Developing Concepts for Joint Maritime Operations

I mentioned yesterday how much I enjoyed Captain Victor Addison's article in the January 2010 issue of Proceedings, but I didn't mention why. If you have not read the article, You Can't Always Give What You Want, I highly recommend it. I am sure the force structure discussion representing the bulk of the article will draw the most attention, but for me this writing jumped off the page:

A naval officer's reaction when reading U.S. Joint Forces Command's (JFCOM) "Capstone Concept for Joint Operations" (CCJO) could be analyzed according to Elizabeth Kubler-Ross' five stages of grief. The reader is initially overwhelmed with feelings of denial and rage by a joint document that can so clearly articulate the most fundamental aspects of joint force warfare with nary a reference to gallant naval battles. The next phase, bargaining, is championed by Office of the Chief of Naval Operations (OPNAV) staff members who instinctively send urgent change requests to JFCOM containing "maritime strategy stuff." As sadness ultimately gives way to acceptance, a sense of equilibrium is achieved based on the assumption that the half-life of documents like the CCJO is generally no more than two years.

But what if the concept's depiction of joint warfare is correct? Is it possible that while we've been dutifully celebrating the anniversary of the Battle of Midway, an era of warfare has dawned that places the Navy in a supporting role and requires a slightly different perspective on naval power?

I think there is a lot to talk about in the U.S. Joint Forces Command's (JFCOM) "Capstone Concept for Joint Operations" (CCJO) from a Navy perspective, in fact, I'm going to take a similar but distinctly different approach as Captain Addison. What if the concept's depiction of joint warfare is correct, but is written specifically for the Navy to encourage ideas towards achieving balance with naval power? I use the word balance specifically in the context of CS-21 for balancing the priorities of winning and preventing war.

The maritime environment is different than land, so how do we apply the CCJO concept of joint operations to our sea forces? Unlike land, presence requires a ship, as men can't walk on water, and this simple fact alone forces us to think about ways and means as a singular concept.

JFCOMs Capstone Concept for Joint Operations describes Joint Operations as the integration and adaptation of combat, security, engagement, and relief and reconstruction; four basic categories of military activity. The central thesis of this concept comprises three interrelated ideas that together describe broadly how the joint force will operate, and outlines the foundation for our discussion as such:

The national security challenges of the preceding section establish the purposes for which joint operations may be required now and in the future. This section describes in general terms how future joint forces will contribute to meeting those challenges. Subordinate operating concepts will apply these broad ideas to more specific situations.

The central thesis of this concept comprises three interrelated ideas that together describe broadly how the joint force will operate:

• Address each situation on its own terms, in its unique political and strategic context, rather than attempting to fit the situation to a preferred template.
• Conduct and integrate a combination of combat, security, engagement, and relief and reconstruction activities according to a concept of operations designed to meet the unique circumstances of that situation.
• Conduct operations subject to a continuous assessment of results in relation to expectations, modifying both the understanding of the situation and subsequent operations accordingly.

These three ideas are explained in greater detail below. Together they describe a generic process of operational adaptation designed expressly to cope with the complexity, uncertainty, and change that will define the future operating environment. This process applies to all joint operations even though the specific ends, ways, and means of those operations may vary widely according to the situation.

First, in designing joint operations, the joint force commander must come to grips with each operational situation on its own terms, accepting that this understanding rarely will be complete or entirely correct, but at best will approximate reality. The Joint Operating Environment describes complex, globalized challenges for which the underlying causes and dynamics will be anything but obvious, while the repercussions of action often will be broad and unpredictable. The interests of various stakeholders may be unclear, and even identifying those stakeholders may be difficult. In this environment, the joint force cannot afford to apply preconceived methods reflexively, but instead must conform its methods to the specific conditions of each situation.

Those methods must reflect both the internal dynamics of the situation itself, which give the situation its basic operational nature, and the strategic context, which establishes the broad political and resource limits within which operations must be conducted. Because of pervasive uncertainty, both may require making assumptions about the situation based on the best available, but often inconclusive, information. Such assumptions must be treated as hypotheses to be confirmed or altered by the evidence developed through action.

Second, in framing a concept of operations conforming to this situational understanding, the joint force commander must consider the use of combat, security, engagement, and relief and reconstruction activities. The following section discusses these in greater detail. Suffice to say here that most joint operations will require some combination of two or more of these broad categories of military activity, which in total embrace virtually every mission the joint force could be called upon to perform. Operational art thus becomes the arranging and balancing of combat, security, engagement, and relief and reconstruction activities to achieve the objectives of the joint operation or campaign -- and their continual rearranging as that operation or campaign unfolds.

The concept does not envision these activities occurring in regular or distinct phases. While some tactical sequencing inevitably will be required, this rarely will be uniform across the operational area. Rather, it is envisioned that those activities will occur largely simultaneously across the operational area.

While the four basic categories of activity constitute the means of joint operations, the ways are the concepts by which they are arranged and integrated. As desirable as it might be, no single such concept can prescribe that arrangement across the full set of potential security challenges. The concept for an offensive campaign to defeat the armed forces of a hostile state, for example, necessarily will be very different from the concept for helping a host nation defeat a growing insurgency, which in turn will have little in common with the concept for responding to a peacetime natural disaster.

In every operational situation, the joint force commander will have to develop a concept of operations that integrates -- and reconciles the frequently competing demands of -- combat, security, engagement, and relief and reconstruction as they apply. That concept of operations cannot be based on a rigid template, but instead must reflect the specific conditions of the situation. This has significant implications for doctrine, training and education.

Finally, the joint force commander must expect that, however carefully conceived, his initial operational design will prove inadequate in some respects. His plan therefore must incorporate explicit means of continuously assessing the results of operations in relation to expectations, and he must be prepared to modify operations when the two diverge. By probing the situation to cause it to reveal itself more clearly, operations themselves thus become a way of testing early assumptions and expectations.

To succeed, this approach requires making assumptions about the situation explicit so they can be reconsidered as events unfold. It further requires collecting information not only to monitor tactical execution, but also to provide commanders a basis from which to re-evaluate their fundamental assumptions and modify their operations accordingly.

In short, as both a concession and response to pervasive uncertainty, all joint operations are fundamentally and explicitly an adaption based on learning about the situation through action. Both understanding the situation and arranging combat, security, engagement, and relief and reconstruction become continuous activities informed by feedback. Regardless of the mission, the more quickly and appropriately the joint force can adapt itself to its situation, the more successful it will be.

With this foundation, I intend to start 2010 with a discussion of the four basic categories of military activity as outlined in CCJO from a maritime perspective and specifically in the context of CS-21 for balancing the priorities of winning and preventing war.

January 1st - Combat
January 2nd - Security
January 3rd - Engagement
January 4th - Relief and Reconstruction

Blogs are imperfect tools for continuous discussions on the same topic, but with so many multifaceted conversations coming, I hope to use this discussion as a way of developing a blogging technique on Information Dissemination to facilitate larger, complex strategic discussions on naval topics - particularly since 2010 will bring not only a new QDR and a new NOC, but also an AirSea Battle Doctrine - all of which will be complex issues requiring multiple blog posts to cover sufficiently.