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Joint Operations

Cognitive Lesson Objective: • Know the concept of joint operations.

Cognitive Samples of Behavior: • Describe joint operations. • Describe the joint functions. • State the range of operations • Outline the operational joint chain of command from the President to the individual components. • Identify the joint warfare values.

Affective Lesson Objectives: • Respond to the need for American military forces to conduct joint operations to accomplish US national objectives. • Respond, during class discussion, to the value of the chain of command from the President and Secretary of Defense to the unified commands and joint warfare values.

Affective Sample of Behavior: • Actively participate in classroom discussion.

312 Joint Operations

iven the nature of , the United States has little choice but to train for and conduct joint operations. The Services continue to downsize, but our Goperational requirements remain the same. If the United States is to maintain itself as the world’s true superpower, then it must be able to defeat any enemy at any time. At some point in the future, the US military may face an enemy that’s larger in numbers and equal in terms of technology. The success of the will hinge upon training and execution. A successful joint campaign enables a smaller force to defeat a larger foe by capitalizing on the strengths of each service. This is why we must conduct joint operations.

Fundamental Concepts

War is socially sanctioned violence to achieve a political purpose. In its essence, war is a violent clash of wills, a complex, human undertaking that does not respond to deterministic rules. Clausewitz described it as “the continuation of politics by other means.” It is characterized by the shifting interplay of a trinity of forces (rational, non-rational, and irrational) connected by principal actors that comprise a social trinity of the people, military forces, and government. He noted that the conduct of war combines obstacles such as friction, chance, and uncertainty. The cumulative effect of these obstacles is often described as “the fog of war.” These observations remain true today, and place a burden on the commander to remain responsive, versatile, and adaptive in real time to seize opportunities and reduce vulnerabilities. This is the art of war. As a nation, the United States wages war employing all instruments of national power—diplomatic, informational, military, and economic. The President employs the Armed Forces of the United States to achieve national strategic objectives. Decisive unified action ensures unity of effort focused on those objectives and leads to the conclusion of operations on terms favorable to the United States. In the traditional paradigm, nation-states wage war for reasons as broad and varied as the array of national interests. By contrast, the context of (IW) is marked by a violent struggle among state and non-state actors for legitimacy and influence over the relevant population. Irregular warfare favors indirect and asymmetric approaches, though it may employ the full range of military and other capacities in order to erode an adversary’s power, influence, and will. Our enemies may be loosely organized networks or entities with no discernible hierarchical structure. Nevertheless, they have critical vulnerabilities to be exploited within their interconnected political, military, economic, social, informational, and infrastructure systems. These actors often wage protracted conflicts in an attempt to break the will of the nation-state. Military operations alone rarely resolve such conflicts. This publication will address all the instruments of national power.

312 Joint Operations 313 Nation-states have sovereign rights and a social contract with their inhabitants; therefore, they have sovereign responsibilities to combat these irregular threats. The Armed Forces of the United States conduct military operations as a joint force. “Joint” connotes activities, operations, and organizations in which elements of two or more military departments participate. Joint warfare is team warfare. The synergy that results from the operations of joint forces maximizes the capability of the force. The advantage of a joint team extends beyond the battlefield and across the range of military operations. A joint operation does not require that all forces participate in a particular operation merely because they are available. The joint force commander (JFC) has the authority and responsibility to tailor forces for the mission at hand, selecting those that most effectively and efficiently ensure success. Conducting joint operations generally involves 12 broad principles, collectively known as the “principles of joint operations”. These principles guide warfighting at the strategic, operational, and tactical levels of war. They combine the nine historical (present in joint doctrine since its inception) with three additional principles born out of experience across the range of military operations: restraint, perseverance, and legitimacy. Together these three with the traditional nine principles of war make up the 12 principles of joint operations.

The Joint Force

Over two decades after the Goldwater-Nichols Department of Defense (DOD) Reorganization Act of 1986 directed actions to remove the institutional barriers to jointness, the Armed Forces of the United States is a joint team. All Service components contribute their distinct capabilities to the joint campaign; however, their interdependence is critical to overall joint effectiveness. Joint interdependence is the purposeful reliance by one Service on another Service’s capabilities to maximize complementary and reinforcing effects of both; the degree of interdependence varying with specific circumstances. US is based on values that US military experience has proven to be vital for operational success. These values adhere to the most idealistic societal norms, are common to all the Services, and represent the essence of military professionalism.

