Joint Force Development Vision:
Adapting to New and Future Realities

By George J. Flynn

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It’s clear we have work to finish in the current conf licts and it should be just as clear that we have work to do in preparing for an uncertain future. Our work must result in a joint force that is responsive, decisive, versatile, interdependent, and affordable.

—General Martin E. Dempsey to the Senate
Armed Services Committee, July 26, 2011

On August 31, 2011, U.S. Joint Forces Command (USJFCOM) was disestablished—the first disestablishment of a combatant command. As part of the USJFCOM disestablishment, the execution of key joint force development functions (joint training, education, doctrine, lessons learned, and concept development and experimentation) was realigned to the Joint Staff Directorate for Joint Force Development (J7). This action was designed to improve the overall effectiveness and responsiveness of joint force development functions by bringing these core responsibilities directly under the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

After a decade of persistent conflict, we are presented with an opportunity to reflect upon what was done well and what can be improved, and incorporate that learning into our current and future development efforts. Our success in the future requires a joint force that is more adaptable and responsive than our adversaries, as well as one that is able to respond rapidly and decisively to the broad array of irregular and conventional challenges.

To guide this effort on behalf of the Chairman, the J7 director was tasked to lead the joint force development process.

Joint Force Development Authorities

Each of the Services organizes, trains, and equips to bring its own unique capabilities to the fight. While these Service capabilities provide the foundation of our warfighting capability, it is the integration and interdependence of these capabilities that achieve jointness and exponentially multiply the value that each alone brings to the fight. Jointness is not automatic; it must be nurtured and continually updated through integrated joint force development activities to provide relevant capabilities that are responsive to the security environment. Joint force development comprises joint training, doctrine, education, lessons learned, and concept development and experimentation.

As mandated in Title 10, U.S. Code, the Chairman is responsible for providing planning, advice, and policy formulation for key joint force development functions, such as doctrine, training, and education.¹ The functions of lessons learned, concept development, and experimentation are key to supporting joint force development activities. With the disestablishment of USJFCOM, the Chairman now directly oversees the execution of these key functions.

Directorate for Joint Force Development

Leveraging the Chairman’s statutory responsibilities, the J7 leads the effort to develop an adaptable and responsive joint force capable of confronting the wide range of future challenges—those that will arise tomorrow, and those that will arise in 2020.

In light of current fiscal constraints, balancing resources between current and future needs will be more challenging, but it is all the more important to get it right. The future joint force must be able to operate across the full spectrum of operations in both a supported and a supporting role. We will anticipate the future security environment and adapt accordingly because we know our adversaries will seek to engage us where we are weakest, exploiting any capability gaps that might exist.

Each of the joint force development functions must deliver results both independently and together in order to produce a trained, adaptable, and responsive joint force of today and the joint force of 2020. In concert with the Chairman’s guidance, the following objectives provide the primary means of directing and aligning joint force development.

Training. The J7 is responsible to the Chairman for the content of joint training policies, policy guidance to improve joint force readiness, management of joint exercise and engagement funds for the combatant commands and Services, and provision and support of a continuum of integrated individual, staff, and collective training and senior leader education.² Our programs of training and exercises will continually challenge and improve an experienced force, maintaining readiness for today and tomorrow. Training will ingrain in the force the lessons learned from the last decade of warfare. We will maintain interoperability with our coalition and interagency partners. Most importantly, training will continue to adapt to prepare the force for tomorrow’s challenges.

Education. The J7 is responsible for developing the policies governing officer and enlisted joint professional military education (JPME) and for National Defense University, the Chairman’s University.³ Our joint education system will promote the knowledge, skills, attributes, and behaviors of the joint force that define our profession of arms, keeping leadership as the foundation. It will produce leaders at every echelon who possess the ability to think strategically, critically, and jointly.

Doctrine. The J7 is responsible for the content of joint publications and for managing the joint doctrine development process.⁴ Doctrine must be accessible to all and relevant to the challenges faced by the joint force commander today and in the future. It will ref lect proven principles and best practices but will be responsive to changes from lessons learned and validated concepts. Joint doctrine will codify the values of the profession of arms.

