Thinking About the Joint Force

Bryan McGrath's article on The Navy and Jointness is a very timely discussion. For those who have not been following this discussion as it has gained momentum over 2010, or have not heard of Captain Victor Addison, a bit of background. This years first prize winning writer for the United States Naval Institute Proceedings author of the year award was Captain Victor George Addison, U.S. Navy, whose four articles carried the day:

• You Can't Always Give What You Want, Captain Victor G. Addison Jr., U.S. Navy, Proceedings Magazine, January 2010 Vol. 136/1/1,283
• Got Sea Control?, Captain Victor G. Addison Jr., U.S. Navy and Commander David Dominy, Royal Navy, Proceedings Magazine, March 2010 Vol. 136/3/1,285
• The Answer Is the Carrier Strike Group . . . Now, What Was the Question?, Captain Victor G. Addison Jr., U.S. Navy, Proceedings Magazine, July 2010 Vol. 136/7/1,289
• The Joint Force's "Wildcat Offense", Captain Victor G. Addison Jr., U.S. Navy, Proceedings Magazine, October 2010 Vol. 136/10/1,292

The first prize winner for Proceedings every year is chosen based in part on impact and influence - and these articles have had impact and influence to the discussion of the Joint Force in Washington. As the budget shrinks and the services are being tasked to meet the demands of 21st century challenges, efficiencies must be achieved. One way it is believed efficiencies can be achieved is with a more optimized Joint Force, as to some the Joint Force is seen as an obstruction towards more optimized and better utilized individual military branches.

As an unintended insult to every legitimate defense reporter I know, the CNA Center for Naval Analyses folks, like the rest of the strategic community in DC, treat bloggers like Salamander and I as media. While Bryan McGrath is a blogger here on ID, folks who know him know he is not media and is very much an insider. Both Sal and I understand the reasons for the various distinctions and do appreciate those reasons.

Bryan and I don't actually talk much and I was unaware he was going to be at the CNA event on Wednesday, until just now when I looked closer at a copy of the CNA invitation I had previously obtained. In the spirit of CNA treating me as media, I'll play the role of media. Here was the CNA invitation that Peter Swartz didn't send to me, and I didn't get from Bryan.

Invitation: UNCLAS CNA 1 Dec workshop: US Navy Strategic Perspectives

You are invited to participate in an UNCLAS workshop at CNA on 1 Dec, from 0800 to 1700, on "Developing US Navy Strategic Perspectives for 2011 and Beyond." It is anticipated that this will be the 1st in a series of at least 3 such workshops over the coming year.

A draft agenda follows. More detail will be provided in the near future as planning for the event continues.

0800-0830 Registration, breakfast

0830-0840 Welcome. Why we are here. Beginning of a process. Expected product. (Ms. Nancy Dolan, Deputy Director, OPNAV Strategy and Policy Division (N51B) (Project Sponsor)).

0840-0900 Welcome aboard/ admin/ discussion of the larger project (Peter Swartz , Dr. Dan Whiteneck, Bridge Colby (CNA))

0900-0930 Baseline brief & short discussion #1: What do current naval/Navy “capstone” documents say: Strategy, operational concept, strategic plan, doctrine, guidance, etc. (Peter Swartz, CNA)

0930-1000 Baseline brief & short discussion #2: What do current Marine Corps “capstone” documents say: Strategy, operational concept, strategic plan, doctrine, guidance, etc., especially Marine Corps Operating Concepts (3rd ed.)? (Lt Col Daniel Paris (N51 Marine Corps LO)

1000-1030 Baseline brief & short discussion #3: What do current joint concepts documents say, especially CCJO & JOE, that Navy strategists & concepts developers need to know (Dr. Ken Kennedy, CNA rep at NWDC, formerly at JFCOM)

1030-1045 Break

1045-1115 Baseline brief & short discussion #4: What do CAPT Addison’s 4 Proceedings articles (Jan-Oct 2010) recommend & why? (Peter Swartz, CNA; CAPT Vic Addison, N511))

1115-1300 Break, Working lunch, break: Moderated discussion: Comparing and contrasting the documents and their concepts: Similarities, differences; convergences, divergences (CAPT Pete Haynes (N511)

1300-1430 Issue panel #1: Should the Navy become more joint and more supporting of other services, to achieve Navy goals for the Nation? (3 panelists TBD, then open discussion)

1430-1445 Break

1445- 1615 Issue panel #2: Is increased Navy-Marine Corps integration desirable, to change the joint force paradigm in the Navy’s desired direction? (3 panelists TBD, then open discussion)

1615-1700 Wrap up: Restatement of the problem. Discussion of options for the way ahead

Participants are expected to be conversant in the contents of the documents mentioned above, prior to the workshop.

