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The Naval Service has been paying more than lip service to jointness (clockwise from top left), fly ing both Navy and Marine F/A-18s from the Theodore Roosevelt (CVN-71), w hile bringing Marine CH-53s on hoard as part of “adaptive force packaging” and setting up a joint strike air warfare center on board the Coronado (AGF-11) during Exercise Tandem Thrust "92. In non-exercise contingency operations. Air Force brigadier General Don Loranger, commanding the 435th Air Wing, and Admiral Mike Boorda, commanding the joint task force for operation Provide Promise, confer about emergency airdrops of relief supplies over Bosnia-Herzegovina.
Proceedings / May 1993
By Admiral Frank B. Kelso II, U.S. Navy, & General Carl E. Mundy, Jr., U.S. Marine Corps
The Navy and the Marine Corps are actively redefining naval roles in joint exercises. The May 1992 Atlantic Command Exercise Ocean Venture showcased several new methods of improving naval-force integration into an established joint task force. For the first time in recent history, a Navy component commander established his headquarters ashore. Using innovative procedures and new communications suites, the naval force commander directed the operations of his fleet while collocated with the joint task force commander. This added dimension brought new definition to naval-force capabilities in direct support ot joint operations on land. Equally significant, the joint task force command itself, first held by an Army general, passed to a Marine general to complete the exercise.
The European Command Exercise Ellipse Bravo in June
The new Security Strategy of the United States requires different military capabilities for a changing world. Today’s U.S. military forces must be prepared to conduct a broad range of regional operations against many less-capable foes, rather than prosecute a global war against a single superpower. Today, there are fewer dollars for defense and fewer U.S. bases overseas. Tomorrow, there will be fewer still. To use military forces successfully under these new conditions, the nation requires smaller, rapidly deployable, easily tailored, highly trained joint forces.
The challenge for U.S. defense planners is learning how to do more with less. Restructuring U.S. military forces in shape, size, and capabilities—to accomplish these diverse tasks will require cooperation among the services as never seen before in our history. The naval service is Preparing to do its part.
“. . . From the Sea,” the new strategic concept of the naval service, charts the course for Navy and Marine Corps contributions to national military capabilities into the 21st century. It is a dramatic departure from the Maritime Strategy, which dominated naval strategic planning during the Cold War. The global naval threat is gone. Instead of Preparing for independent blue-water operations to defeat a powerful Soviet navy, our Navy and Marine Corps will focus on projecting military might in littoral regions of the world. Instead of providing indirect support to joint military operations, sea power will open doors wherever U.S. military force is needed, directly contributing to joint operations ashore.
The added dimension of powerful Navy and Marine Corps forces operating from the sea transforms yesterday’s Air-Land battle into tomorrow’s Sea-Air-Land-Space battle. To master the challenges of this complex new environment, our naval service is refining its unique capabilities to fight the next war as an integral part of a joint task force.
Innovations in Joint Exercises 1992 was a similar demonstration of new naval-force capability in joint operations. The exercise was designed to test our ability to generate a joint task force rapidly to conduct an emergency evacuation operation. Within 48 hours, the Commander, Sixth Fleet, as the joint task force commander, had assembled a force of 22,000 and commenced the operation. This time the joint task force staff began work ashore, but later embarked in a fleet command ship. The joint task force staff maintained continuity of command throughout this evolution. Significantly, this exercise demonstrated that a joint force air component commander (JFACC) and his staff could function at sea.
In yet a third demonstration of new naval-force capabilities during the Pacific Command Exercise Tandem Thrust, the Commander, Third Fleet, as the joint task force commander, directed a joint task force of 15,000 in power- projection operations that culminated in both amphibious landings and airborne assaults. This exercise was unique, in that the joint task force staff remained afloat throughout while the JFACC, an Air Force general, coordinated all air operations from a remote, protected land headquarters.
Finally, Navy-led counterdrug joint task forces in the Caribbean and Eastern Pacific provide examples of future joint and interagency operations in support of national goals. These joint task forces exploit Navy capabilities in air and open-ocean surveillance, as well as command, control, and communications. Navy ships and aircraft operate in an integrated network that includes units from the Coast Guard, the other services, and federal agencies, to reduce the flow of illegal narcotics into the United States.
