Sessions & Jones
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Many projects are underway to solve interoperability problems associated with Desert Storm. The nature of Desert Storm--a coalition of 19 nations, the battlefield terrain, the adversary, its rapid execution, reliance on high technology, dominance of the air, and minimal casualties--qualifies the operation as a forerunner of one type of future conflict. This assumes there will be no more global wars.
To the contrary, many future armed conflicts will be subconventional,(Note 1) as in Bosnia and Somalia, with the delivery of food and medicine by peacekeeping agencies. Then there are the persistent conflicts as in Northern Ireland with British involvement and in Lebanon with the Syrians where no truce exists and a modest, yet tragic number of casualties continues. Finally, in a third kind of subconventional war the peacekeepers, though numerous and well-armed, are overpowered by the peacebreakers which triggers intervention with countervailing forces and resultant casualties for the adversary. The Gulf war typified this latter scenario and the mid-summer 1993 conflict in Sarajevo, Bosnia-Herzegovina may also qualify.
Again, the warfighting characteristics of the Gulf war serve as a model of required factors; superb aerial reconnaissance; satellite communications; highly technical firepower with precise, accurate aiming capabilities; airborne radar; extensive armor plating, and the necessary electronics to make interoperability seamless, fused, and flexible.
The most likely places in the world for extensive outbreaks of war are
North Korea, with its acquisition of nuclear arms, and the Muslim crescent running through south-west Asia and north Africa, with its powerful combination of oil, Islam, and a long history of anti-western resentment."
Are there similarities in these regions to that of the Gulf war?
Far from the Gulf, geographically, was the summer 1992 exercise Ocean Venture, designed to refine jointness, particularly in matters of Command and Control including interoperability. A mythical island, Viarta, within the Atlantic Command had been attacked by Jaguar, a neighboring island nation. Viarta asked the President of the United States for help. He agreed and asked the Secretary of Defense to initiate crisis-action planning utilizing Colon, another neighboring island nation, as a forward staging base.
A task force of over 30,000 troops representing the Army (82nd and 101st Airborne Divisions), Air Force, Navy, Marines (28th Expeditionary Unit), Special Forces and Coast Guard were to take and occupy Jaguar. At least two major lessons were learned. First,
Enlightened as Ocean Venture was, its command-and-control structure applied joint doctrine in a way that would stifle the fast-paced performance demanded of today's expeditionary forces."(Note 2)
The reasoning behind this observation related to the Joint Force Air Component Command (JFACC) component approach to jointness. This approach is characterized by a Joint Task Force (JTF) of three or four service components such as the 82nd Airborne Division. In theory, a joint commander can organize these components as he sees fit, for example, working directly with an airborne division. In practice, two or more airborne divisions, for instance, will be combined into an Army Force (ARFOR). This means a joint commander must go through the ARFOR commander to reach the division commander, a cumbersome and time-consuming process, and one certain to deserve the above criticism concerning stifling fast-paced performance.
The second lesson, somewhat related, pertained to Desert Storm's effective but cumbersome ATO--"unfriendly" to users; incompatible with Navy PC's, software, and satellites; and not interactive with the Navy and Marines. Ocean Venture was expected to overcome some of these handicaps.
To establish JFACC for Ocean Venture, Air Force General Walter T. Worthington, head of the Air Force component was named to head JFACC with a Navy flag officer to execute JTF-J3 (operations). Once the ATO had been prepared, JFACC and the Joint Target Coordination Board (JTCB) could modify it to reflect changes in battle situations and JTF priorities. A major addition was the use of the Modular Air Control Center's remote computer terminals; an Air Force contribution that improved performance. Finally, the ATO's length for 1,000 missions was 170 pages instead of Desert Storm's 300 to 700 pages.
How effective was Ocean Venture in refining some of the interoperability and broader Command and Control processes? One answer came from General Cushman:
No one in the exercise believed that the Atlantic Command had found the final JFACC solution. Computerization and better communications have improved its performance, and new procedures provide concerned parties a better shot at reflecting their capabilities and needs, but JFACC operations still require substantial streamlining. Further, its process of target coordination negotiation, not bad in principle, suffers from the bureaucracy of the component approach."(Note 3)
What did Ocean Venture represent in terms of the amount of time required to make changes? Again, are Starr's four elements of interoperability applicable as a method of diagnosing some of the problems Cushman refers to? If not why not? What approach would you use? Is there any relation to Cushman's description of JFACC and interoperability? If so, what? If not, why not? Where did interoperability really start and end in Ocean Venture?
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