April 19, 2018

Paradigm Change: Operational Art and the Information Joint Function

The need for this addition to the joint functions has become increasingly obvious to military leaders over time. It reveals itself in the difficulty of addressing gray zone challenges. During a recent effort by the Joint Staff to update Joint Publication (JP) 3-13, Information Operations, leaders recognized that the joint force was already attempting to use information as a function and that the time to institutionalize information as a function was therefore overdue.

April 19, 2018

Globally Integrated Exercises: Optimizing Joint Force C2 Structure

The limitations in the Globally Integrated Exercise construct should not dissuade its utilization. Like any new concept, it requires the necessary time, space, and iterations to meet the Chairman’s intent. There is no shortage of recommendations for tackling the globally integrated operations challenges.

April 17, 2018

Preparing for Tomorrow’s Fight: Joint Concepts and Future Readiness

Military forces that quickly adapt to change usually prevail. It is difficult to adapt in the near term, more so when there is an extended time horizon, but not adapting can exact a heavy toll in blood and treasure. The high cost of not adjusting to new situations underlies the stereotypical conservatism of military organizations, and it is borne in their propensity to lean heavily on the lessons of the last war and eschew radical change. But those who do not try to anticipate change risk surrendering the initiative on the future battlefield.

April 17, 2018

A New Approach to Joint Concepts

The future operating environment will feature broad changes in the character of warfare. Driven by the rise of competent and competitive states; economic, social, and environmental challenges; and rapidly evolving technologies, these changes will necessitate innovation within the Department of Defense (DOD). Innovation must develop and employ new capabilities, organizational constructs, and approaches to warfighting to maintain competitive advantage over a broad range of potential adversaries.

April 13, 2018

Joint Doctrine Updates

Joint Doctrine Updates.

April 13, 2018

The U.S. Government’s Approach to Environmental Security: Focus on Campaign Activities

This article continues the discussion on human security’s1 seven relevant dimensions: economic, food, health, environmental, personal, community, and political.2 Complementing previous Joint Force Quarterly installments on health and food security,3 the following describes the U.S. Government’s approach to environmental security with a focus on combatant commander campaign activities.

April 13, 2018

Exploring the Future Operating Environment

As we move past the plan of the day, proceed outside of the budget cycle, and venture beyond the 10-year horizon of strategic planning efforts, significant ongoing changes in the security environment will alter the character of warfare beyond recognition.

April 13, 2018

America’s First General Staff (Book Review)

This trim book explains the full course of the U.S. Navy’s General Board, its institutional forum for innovation, during the period from 1900 to 1950. To remedy challenges identified during the Spanish-American War, Navy Secretary John D. Long established the board as an experiment. The Secretary realized he needed military advice, so he chose a mix of up-and-coming Navy officers, the head of the Bureau of Navigation that managed careers, and one Marine officer, all led by the redoubtable Admiral George Dewey, to offer it.

April 13, 2018

Anatomy of a Campaign (Book Review)

John Kiszely had an outstanding career in the British army. As a major, he won the Military Cross while leading his company of Scots Guards in the attack on Tumbledown Mountain in the last days of the Falklands War. During his career, he served in the bureaucracy in Whitehall as the Assistant Chief of the Defence Staff and served stints in British operations in Northern Ireland, Bosnia, and Iraq, finally retiring as a lieutenant general. He has seen war at both ends: the hard, sharp end of combat and the making and coordinating of policy and operations.

April 13, 2018

Illusions of Victory (Book Review)

In Enforcing the Peace: Learning from the Imperial Past (Columbia University Press, 2006), Kimberly Zisk Marten recounts the dismal record of Western military interventions that could achieve temporary stability but not foster any lasting political change. Her solution is to lower expectations while extending presence; outsiders cannot shape the course of internal political change but can maintain security for the lengthy period required for equilibrium to be restored after a society is disrupted.