Lessons Learned. The J7 develops joint lessons learned policy and guidance and provides active lessons and analytical support to the Chairman, Joint Staff, combatant commanders, and joint warfighter throughout planning, preparation, and execution of operations and exercises. The J7 oversees teams that deploy worldwide to collect, analyze, aggregate, and disseminate joint lessons and best practices across the full spectrum of military operations.⁵

Our lessons learned process will achieve greater effectiveness in identifying lessons and making these collected best practices available to the entire force. Furthermore, we will ensure that we have actually learned those lessons by evaluating how they have been integrated into our joint warfighting capability through a rigorous exercise program.

Concept Development and Experimentation. The J7 leads the development, assessment, and transition of joint capabilities, filling gaps identified by the Secretary of Defense, Chairman, and combatant commanders. The purpose of the program is to develop conceptual solutions to expected challenges faced by combatant commanders or Service chiefs and then evaluate those potential solutions through joint experimentation. Validated solutions lead to the development and fielding of joint warfighter capabilities.⁶ Concept development will focus on how the joint force can operate more effectively and guide change by developing new joint operating methods, again validated by experimentation, leading to substantive changes in doctrine, organization, training, materiel, leadership and education, personnel, and facilities. Comprehensive concept development and experimentation enable us to consider future challenges and prepare for them before they are upon us. Nonmaterial solution development and transition will be a key part of future warfighting capabilities. Nonmaterial solutions allow us to get the most out of our ideas, people, and fielded capabilities in a fiscally constrained environment. The J7 will be the advocate for nonmaterial solutions in the Joint Capabilities Integration Development System (JCIDS).

We cannot afford to lose the jointness we have achieved. To fulfill this role, the J7 will remain organized for mission success and enabled by authorities consistent with its responsibilities. Unity of effort, both internally and with our partners in the force development community, increases our impact and effectiveness significantly.

Chairman’s Guidance

The Chairman’s intent is a balanced management of today’s and tomorrow’s requirements, highlighting opportunities rather than obstacles. Simplification of the staff organization and processes to achieve innovation is critical to providing the responsiveness needed to push jointness deeper, sooner. As the Chairman’s principal steward of jointness, the J7 director is charged with executing four immediate tasks:

• make concept development and experimentation relevant to building joint force 2020
• develop a comprehensive plan to promote the knowledge, skills, attributes, and behaviors that define our profession of arms
• make sure we learn the lessons of the last decade of war and correctly apply them to future conflicts
• lead a reexamination of joint professional military education.

Joint Force Development Way Ahead

The future is fraught with complex challenges ranging from dynamic adversaries to resource constraints. To achieve the Chairman’s intent and execute the functions of joint force development, we must adopt a business model founded on innovation and collaboration. We must recognize that what works today will not withstand the force of change.

The J7 is on course, having published a 90-day plan that initiates an examination of business processes, requirements, resources, and outputs for each of the J7 functional areas. The plan articulates individual and collective objectives with the ultimate goal of unifying the different functions into one iterative, deliberate, and continuous joint force development cycle.

Experience gained over the last decade of active joint combat must be captured and included in future exercises and training. The force must be prepared to operate in dynamic and complex threat environments that include a robust cyber threat. Increased use of special operations forces and the principles of mission command must also be emphasized in future training events and exercises. The high level of coalition and interagency support in rehearsal exercises and operations must be maintained and incorporated into exercises, training, and JPME. Increased collaboration with key coalition and interagency partners is ongoing to ensure that the training environment adequately replicates the interoperability challenges and complexity faced in operational deployments. Critical decisions are necessary to prioritize limited resources for these important events.

Joint doctrine, education, and lessons learned continue to evolve in a dynamic manner to ensure relevant knowledge, skills, attributes, and behaviors within the joint force. A plan that promotes our profession of arms will form the foundation of joint and Service education programs. Development of electronic collection systems is ongoing to streamline lessons learned to ease collection, storage, analysis, and dissemination. Compiling the lessons learned process under a single Web-based system will ease use and enable rapid, accurate data retrieval for incorporation into planning processes. A joint doctrine application is under development to enable rapid access and searching of joint publications. JPME programs and institutions are under constant review to improve effectiveness, measured against creation of the required capabilities in individuals a nd units towa rd joint force 2020.

