Probably one of the most succinct and important statements on jointness.
There are some who don't understand that to have jointness, the separateness of our services is a requirement. It takes 25 years to hone the expertise to be a competent division commander on the ground, a battle group commander at sea, or a theater air component commander. Our construct of joint operations-in the context of a strategic objective of retaining our position as the world's sole superpower-requires that we have the strongest Army, Navy, Marine Corps, and Air Force in the world. However, to optimally integrate service component capabilities under a joint force commander-in the most cost-effective way possible-means that the services must evolve with the notion ofinterdependency rather than self-sufficiency as a guiding principle in building their service program and personnel plans. If there is any single "benefit" that may result from reduced resources for the Department of Defense (DoD), it is that it may stimulate this kind of evolution within the services.
New Capabilities, New Constraints Call For New Concepts In 2013
Published: January 2, 2013
Our 2013 forecast series continues with a call for new strategic thinking from the first man to serve as Air Force deputy chief of staff for intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance, Lt. Gen. (ret.) David Deptula.
Whatever happens withsequestration, Pentagon planners are now struggling to fit the services' myriad programs under a reduced budget topline. Advocates point to their particular project or personnel as vital to US warfighting capacity. Technologists point to new capabilities that will allow us to do more with equal or even fewer resources. Traditionalists encourage maintaining or even increasing manpower to achieve security objectives the old fashioned way, boots on the ground, airmen in the air, sailors at sea.
How can we resolve these competing paradigms of defense investment in an era of constrained resources? The answer lies in addressing three separate, but fundamentally related issues: 1) prioritization of our nation's security objectives; 2) how we organize to achieve those security objectives; and 3) optimizing the potential of what we already posses by exploiting our capabilities through new concepts of operation (CONOPS).
First, how should we balance our resources to achieve our nation's security objectives? Before we engage in additional cuts to national security spending, it may be wise to figure out our national priorities. Perhaps a starting point can be found in the preamble of our Constitution, which specifies it was established to "provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity..."
Providing for the common defense is the US government's job one. Observing the debates over taxes, spending, and the deficit provides ample evidence that too many people in national leadership positions who should understand this, in fact, do not. Regardless, the issue of how much to spend on national security is directly related to what the American people want our Nation to accomplish in that respect. Do the American people want the United States to maintain its position as the world's sole superpower or not? Is having the capacity to prevail in a single regional conflict sufficient for America's security in the future? Or will that level of military capacity actually encourage adventurism from those with the capability to do so?
Absent an informed discussion on this topic, we are destined to have an ends/ways/means mismatch with respect to the number one mission for our government. One way to elevate this discussion to get some attention from the Nation's leadership would be to replace the upcoming Quadrennial Defense (Programming) Review with what was actually recommended by the 1994/1995 Commission on Roles and Missions of the Armed Forces: a Quadrennial Strategy Review. Given the record of governmental reform, don't hold your breadth, so let's assume that the upcoming national security cuts will be arbitrary and absent little, if any, strategic context.
Given this state of affairs, what can be done to compensate for an absence of genuine strategic national security guidance? Paraphrasing the dictum attributed variously to Winston Churchill or physicist Ernest Rutherford, "we have run out of money, so now we have to think." Without any increase in the nation's budget, we can still move toward a fiscally responsible solution by re-thinking how to optimize what we already have in terms of national security organization, capability, and concepts. There is not any single solution, but here are a couple of starting points that deserve serious consideration.
How can we resolve these competing paradigms of defense investment in an era of constrained resources? The answer lies in addressing three separate, but fundamentally related issues: 1) prioritization of our nation's security objectives; 2) how we organize to achieve those security objectives; and 3) optimizing the potential of what we already posses by exploiting our capabilities through new concepts of operation (CONOPS).
First, how should we balance our resources to achieve our nation's security objectives? Before we engage in additional cuts to national security spending, it may be wise to figure out our national priorities. Perhaps a starting point can be found in the preamble of our Constitution, which specifies it was established to "provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity..."
Providing for the common defense is the US government's job one. Observing the debates over taxes, spending, and the deficit provides ample evidence that too many people in national leadership positions who should understand this, in fact, do not. Regardless, the issue of how much to spend on national security is directly related to what the American people want our Nation to accomplish in that respect. Do the American people want the United States to maintain its position as the world's sole superpower or not? Is having the capacity to prevail in a single regional conflict sufficient for America's security in the future? Or will that level of military capacity actually encourage adventurism from those with the capability to do so?
Absent an informed discussion on this topic, we are destined to have an ends/ways/means mismatch with respect to the number one mission for our government. One way to elevate this discussion to get some attention from the Nation's leadership would be to replace the upcoming Quadrennial Defense (Programming) Review with what was actually recommended by the 1994/1995 Commission on Roles and Missions of the Armed Forces: a Quadrennial Strategy Review. Given the record of governmental reform, don't hold your breadth, so let's assume that the upcoming national security cuts will be arbitrary and absent little, if any, strategic context.
Given this state of affairs, what can be done to compensate for an absence of genuine strategic national security guidance? Paraphrasing the dictum attributed variously to Winston Churchill or physicist Ernest Rutherford, "we have run out of money, so now we have to think." Without any increase in the nation's budget, we can still move toward a fiscally responsible solution by re-thinking how to optimize what we already have in terms of national security organization, capability, and concepts. There is not any single solution, but here are a couple of starting points that deserve serious consideration.
(Continued at the link below)
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