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Remarks for the Naval
Institute Expo and Symposium
Adm. E. P. Giambastiani
Virginia Beach Pavilion
Virginia Beach, Va.
Sept. 30, 2004
Thank
you Maj. Gen. Tom Wilkerson for that kind introduction.
It's
good to see so many friends from all the services here today,
and particularly from my own service-the Navy. Adm. "Snuffy"
Smith-sir, it's always a pleasure to see you again.
Indeed,
I'm proud to report that all the services have sent their
best and brightest to Joint Forces Command-making "JFCOM"
not only a vibrant engine for change and innovation but also
a center of excellence for "joint culture."
And
it's not just me saying they're the "best & brightest."
At almost every level our folks are being recognized for promotion
for their great work at JFCOM and their services. These include
my:
•
Director for Joint Experimentation, Army Maj.
Gen. James Dubik to lieutenant general;
• Former Director of Operations-J3, Marine Corps Brig.
Gen. Thomas "Tango" Moore to major general;
• Former Commander of the Joint
Warfighting Center-J7, then Maj. Gen. Bill Wallace went
on to command V Corps in OIF as a lieutenant general
• Former Executive Assistant Army Col. Michael Ferriter,
who just came out on the "BG" list last week Friday;
and
• Former Director of our Training Division Army Col.
Mick Bednarek to brigadier general
I
could go on but I think you get the point.
This
is an important investment that you-the services-have made.
And because of our location here in the Tidewater, which is
home to the largest naval base in the world, we get a tremendous
amount of support from the Navy.
In
fact, by way of thanking you-I'd like to have all our folks
from Joint Forces Command stand.
I'd
also like to thank the Naval Institute not only for hosting
this conference, but also for daring to ask all the tough
questions and being willing to push the envelop of inquiry.
I applaud your commitment to jointness as well. You've set
aside this entire day to focusing on the key issues and challenges
affecting joint operations and joint transformation. I thank
you for that.
Now
I know that it was just in February when I last spoke to your
Naval Institute gathering in San Diego. So I know that there
might be a fear of the "Yogi Berra" effect: That
this guy's briefing is déjà vu all over again.
Well,
since it's now September, I thought I'd present something
old; something new, and something borrowed.
In
fact, I'd like to pick up the conversation where we left off
on my last visit-and then provide sort of a progress report
on what Joint Forces Command has done, is doing and will do
to help organize, train, equip and provide the "right"
joint forces at the "right time" and with the "right"
capabilities to the combatant commanders-today and tomorrow.
Your
theme, which is appropriately cast as a question: How Do We
Respond with Ready Forces to the Right Place, at the Right
Time, to Win the Next War?" is one that we can certainly
identify with at U.S. Joint Forces Command.
Back
in February, I outlined three general operational insights
we have learned in Operation Iraqi Freedom that gets at this
question and bears repeating:
1. The U.S. DOES NOT send individual military services to
conduct major operations but instead deploys its military
as a "Big J" Joint Force. This refers to a seamless
integration of not only the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines
but also other federal agencies, allies, multinational and
even international non-governmental organizations. They
all have capabilities we will need to achieve the effects
we seek in joint operations.
2. The power of a coherently joint force is now greater
than the sum of our separate service, interagency and coalition
capabilities.
3. "Speed kills"-not just physical speed, but
speed of command and execution. It reduces decision and
execution cycles, creates opportunities, denies an enemy
options and speeds his collapse.
In
many ways, these three observations has not only held true
for the operations that we're seeing today, they have also
been a guiding framework to build a joint force that has the
"right" capabilities and an adaptable process to
deliver that joint force to the right place and at the right
time.
The
key point here is that if we are to harness the full effectiveness
of our various service capabilities, we must sharpen our products
and processes to transition those services quicker than we
have been into coherently integrated joint forces.
That
is why we wake up every day at Joint Forces Command thinking
about how to deliver new and innovative products to the joint
operator. This is not as simple a task as it may seem. We
know how to deliver products to service - how to organize,
train and equip the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines. But
organizing and training joint operational headquarters and
equipping them with joint capabilities is a new "business
line" for DoD.
You
see, no one was clearly in charge of that Title-10 mission
from the joint operator's perspective-to organize, train and
equip a joint force-prior to the standup of Joint Forces Command.
Let me put this in concrete terms - using the Navy as an analogy.
The Navy believes in readiness. It's been a mantra of the
CNO even before Adm. Clark became CNO. I know, because I worked
with him on his transition to focus on readiness. Adm. Clark
would never deploy a carrier strike group without the fundamentals:
• Ensuring that the air wing had completed carrier
qualifications;
• Manning the ships and submarines - preferably 6 months
in advance of deployment - up to their full allowance.