The Strategic Security Environment

The security environment is extremely fluid, with continually changing coalitions, alliances, partnerships, and new national and transnational threats constantly appearing, disappearing, or in remission. The US military is well positioned to conduct operations but must also be prepared to address emerging peer competitors and irregular, catastrophic, and disruptive challenges. These challenges include irregular warfare, catastrophic terrorism employing of mass destruction (WMD), and disruptive threats to US ability to maintain its qualitative edge and to project power.

314 Joint operations increasingly occur in urban terrain and the information environment. The operational area often contains humanitarian crisis conditions requiring foreign humanitarian assistance. In addition to military forces and noncombatants, there may be a large number of other government agencies (OGAs), intergovernmental organizations (IGOs), nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), regional organizations, and elements of the private sector in the operational area. Each agency and/or organization has an agenda that may complement or compete with the activities of the other’s and the overall joint operation. Political and military leaders must consider the employment of military force in operations characterized by a complex, interconnected, and global operational environment -- the composite of the conditions, circumstances, and influences that affect the employment of capabilities and bear on the decisions of the commander. Traditional war is characterized as a confrontation between nation-states or coalitions/ alliances of nation-states. This confrontation typically involves small-scale to large-scale, force-on-force military operations in which adversaries employ a variety of conventional military capabilities against each other in the air, land, maritime, and space physical domains and the information environment (which includes cyberspace). The objective is to defeat an adversary’s armed forces, destroy an adversary’s war-making capacity, or seize or retain territory in order to force a change in an adversary’s government or policies. Military operations in traditional war normally focus on an adversary’s armed forces to ultimately influence the adversary’s government. Hostile states and non-state actors in possession of WMD represent significant security challenges. Some states, including supporters of terrorism, already possess WMD and are seeking even greater capabilities, as tools of coercion and intimidation. The US homeland and other US interests are potential targets for direct and indirect attack. Rather than directly confronting US military operations, adversary attacks may focus on political and public institutions. Lines of communications, ports, airports, staging areas, civilian populations, economic centers, and regional allies and friends are likely targets. The US continues to become more dependent on cyberspace. Private, public, global, and regional information systems in cyberspace are tempting targets. Advances in information technology increase the tempo, lethality, and depth of warfare. It is imperative that we safeguard the inherent vulnerabilities of current and developing systems. Maintaining national security and managing the inevitable changes are continuous processes that often preclude simple solutions. It requires well planned and executed joint campaigns and operations in conjunction with ad hoc partners. Additionally, joint operations are increasingly being conducted simultaneously (i.e., where , defensive, and stability operations are ongoing in the same operational area). US joint forces have global reach and are capable of engaging threats, influencing potential adversaries, assuring friends, and promoting peace and stability with a variety of capabilities.

314 Joint Operations 315 Joint Functions

Joint functions are related capabilities and activities grouped together to help the Joint Force Commander (JFC) integrate, synchronize, and direct joint operations. The six functions that are common to joint operations at all levels of war are Command and Control (C2), Intelligence, Fires, Movement and Maneuver, Protection, and Sustainment. Some functions, such as C2 and Intelligence, apply to all operations. Others, such as Fires, apply as required by the JFC’s mission. A number of subordinate tasks and related capabilities help define each function.

Command and Control (C2)

C2 encompasses the exercise of authority and direction by a JFC commander over assigned and attached joint and multinational forces in the accomplishment of the mission. The JFC provides operational vision, guidance, and direction to the joint force.

