermost in our minds.
Transformation and the new concepts that JFCom is developing understandably can make people uncomfortable, in part because they dispute cherished service doctrine and practices. But discomfort is not a bad thing when it springs from dissonance that will lead us to a better understanding of where we need to go and how we will get there. There is no reason to fear what the current generation of senior and junior leaders is doing. Just as a previous generation shaped warfighting concepts that finally discarded the doctrinal remnants of the Vietnam War era, they are working on concepts that will ensure the continued dominance of U.S. military forces. They are fully qualified to do so—and surely understand the information age better than my generation ever will.
The way ahead is clear: JFCom must deliver the most promising capabilities to the war fighter as rapidly as possible, while refining and maturing the capabilities that are not ready for immediate implementation. As occurred in MC 02, many new ideas will be assessed and inserted into the transformation process. At the same time, implementation of the experiment's most promising initiatives requires planning, programming, and procurement processes—and, above all, mind-sets—that are equally compressed and agile.
The U.S. Joint Forces Command is at the vanguard of transformation. In the past three years, it has established a firm foundation on which to build the future. We have proved the wisdom of the vision that resulted in its creation and the fundamental need for a joint command that integrates and synchronizes the four critical functions that comprise our mission. The engine for transforming the armed forces could not be better situated.
General Kernan retired last year as Commander, U.S. Joint Forces Command. He served in combat in Vietnam, Grenada, and Panama, and previously commanded the 75th Ranger Regiment and the XVIII Airborne Corps.