• Training ships, submarines and squadrons on their
individual specialties and their team skills; and
• Certifying the strike group with Operational Reactor
Safeguards Exams, Pre-Overseas Movement Certifications,
Tactical Readiness Evaluations and a capstone Joint Task
Force Exercise.
And
Adm. Clark ensures all these things happen - and more - because
organizing, training and equipping the Navy to execute their
missions is his job and his passion. And besides, it's the
right thing to do. All of these things ensure you are ready
to execute your mission with the highest likelihood of success
and the lowest risk of casualties.
And
yet, before we at Joint Forces Command tackled the "organize,
train and equip" mission for the joint operational commanders,
we did none of these things for the joint warfighters who
are supposed to employ carrier strike groups and expeditionary
strike groups and all the capabilities all of the services
bring to the fight.
We
are working hard right now to change that. We are working
to treat the joint command and sontrol systems at the operational
level - the level of the 2nd and 6th Fleets and the 2nd Marine
Expeditionary Force - just like any other "weapons system"
that you procure to execute a joint concept of operations;
that you train your warfighters on and that you maintain and
upgrade as technology and tactics advance.
Just
as it is almost literally unthinkable to deploy a carrier
strike group unequipped, unmanned and untrained on deployment,
we want to ensure that it becomes equally unthinkable to deploy
a joint task force headquarters without organizing it for
success; training it for its task; and equipping it with the
best "weapons system" we can provide.
And
that's what JFCOM is doing, in a nutshell.
As you can tell by these terms-"coherently joint,"
"horizontal and vertical collaboration" and "effects-based
operations"-the joint force we intended to organize,
train and equip are intended to be a very different type of
force, one more be suited to the demands of modern warfare.
In
a panel after my talk, you'll hear from Col. Mike Neil of
our Standing Joint
Force HQ-Core Element speak to these attributes in greater
detail-so I won't cover them here.
Instead,
let me share with you some of the new processes and products
we've developed to help organize, train and equip the force
of today-and tomorrow. I'll also touch on some of the challenges
we've experienced-and continue to struggle with-today.
In
terms of building the joint force of the future, we have instituted
a system of transformation change packages, or "TCPs."
These are transformational concepts that have been tested
in experimentation and matured through prototyping and then
"packaged" as a completed recommendation-for-change-with
all the attendant evidence-and forwarded for approval by the
Joint Requirements Oversight Council.
Examples
of such TCPs include the Standing Joint Force Headquarters-Core
Element, Joint Interagency
Coordination Group and Collaborative Information Environment.
All of these examples, I am happy to report, are being deployed
right now in the combatant commands.
In
other words, the context of the "future joint force"
is that we are building it now, in real time, by incorporating
into our change process both the advanced, matured concepts
from our collective joint experimentation and our collective
insights gathered from our lessons learned effort. I know
that earlier this morning you heard some of the joint lessons
learned work we are doing from Brig, Gen. Tony Cucolo, my
director of Joint Center
for Operational Analysis and Lessons Learned.
These
distinctions in our transformation process also make our Joint
National Training Capability and real-time joint rehearsals
for our operational forces unique. In short, we are not only
organizing, training and equipping our joint task forces for
the current operations of today, but also for the future joint
environment our forces will likely operate in tomorrow.
But
I will tell you that the change process is painful-and slow-and
comes with an unhealthy dose of rigid, institutional processes
to overcome when trying to stand up a joint task force. We
have found that there is great agreement on the need to fight
jointly-just as the lessons learned I mentioned earlier indicated.
But much of our peacetime organizations and training patterns
at the operational level-at the service 3-star HQ-are simply
not structured and manned to plan or fight jointly.
In the past, it was deemed an "acceptable risk"
to organize, train and equip a JTF on an ad hoc basis. It
might take weeks or months to turn a 3-star service HQ into
a fully operational joint HQ-manned, trained and equipped.
This was akin to putting together a pick-up team to take on
a bunch of amateurs. The circumstances then of the international
security environment were such that a slow, cumbersome process
was "OK." In short, we did not pay a great penalty
for being unable to fight jointly from a cold start.
Those
circumstances have changed significantly after 9/11. Indeed,
we have stood up more JTFs in the last three years than in
all the previous ten. Yet our processes to quickly transition
a service 3-star HQ into a well-organized, effectively trained
and equipped joint task force are still mired in the Cold
War era. There's also a cultural gap-an institutional resistance
to a joint perspective.
But
I'm here to tell you that we are starting to close this gap-both
in terms of the process and culture.
On
the process end, we have launched a Joint Manpower Exchange
Program where we are exchanging officers to fill key joint
billets within the 3-star HQs of my component commands: Army
Forces Command, Navy Fleet Forces Command, Marine Forces Atlantic
and Air Combat Command.
We
are also looking very hard at the way we design our joint
manning documents, or "JMD." The JMD is the structural
blueprint that specifies how a JTF should be organized and
the "right" skill-sets it should have.