Intelligence

Understanding the operational environment is one of the fundamentals of joint warfare. Intelligence provides this understanding to JFCs. Intelligence tells JFCs what their adversaries or potential adversaries are doing, what they are capable of doing, and what they may do in the future. The intelligence process also attempts to identify what the adversary is able to discern about friendly forces. This function assists JFCs and their staffs in visualizing the operational environment and in achieving information superiority. Intelligence also contributes to information superiority by attempting to discern the adversary’s probable intent. During deployment, employment, and redeployment, the operational environment generates threats to joint forces that likely will produce combat-related injuries (BIs) and/or disease and non-battle injury casualties (DNBIs). Intelligence provides information that assists decisionmakers with devising force protection measures to mitigate these threats. Consequently, a complete intelligence picture, to include medical information, is required. Intelligence is critical in all joint operations. In military engagement, security cooperation, and deterrence activities, intelligence operations seek to provide the national leadership with the information needed to realize national goals and objectives, while providing military leadership with the information needed to accomplish missions and implement the National Security Strategy. During major operations and campaigns, intelligence identifies the adversary’s capabilities and centers of gravity (COG), projects probable courses of action (COAs), and assists in planning friendly force employment. During crisis response contingencies or contingency operations, intelligence provides assessments that help the JFC decide which forces to deploy; when, how, and where to deploy them; and how to employ them in a manner that accomplishes the mission at the lowest human and political cost. Intelligence also provides information on the existing occupational and environmental hazards and their associated risks to include toxic industrial chemical storage/use sights, epidemic and endemic diseases, environmental

316 contamination locations, and other items. Surveillance and reconnaissance are important elements of the intelligence function that support the collection of information across the levels of war and range of military operations.

Fires

To employ fires is to use available lethal and nonlethal weapons against an enemy or adversary. Policy, guidance, and planning for the employment of operational and strategic fires is primarily a joint function. Joint fires are produced during the employment of forces from two or more components in coordinated action to achieve desired results in support of and toward a common objective. Fires typically provide destructive force, but some ways and means (such as offensive information operations) can be employed with little or no associated physical destruction. This function uses a wide variety of lethal and nonlethal capabilities.

Movement and Maneuver

This function encompasses disposing joint forces to conduct campaigns, major operations, and other contingencies by securing positional advantages before combat operations commence and by exploiting tactical success to achieve operational and strategic objectives and effects. This function includes moving or deploying forces into an operational area and conducting maneuver to operational depths for offensive and defensive purposes. It also includes enhancing and assuring the mobility of friendly forces.

Protection

The protection function focuses on conserving the joint force’s fighting potential in four primary ways—(1) active offensive and defensive measures (such as air defense) that protect the joint force, its information, its bases, and necessary infrastructure from an adversary’s attack; (2) passive measures (such as concealment) that make friendly forces, systems, and facilities difficult to locate, strike, and destroy; (3) applying technology and procedures to reduce the risk of fratricide. As the JFC’s mission requires, the protection function also extends beyond force protection to encompass protection of US noncombatants; the forces, systems, and civil infrastructure of friendly nations; and other governmental and non-governmental agencies; and (4) emergency response and management.

Sustainment

Sustainment is the provision of personnel (to include legal and religious support), logistics, and other support required to maintain and prolong operations until successful mission accomplishment. JFCs should begin building sustainment capabilities during the earliest phases of a campaign or operation. Sustainment should be a priority consideration when

316 Joint Operations 317 the timed-phased force and deployment data list is built. As with achieving full-spectrum superiority, sustainment provides JFCs with flexibility to develop any required branches and sequels and to refocus joint force efforts as required. The fundamentals of joint warfare are: unity of effort, concentration, initiative, agility, extension, freedom of action, sustainment, clarity, knowledge of self, and knowledge of the enemy. These principles and fundamentals should be applied broadly in peace, crisis, or conflict, avoiding literal or dogmatic interpretations, across the range of military operations. Military operations typically represent only one dimension of US action and require integration with the other instruments of national power. The Armed Forces of the United States must be prepared to conduct a complex set of military operations simultaneously across and within theaters. A combat operation to contain a conflict in one part of the world may be taking place alongside a number of supporting and independent operations to reinforce peace, provide foreign humanitarian assistance, and assist civil authorities. The military power of the United States must be prepared to fulfill both its fundamental purpose of winning the Nation’s and provide unconditional service in support of other broad national objectives.

Conclusion

Today’s military actions require all services to capitalize on the strengths of each other for synergy. Gone are the days of inter-service rivalry. The security environment now often requires the U.S. forces to be able to funtion as one military to achieve a common objective. You can read further about joint warfare at: http://www.dtic.mil/doctrine.

______Bibliography: 1. Doctrine Volume I, 14 Oct 2011. 2. JP 3-0. Joint Operations. 11 Aug 2011.

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