thedrifter
05-09-03, 01:13 PM
Training reforms underway
Joint Forces Command to revise all military exercises
By Erik Stetson
Soundings Staff
Joint Forces Command is in the initial stages of an effort to change the way the military conducts exercises.
The program’s effects will ripple across all service lines, altering everything from Navy predeployment exercises to yearly Air Force combat training, and eventually reach other agencies often working closely with the military, such as the State Department.
The ultimate goal, according to Army Col. Bryan Stephens, the program’s Capabilities Group chief, is to ensure all the military services are “completely interoperable” by designing training around joint operations from the ground up.
“We’re trying to ‘routinize’ joint training,” he said. “We’re trying to push joint training down to a lower level, even the tactical level. … Now, it’s almost entirely at the operational and strategic level.”
The initiative, titled the Joint National Training Capability, has several facets. A Joint Forces Command study finished in March suggests all military training ranges will be linked through computer systems in the future. This would allow Navy crews and Marines conducting a live-fire exercise near the Horn of Africa to mesh their operations with Air Force pilots training in Florida or Nevada. Army tank units training in the California deserts also could participate, in theory.
The plan also calls for the new technology to be able to add in simulated enemy and friendly forces as necessary, in the vein of the command’s Millennium Challenge 2002 exercise. Stephens used the second Iraq war as an example to illustrate the need for the program.
The Army didn’t fight alone in that conflict, he said. Navy, Marine Corps and Air Force planes, along with cruise missiles, flew overhead. At the same time, Marine Corps vehicles covered the Army’s flank and special forces teams were conducting missions all over the country. He described the new program’s goal as making sure units understood how to mesh their equipment and tactics before they reach such conflicts in the future.
“The venue to achieve that is through training,” he said. “We want to do it in training before we take it to the field.”
According to Marcus Corbin, a Center for Defense Information senior analyst, the change is long overdue. CDI is a Washington-based think tank.
“If this is going to be the way the services fight in the future, then it really does need to be prioritized more,” he said. “… It has the ring of being a big step. I think it sort of lays out a lot of notional goals. The question is how quickly and how deeply they can be implemented into the force.”
Stephens and Navy Capt. “Tank” Thorp, also a top program officer, stressed Joint Forces Command would not be micromanaging each service branch’s training, or eliminating service-specific training. Instead, they said, the goal was to add an all-service “context” to existing exercises.
“In other words, the Army has a national training center out at Fort Irwin, Calif.,” Stephens said. “They have 10 brigades — 10 rotations — going through that every year. What we’re saying is ‘why is the Army going out there and doing that training in isolation?’ ”
He acknowledged that worry about losing control over training was an initial concern. However, he added, the development process now includes all affected organizations, from members of each service branch to the Defense Secretary’s office.
“They support it,” he said. “It is truly a collaborative effort.”
Thorp said initially, some military officers thought the command was developing a new set of exercises they would need to send people and resources to support, straining already tight budgets. But he called doing so impractical, in part because units are too busy already and in part because no one training range could include all possible needed environments — the sea, deserts, forests, mountains and others.
“That’s where we came up with the concept of joint context to exercises,” Thorp said. “Eventually the schedules will align themselves, and the exercises will be redefined. But it will be the same (number of deployments) we’re talking about.”
Corbin was skeptical the difficulty had been resolved so easily. But he called the reforms — whether willing or unwilling — inevitable.
“I think its goals are pretty ambitious,” he said. “And I think there will be an increasing trend to have a joint agency take more responsibility for joint training. … It will be interesting to see how much the services act pre-emptively and try to stay ahead of this before it gets ahead of them.”
He also said using information technology to link different training ranges with different environments might finally lead the military to develop command-and-control systems that are compatible with each other. Current systems can’t always interface, requiring troops and contractors to develop extensive and sometimes expensive solutions on short notice.
“I think over time — and that might be some decades — there will be increasing coordination of acquisition in this area to gain the benefits of greater communication capabilities,” Corbin said. “This might mean just making sure the different systems can talk to each other. You don’t necessarily need to have the same system everywhere.”
Stephens called such changes part of the plan. He predicted it would be gradual, just as the changes Thorp described would be gradual. Essentially, the military will slowly begin upgrading training ranges with technology that allows them to share data. Individual services will see the need to make their equipment interface with that standard, joint technology. They also will, over time, see the benefits of working together to develop exercise schedules that mesh.
Thorp said it was unlikely the military would invest in fast, costly upgrades for training ranges. Instead, he predicted Joint Forces Command would develop certification standards that could be applied to each range. The certifications would detail to what extent they could participate in a joint, global exercise.
“A site that has a full capability that is persistent is going to have a type of a certification,” he said. “Another facility that is a lesser-utilized facility shouldn’t be, and can’t afford to be, brought up to that certification.”