In
fact, CENTCOM recently had asked for assistance to conduct
an external review of the joint manning document for their
coalition forces command in Afghanistan. They had noticed
an increase in operational requirements that were exceeding
their manning and skill set capacities. The chairman of the
Joint Chiefs of Staff turned to JFCOM to conduct the review.
And, as we speak, my Director for Joint Training Maj.
Gen. Jon Gallinetti is heading up a multifaceted 22-person
team to look at the process from the pointy end of the spear.
You
should also know that this is not just an all-JFCOM team.
We have representatives from the Departments of State and
Justice, four other combatant commands, including Southern
Command's Joint Interagency Task Force; all the services as
well as functional experts from intelligence, logistics, counter-drug,
communications personnel, and engineer communities.
The
aim of this and other on-going efforts is to carefully review
our entire process for organizing, training and equipping
a "JTF."We seek to replace the old "ad hoc"
process with a more adaptable, durable solution.
We
also just recently christened the Joint National Training
Capability, or "JNTC." While part of the facility
is still under construction, the capability itself has already
delivered results.
The
JNTC will train service units to operate as integrated joint
forces anywhere around the world. It has already turned the
existing service training and exercise environments into an
integrating environment for new joint operational capabilities
and methods. Most importantly, the JNTC will allow our forces
to train with all the joint "toys" in peacetime
instead of having to wait until an actual operation. In my
view, the Joint National Training Capability will drive "jointness"
down to the lowest tactical level.
The
same can be said of the Standing Joint Force HQ-Core Element.
Instituting the "SJFHQ" in the combatant commands
will help increase their ability to:
• gain and maintain a persistent situational awareness
• plan and evaluate joint courses of actions and capabilities
• strengthen joint command & control; and
• maintain a robust reachback to centers of excellence
We're also making significant headway in changing the mindset
and culture towards the joint perspective. Next week, in fact,
we will launch an inaugural course called PINNACLE that is
specifically designed to help train and educate prospective
2-and-3-star leaders to be a JTF commander. And we've already
initiated a companion course for our senior non-commissioned
officers-the prospective JTF command sergeants major and command
master chiefs.
Perhaps
the best example of this change in mindset was the experience
we had when the U.S. Army's III Corps HQ was tapped to be
the new Coalition Joint Task Force in Iraq. Like most 3-star
HQ, III Corps did not have any joint billets in their organization.
Nor did they have the internal means to train themselves on
the rigors of operating in a joint environment or integrating
various service capabilities under a coherently joint command
and control process.
When
we first went down to their home station in Ft. Hood, Texas
to provide assistance, their staff was hesitant to wean away
from their normal service processes to incorporate the joint
way of operating. But after our teams had a chance to demonstrate
the capabilities of the joint approach, they got to see for
themselves just how much more powerful an integrated joint
force could be. They ended up not only asking for more help,
they also asked that we set up a full-blown rehearsal to train
the entire corps HQ. In short, they couldn't get enough help
on the joint collaborative methods and capabilities.
In
fact, when one of III Corps' top trainers had to leave for
an emergency surgery, our own trainer-Capt. John Roberti,
the head of our Joint Training Division, was asked to lead
the Army's Battle Command Training Program, a team of about
135+ folks. John was already planning to deploy with a small
JFCOM Team to support the III Corps exercise and was happy
to do it. Well, he did such a terrific job that when the exercise
was over, Army Chief of Staff Gen. Pete Schoomaker awarded
Capt. Roberti with an impact Army Commendation Medal for his
superior leadership and training expertise.
Just
so you don't lose the point here: this was a Navy captain
leading an Army training evaluation team within a joint context.
Now that is what I call "joint culture" in action!
Let
me hasten to add that our service operational headquarters
are incredibly capable as service headquarters and we don't
want to "break" that service process and structure.
But we do need to expand their ability to become joint headquarters.
In other words, any changes we institute must not "break"
the capabilities we have today but rather build upon them
to generate this coherently joint force that I have been describing.
So in summary, we have made important progress. We're working
hard to fill the gaps in our ability to organize, train and
equip our joint forces. We're reviewing key processes like
the joint manning document and joint officer exchange programs.
And we're instituting new capabilities like the JNTC and SJFHQ
that will not only help to push jointness down to the lowest
level but also speed our ability to deploy fully operational
JTFs.
But
although we're making progress, we still have a ways to go.
We have too many JTFs that still lack the "right skills"
or are not fully manned. Our existing process to stand up
a JTF is too wedded to the old ways of the Cold War. So my
message to you is we simply can't afford to lose the opportunities-or
time-that are available to us in this new era of jointness.
That
is why I'm happy to be here to share these thoughts and to
hear back from you on the results of your symposium.
Thank
you for your attention. I look forward to taking your questions.
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