As the defense budget becomes smaller, nonmaterial solutions are critical to flll warflghter capability gaps. A revision to the formal Defense Depa rtment process that defines acquisition requirements and evaluation criteria for future defense progra msJCIDS will drive nonmaterial solution importa nce a nd increase the J7 director's role as the nonmaterial advocate. These include requiring a J7 director's nonmaterial endorsement to all documents staffed to the Joint Requirements Oversight Council and in jecting the J7 director's involvement at acquisition milestones A, B, and C.

Conclusion

The J7 ca nnot miss this opportunity to make a difference. Across all functions, joint force development will implement practices and processes that are adaptable and responsive; eliminate stovepipes that impede change and relevance; a nd work together to achieve more synergy in efforts and results within the J7 itself and the Services, coalition partners, interagency partners, and other organizations that play a role in force development. It will advocate adaptabilit y and responsiveness as the core capabilities that will enable the joint force to confront the complexity of future challenges. The J7 endstate is a joint force development process that does not rest; is integrated, leaner, and focused on results;and produces operationally relevant solutions to meet the needs ofthe joint warflghter-today and in 2020. J FQ

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JPs Under Revision

JP1, Doctrine for the Armed Forces of the United States
JP 1-06, Financial Management Support in Joint Operations
JP 2-0, Joint Intelligence
JP 2-01, Joint and National Intelligence Support to Military Operations
JP 2-03, Geospatial lntelligence Support to Joint Operations
JP 3-00.1, Strategic Communication
JP 3-01, Countering Air and MissileThreats
JP 3-04, Joint Shipboard Helicopter Operations
JP 3-07.3, Peace Operations
JP 3-07.4, Counterdrug Operations
JP 3-11, Operations in Chemical, Biological, Radiological, and Nuclear (CBRN) Environments
JP 3-12, Cyberspace Operations
JP 3-13, Information Operations
JP 3-13.1, Electronic Warfare
JP 3-13.2, Military lnformation Support Operations (PSYOPS)
JP 3-13.3, Operations Socurity
JP 3-13.4, Military Deception
JP 3-15.1, Counter-lmprovised Explosive Device Operations (C-IED)
JP 3-16, Multinational Operations
JP 3-18, Forcible Entry Operations
JP 3-27, Homeland Defense
JP 3-28, Civil Support
JP 3-29, Foreign Humanitarian Assistance
JP 3-32, Command and Control for Joint Maritime Operations
JP 3-33, Joint Task Force Headquarters
JP 3-35, Deployment and Redeployment Operations
JP 3-40, Combating Weapons of Mass Destruction
JP 3-41, Chemical,Biological, Radiological, Nuclear, and High-Yield Explosives Consequence Management
JP 3-50,Personnel Recovery
JP 3-57, Civii-Military Operatons
JP 3-59, Meteorological and Oceangraphic Operations
JP 3-60, Joint Targeting
JP 3-63, Detainee Operations
JP 3-72, Nuclear Operations
JP 4-0, Joint Logistics
JP 4-01, The Defense Transportatim System
JP 4-01.2, Sealift Support to Joint Operations
JP 4-01.5, Joint Tactics, Techniques, and Procedures for Transportation Terminal Operations
JP 4-01.6, Joint Logistics Over-the-Shore (JLOTS)
JP 4-02, Health Service Support
JP 4-00, Logistics in Support of Multinational Operations
JP 4-10, Operational Contract Support
JP 6-01, Joint Electromagnetic Spectrum Operations (JEMSO)

JPs Revised (within last 6 months)

JP1-0, Personnell Support to Joint Operations
JP 1-04, Legal Support to Military Operations
JP 3-0, Joint Operations
JP 3-03, Joint Interdiction
JP 3-07, Stability Operations
JP 3-00, lnterorganizatimal Coordination During Joint Operations
JP 3-15, Barriers, Obstacles, and Mine Warfare for Joint Operations
JP 3-34, Joint Engineer Operations
JP 4-06, Mortuary Affairs
JP 5-0, Joint Operation Planning