Browse by

Results:
Tag: JFQ-80

Jan. 1, 2016

Unconventional Warfare in the Gray Zone

In the months immediately following the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon in the autumn of 2001, a small special operations forces (SOF) element and interagency team, supported by carrier- and land-based airstrikes, brought down the illegitimate Taliban government in Afghanistan that had been providing sanctuary for al Qaeda. This strikingly successful unconventional warfare (UW) operation was carried out with a U.S. “boots on the ground” presence of roughly 350 SOF and 110 interagency operatives working alongside an indigenous force of some 15,000 Afghan irregulars.1 The Taliban regime fell within a matter of weeks. Many factors contributed to this extraordinary accomplishment, but its success clearly underscores the potential and viability of this form of warfare.

Jan. 1, 2016

Joint Force Observations of Retrograde Operations from Afghanistan

Numerous articles have highlighted the monumental and complex efforts by U.S. and coalition forces to draw down the force, close operating bases, and remove the equipment and supplies that accumulated throughout Afghanistan during 13 years of combat operations. The signing of the bilateral security agreement (BSA) late in 2014 with the Afghanistan government had a profound impact on our ability to close the retrograde mission by December 2014. Prior to the signing of the agreement, there was a legitimate concern that we would have to rapidly accelerate throughput across all available means and modes if conditions in the BSA were unfavorable to our forces and coalition partners. Anticipating this situation, the responsible force drawdown, materiel retrograde, and base closure and transfer missions were collectively the top priority for the commander of U.S. Central Command (USCENTCOM) throughout 2014.

Jan. 1, 2016

Beyond the Build: How the Component Commands Support the U.S. Cyber Command Vision

Networked technology is transforming society. That transformation has come with significant change to war and the military art. Until recently, cyber considerations rarely extended beyond the computers and cables that supported kinetic warfighting functions. The natural domains—land, sea, air, and space—dominated the planning and conduct of operations, while the risks entailed in using cyberspace for military purposes went largely unrecognized. Today, cyberspace ranks as its own warfighting domain—one that intersects the four natural domains.

Jan. 1, 2016

An Interview with Michael S. Rogers

We are three organizations brought together under one leader because of the great synergy and complementary nature to the mission set among the three organizations. It was a very conscious decision to bring them together under one individual. You really get a lot of synergy by doing that, and you increase capability end-to-end as opposed to breaking it into three different components. Of the three hats, the two that I really focus on externally are commander of USCYBERCOM and director of the NSA.

Jan. 1, 2016

Building Joint Capacity Within the Reserve Component

We should expect increased dependency on the Reserve Component (RC) due to post-sequestration, post–Operation Enduring Freedom force reductions within the Active Component (AC), and simultaneous plans to increase regional alignment throughout the RC.1 RC contribution to all echelons of combatant command planning and execution will expand to allow “military department apportionment of larger Reserve Component formations . . . to Combatant Commander OPLANs [operation plans].”2 Joint force presentation, planning, and administration will, by necessity, be a Total Force endeavor. This prompts inquiry into the current state and future sufficiency of joint competencies within the RC.3 After reviewing the constellation of laws, policies, and practices designed to produce joint qualified officers (JQOs), I believe the current system is serving the AC well but has unintentionally limited the joint potential resident in the RC officer corps to the detriment of the Department of Defense (DOD). In this article, I argue that “joint,” as defined by law and implemented within DOD, has become largely an AC competency and that national security would be better served by developing a new vision for joint competencies as component-neutral.

Jan. 1, 2016

The Fourth Level of War

Civilization began because the beginning of civilization is a military advantage.”1 This observation by Walter Bagehot is not far off the mark. Warfare certainly matured along with civilization as a violent expression of political will and intent. We currently view the art of warfare in three levels—tactical, operational, and strategic—but it was not always so. In the beginning, there were strategy and tactics. Strategy outlined how and to what purpose war might be used to achieve political objectives. Tactics directed how the violence was actually applied on the battlefield. For most of military history, tactical art was able to achieve strategic objectives as tribes, forces, and armies marshaled on the battlefield to destroy the enemy’s ability to resist their master’s political will. Although much debated, operational art was born at the end of the 19th century when the size of armies, made possible by the development of the nation-state, rendered tactics unable to bring about political results. Civilization has moved on. From a doctrinal, theoretical, and practical point of view, it is now time to consider a fourth level of war—the theater-strategic level of war.