Within perhaps a decade, even the most junior service members will come to think of military training as inherently joint, he said. Also, Stephens added, high-ranking officers like Gen. Tommy Franks, responsible for Central Command, will be able to tune into, participate in, or shape the way the military trains on a vast scale. They will be able to request particular types of exercises to evaluate certain military tasks important to them as well. For example, that could involve a medium-sized amphibious assault with Air Force support.
Thorp predicted the changes would tend to be felt at the unit, rather than the individual level. But he said individuals would be more aware of how they help their unit function within the Defense Department’s big picture.
“There is going to be the individual on the deckplate that is going to be touched personally by a joint event,” he said. “It could be a forward air controller. It could be any sonar operator. It could be an air traffic controller. It could be an individual in a unit. It doesn’t equate to every individual in every unit.”
The possibility exists that in the near term, the changes will become part of a “joint task list” grafted on to the already-long training checklists required of units before they deploy. Corbin said he hoped individual service members would be able to look beyond any immediate discomfort to the overall benefits if that proved to be the case.
“I think the bottom line is improving the overall war fighting skills of each sailor and so on,” he said. “… To the extent that it actually might be an encumbrance, of course, if there’s a net gain in effectiveness, then they might be willing to bear it.”
The change also may result in the creation of a single, national opposing force headquarters. They would be a professional mock enemy similar to a commander like Franks, but able to provide the military with opponents ranging from terrorists to a comprehensive, combined-arms force. At the moment, however, there are no definite plans to create such an organization. Instead, Joint Forces Command is focusing on making sure future exercises include comprehensive opposing force components built using resources pulled from each military branch.
“We must keep in mind that what we’re doing is developing a capability,” Stephens said. “We’re not building a joint national training center.”
Corbin held out hope for the creation of a professional “red force.” He said a permanent organization would be best suited to develop ways to challenge American power, whether through terrorist tactics or other methods.
“I thought that had potential, and maybe important potential, to really add something we need badly,” he said. “… We really need teams to be doing that kind of thinking.”
Officials found it difficult to estimate exactly how many people have a role in bringing the new vision for training to life. Each service branch has “action officers” collaborating in the process, and most Joint Forces Command components are involved to one degree or another. The program’s Joint Management Office, however, employs about 55 people.
Officials are still clarifying the details governing the plan’s implementation. An initial launch for a rudimentary Joint National Training Capability is scheduled for October 2004. The long-term, global vision may take several beyond that to mature.
Sempers,
Roger
Joint Forces Command to revise all military exercises
By Erik Stetson
Soundings Staff
Joint Forces Command is in the initial stages of an effort to change the way the military conducts exercises.
The program’s effects will ripple across all service lines, altering everything from Navy predeployment exercises to yearly Air Force combat training, and eventually reach other agencies often working closely with the military, such as the State Department.
The ultimate goal, according to Army Col. Bryan Stephens, the program’s Capabilities Group chief, is to ensure all the military services are “completely interoperable” by designing training around joint operations from the ground up.
“We’re trying to ‘routinize’ joint training,” he said. “We’re trying to push joint training down to a lower level, even the tactical level. … Now, it’s almost entirely at the operational and strategic level.”
The initiative, titled the Joint National Training Capability, has several facets. A Joint Forces Command study finished in March suggests all military training ranges will be linked through computer systems in the future. This would allow Navy crews and Marines conducting a live-fire exercise near the Horn of Africa to mesh their operations with Air Force pilots training in Florida or Nevada. Army tank units training in the California deserts also could participate, in theory.
The plan also calls for the new technology to be able to add in simulated enemy and friendly forces as necessary, in the vein of the command’s Millennium Challenge 2002 exercise. Stephens used the second Iraq war as an example to illustrate the need for the program.
The Army didn’t fight alone in that conflict, he said. Navy, Marine Corps and Air Force planes, along with cruise missiles, flew overhead. At the same time, Marine Corps vehicles covered the Army’s flank and special forces teams were conducting missions all over the country. He described the new program’s goal as making sure units understood how to mesh their equipment and tactics before they reach such conflicts in the future.
“The venue to achieve that is through training,” he said. “We want to do it in training before we take it to the field.”
According to Marcus Corbin, a Center for Defense Information senior analyst, the change is long overdue. CDI is a Washington-based think tank.
“If this is going to be the way the services fight in the future, then it really does need to be prioritized more,” he said. “… It has the ring of being a big step. I think it sort of lays out a lot of notional goals. The question is how quickly and how deeply they can be implemented into the force.”
Stephens and Navy Capt. “Tank” Thorp, also a top program officer, stressed Joint Forces Command would not be micromanaging each service branch’s training, or eliminating service-specific training. Instead, they said, the goal was to add an all-service “context” to existing exercises.