Breakfast snacks, lunch, afternoon snacks and beverage service will be provided. Parking chits will be validated.

Please let me know by COB Friday, 19 November, if you will be able to participate. More to follow as it becomes available.

This event should prove informative and useful to OPNAV as well as to all participants.

We are looking forward to hosting you at CNA on 1 December.

These types of events are non-disclosure, so we will not be getting an attendance record nor any minutes from the conversations that took place. When Salamander and I heard about this, his comment was:

Where's the bloggers' corner? ;)

Methinks they will talk a lot about what we talked about on Midrats yesterday....

He was talking about Midrats Episode 45 with John Patch, which is a really good hour of Navy talk btw. It would appear that the bloggers corner turned out to be Bryan. To add to Bryan's piece, I will contribute a few thoughts of my own.

The DoD is trapped in consensus business models based on "enterprise thinking". This is true in military and senior civilian circles. Leaders want no risks, no down sides, and everyone around the table must be happy at the end of the day, so the DoD can carry the message upstairs with everyone covered at all levels.

This is why today the Navy is covering Afghanistan with close air support from two aircraft carriers, when one or two squadrons on land can do it cheaper and by being closer, potentially more effectively.

Nope, everyone must play, and it is the same with war planning and contingencies. Everyone must play, no matter how smart it is or how stupid we all recognize it to be. The business culture ultimately hurts COCOMS more than it helps, providing strategic assets like aircraft carrier strike groups to CENTCOM for tactical operations over Afghanistan at time when the Lincoln carrier strike group could be a strategic asset for PACOM dealing with the situation in North Korea.

Victor Addison represents an emerging centrist position on Joint Services thinking today, while Bryan McGrath is considered more in the context of a radical on the fringes on this issue. In his article, Bryan says Victor told him they are closer than Bryan thinks - and maybe that's true. Or maybe Victor is being a centrist building a consensus -- which is what centrists do.

I have my own thoughts developed over a year of watching this conversation emerge, but I do find myself in agreement with those who suggest that the Joint Force must collectively evolve or we will watch our capabilities across the entire board dissolve due to paralysis. Change is hard - and rarely do we find leadership in the services willing to change at the right pace to be effective. The story of changing anything in the DoD over the past 2 decades is that change is either too slow to be adopted and developed, or too fast to be implemented well.

Turnover and priorities of civilian leadership combined with the absence of a Grand Strategy are contributing factors that prevent a mature utilization and more effective Joint Force. Joint Force approaches that must be all inclusive for parochial reasons and the perception of relevance is a problem today. We have all seen, heard, or read how the CNO boasts more sailors on the ground in support of the war effort than the number of sailors at sea. The necessity to inject the Navy into ground warfare duties is, I believe, a byproduct of what the Joint Force mentality has evolved into. I believe Joint Force paralysis is reflected in the ratio between contractors and military folks in the war theaters, why the Army would protest the development of an AirSea Battle doctrine, and why it has become more common to rely on SOCOM than going through the hassle of developing the right Joint solution.

This all inclusive, round table enterprise approach has opened Joint Force solutions to legitimate criticism by those like Bryan McGrath - a criticism that suggests we are at a point where the absence of a Joint Force approach might be better for the individual services than how the Joint Force framework operates collectively today. I wouldn't go that far, but I do believe this is a serious problem due to economic pressures, demand on ground forces in the war theaters, demand on sea and space forces in the Pacific, and demand by the taxpayer for the USG to be responsible meeting the broad range of commitments with the limited national resources available and within the context of the nations poor economic condition.

I encourage our professional readers to think about these issues. Guest posts on this topic are welcome, both here or at USNI Blog if you or your chain of command feels that location is more appropriate. This is a complicated issue being taken very seriously by the nations civilian leadership, as the CNA Workshop both implies and demonstrates. It is a political issue, and it is a parochial issue. It is not an issue that can continue to be punted down the road - not if the nations economic situation is going to be handled seriously by civilian leadership in Washington.