Jan. 1, 2016

Global Health Engagement: A Military Medicine Core Competency

In his February 2014 testimony to the House Armed Services Committee, Assistant Secretary of Defense for Health Affairs Jonathan Woodson articulated six strategic lines of effort supporting then–Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel’s “six strategic priorities for reshaping our forces and institutions for a different future.” Dr. Woodson’s sixth line of effort was to “expand our global health engagement strategy.” This article is an overview of U.S. global health engagement, including such topics as current guidelines, health as a strategic enabler, health in disaster management, and future directions for global health engagement.

Jan. 1, 2016

Separate and Equal: Building Better Relationships with the International Humanitarian Community

In today’s complex global landscape, understanding and taking the opportunities to build peace to prevent war are increasingly paramount if a stable and sustainable world is to be realized. As such, we need to sharpen the focus of the roles the military and the humanitarian assistance community have in this important call to action and, at the least, determine what each side needs to know about the other. This is especially true if we are to find those intersections and circumstances where the military and the humanitarian assistance community are able to work together and to recognize those where they cannot. Toward this goal, this article reviews the identity, principles, and culture of the humanitarian community, what it expects from military forces, and what it wants the military to consider when it is planning health engagement. Additionally, approaches and methods for constructive interaction between the military and community forces are proposed.

Jan. 1, 2016

The Future of Department of Defense Global Health Engagement

The term global health has come into common usage in recent years and encompasses various matters relevant to health, including diseases that cross international borders, factors that affect public health globally, and the interconnectedness of health matters around the globe. Diseases that have been unevenly distributed across the world have been of concern to militaries for centuries, perhaps throughout history. Historians record that the decimation of Napoleon’s army during his invasion of Russia was the result of starvation, severe weather, and disease, the most important of which was typhus, which killed over 80,000 troops.1 His retreating army then spread typhus throughout Europe. Likewise, typhoid fever was a serious problem in World War I and the American Civil War.2 Spanish troops were severely affected by yellow fever during the Spanish-American War, and Spanish influenza had disproportionate and decisive effects during World War I.3 Colonization of Africa, Asia, and Latin America by Western powers led to increased awareness of diseases that were generally exotic to the imposing country, motivating interest in developing means of prevention and control of diseases. Examples of efforts emanating from such interest include the work of Walter Reed and William C. Gorgas in defining the transmission and prevention of yellow fever, research regarding cholera and diarrhea in Bangladesh, and the establishment of research laboratories (for example, the Pasteur Institute and Medical Research Council laboratories in Africa). Conversely, the invasion and colonization of foreign lands has also long been known to result in the introduction of exotic disease into the occupied lands, with the importation of smallpox and syphilis into North America by colonists as outstanding examples.

Jan. 1, 2016

Global Health Concepts, and Engagements: Significant Enhancer for U.S. Security and International Diplomacy

The United States and its global allies face a multitude of challenges to peace and stability. Civil wars in Syria, Yemen, Ukraine, and parts of Africa compound sectarian disorder in the aftermath of U.S. operations and subsequent withdrawal from Iraq and Afghanistan. Moreover, decades-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict, political unrest in Egypt and Turkey, and Iran’s attempts to dominate the region—countered by pushback from Saudi Arabia and Gulf allies—contribute to geopolitical turmoil. Compounding matters are the emergence of Daesh (the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant) and other extreme theocratic groups and the uprooting of more than 9 million human beings, causing a complex humanitarian catastrophe rarely witnessed in modern times. Against these overwhelming difficulties, Muslims, Arabs, and the rest of the world expect and anticipate U.S. forward engagement to help resolve many of these threats.