“In other words, the Army has a national training center out at Fort Irwin, Calif.,” Stephens said. “They have 10 brigades — 10 rotations — going through that every year. What we’re saying is ‘why is the Army going out there and doing that training in isolation?’ ”
He acknowledged that worry about losing control over training was an initial concern. However, he added, the development process now includes all affected organizations, from members of each service branch to the Defense Secretary’s office.
“They support it,” he said. “It is truly a collaborative effort.”
Thorp said initially, some military officers thought the command was developing a new set of exercises they would need to send people and resources to support, straining already tight budgets. But he called doing so impractical, in part because units are too busy already and in part because no one training range could include all possible needed environments — the sea, deserts, forests, mountains and others.
“That’s where we came up with the concept of joint context to exercises,” Thorp said. “Eventually the schedules will align themselves, and the exercises will be redefined. But it will be the same (number of deployments) we’re talking about.”
Corbin was skeptical the difficulty had been resolved so easily. But he called the reforms — whether willing or unwilling — inevitable.
“I think its goals are pretty ambitious,” he said. “And I think there will be an increasing trend to have a joint agency take more responsibility for joint training. … It will be interesting to see how much the services act pre-emptively and try to stay ahead of this before it gets ahead of them.”
He also said using information technology to link different training ranges with different environments might finally lead the military to develop command-and-control systems that are compatible with each other. Current systems can’t always interface, requiring troops and contractors to develop extensive and sometimes expensive solutions on short notice.
“I think over time — and that might be some decades — there will be increasing coordination of acquisition in this area to gain the benefits of greater communication capabilities,” Corbin said. “This might mean just making sure the different systems can talk to each other. You don’t necessarily need to have the same system everywhere.”
Stephens called such changes part of the plan. He predicted it would be gradual, just as the changes Thorp described would be gradual. Essentially, the military will slowly begin upgrading training ranges with technology that allows them to share data. Individual services will see the need to make their equipment interface with that standard, joint technology. They also will, over time, see the benefits of working together to develop exercise schedules that mesh.
Thorp said it was unlikely the military would invest in fast, costly upgrades for training ranges. Instead, he predicted Joint Forces Command would develop certification standards that could be applied to each range. The certifications would detail to what extent they could participate in a joint, global exercise.
“A site that has a full capability that is persistent is going to have a type of a certification,” he said. “Another facility that is a lesser-utilized facility shouldn’t be, and can’t afford to be, brought up to that certification.”
Within perhaps a decade, even the most junior service members will come to think of military training as inherently joint, he said. Also, Stephens added, high-ranking officers like Gen. Tommy Franks, responsible for Central Command, will be able to tune into, participate in, or shape the way the military trains on a vast scale. They will be able to request particular types of exercises to evaluate certain military tasks important to them as well. For example, that could involve a medium-sized amphibious assault with Air Force support.
Thorp predicted the changes would tend to be felt at the unit, rather than the individual level. But he said individuals would be more aware of how they help their unit function within the Defense Department’s big picture.
“There is going to be the individual on the deckplate that is going to be touched personally by a joint event,” he said. “It could be a forward air controller. It could be any sonar operator. It could be an air traffic controller. It could be an individual in a unit. It doesn’t equate to every individual in every unit.”
The possibility exists that in the near term, the changes will become part of a “joint task list” grafted on to the already-long training checklists required of units before they deploy. Corbin said he hoped individual service members would be able to look beyond any immediate discomfort to the overall benefits if that proved to be the case.
“I think the bottom line is improving the overall war fighting skills of each sailor and so on,” he said. “… To the extent that it actually might be an encumbrance, of course, if there’s a net gain in effectiveness, then they might be willing to bear it.”
The change also may result in the creation of a single, national opposing force headquarters. They would be a professional mock enemy similar to a commander like Franks, but able to provide the military with opponents ranging from terrorists to a comprehensive, combined-arms force. At the moment, however, there are no definite plans to create such an organization. Instead, Joint Forces Command is focusing on making sure future exercises include comprehensive opposing force components built using resources pulled from each military branch.
“We must keep in mind that what we’re doing is developing a capability,” Stephens said. “We’re not building a joint national training center.”
Corbin held out hope for the creation of a professional “red force.” He said a permanent organization would be best suited to develop ways to challenge American power, whether through terrorist tactics or other methods.
“I thought that had potential, and maybe important potential, to really add something we need badly,” he said. “… We really need teams to be doing that kind of thinking.”
Officials found it difficult to estimate exactly how many people have a role in bringing the new vision for training to life. Each service branch has “action officers” collaborating in the process, and most Joint Forces Command components are involved to one degree or another. The program’s Joint Management Office, however, employs about 55 people.
Officials are still clarifying the details governing the plan’s implementation. An initial launch for a rudimentary Joint National Training Capability is scheduled for October 2004. The long-term, global vision may take several beyond that to mature.
Sempers,
Roger