The New Operational Model
The U.S. Central Command has become the operational testbed for the next generation of integrated joint task force operations. In the face of continued real-world contingency requirements, our forces deployed in this theater have reached new levels of joint cooperation, efficiency, and combat effectiveness.
During Persian Gulf tanker escort operations in early 1988, we began to work with a new concept—adapting joint-force capabilities to specific tasks. During this operation, we employed armed Army helicopters on board Navy ships and a specially configured Marine air-ground task force (SPMAGTF). Later, the European Command used another SPMAGTF for operations in Liberia. Until recently, such efforts involved special missions of limited duration. Now, the Commander-in-Chief, Atlantic, has refined the concept and proposed new alternative force packages for use in regular deployment cycles, in what he has termed “adaptive joint force packaging.
It is an idea whose time has come. Navy and Marine
Corps aviation units afloat, together with an Air Force composite wing ashore, have been helping to enforce a no-fly zone in southern Iraq. Marine Corps and Special Operations Forces routinely conduct contingency exercises together. Fleet units in the Arabian Gulf enforce U.N. sanctions, aided by Air Force AWACS aircraft. A SPMAGTF conducted the initial operations in Somalia. The Navy and the Marine Corps are working closely with all the unified commanders to develop better ways to organize, train, and deploy joint forces overseas. Our goal is to provide joint forces specifically tailored and trained to satisfy the regional operational requirements of the Commanders-in-Chief.
The pressure of continued in-theater operational tasks has caused the Central Command to generate many new joint concepts. In an early 1992 theater-level exercise, an afloat JFACC successfully planned and executed a multiphase air operation that culminated in a 70-plane Navy/Marine/Air Force strike mission. The value of this innovative joint training became readily apparent in January 1993, when joint forces conducted actual strikes against Iraqi forces that had violated U.N. Security Council resolutions.
Innovations in Joint Communications
One of the most important lessons relearned from Operation Desert Storm was that joint operations demand interoperable communications systems and well-established standard procedures for their use. A clear example of progress in this vital area is the evolution of air tasking order (ATO) format and transmission. During Desert Storm, fleet communications systems were not compatible with those of the Air Force JFACC ashore. Thus, the all-important ATO was passed to the Navy far too slowly, via alternate means. After the war, we gave high priority to finding a permanent solution to this vexing problem.
Today, fleet units have received new joint-communications suites, developed in concert with the Air Force. These units have demonstrated the capability to regularly transmit and receive Desert Storm-sized ATOs at sea in less than five minutes. We have provided this capability to every deployed aircraft carrier. More important, we have altered long-range procurement plans to outfit not only every aircraft carrier, but also every amphibious assault ship with this communications suite.
New Vistas in Naval Doctrine
In preparing our new strategic concept, we realized that current methods of standardizing tactics, procedures, and terminology were inadequate. Our well-intended efforts were decentralized and lacked cohesion. We were out of sync with ourselves and the greater joint military community. We knew that any effort to drive greater naval capability in joint operations would ultimately depend upon a clear statement of naval doctrine. To correct this situation, we have established the Naval Doctrine Command at Norfolk, Virginia. It will be commanded alternately by a Navy rear admiral and a Marine Corps major general and staffed by field grade officers from all of the military services. The Doctrine Command will work regularly with both joint and other-service doctrine centers, to develop and incorporate sound naval doctrine into joint war-fighting procedures.
Promoting Interservice Cooperation
Taking a note from service history, we again have established a series of interservice boards, whose role is to foster cooperation, understanding, and increased efficiency among the services. The Navy-Air Force-Marine Corps Board, the Navy-Army-Marine Corps Board, and the Navy-Coast Guard Board are standing committees that foster interservice cooperation and eliminate barriers to joint interoperability. Already, these boards have achieved some noteworthy successes. They have consolidated several individual service air-to-ground weapons programs into a single joint program; they have expanded interservice cooperation in the use of Air Force tankers to refuel carrier-based naval aircraft; they have established common design criteria for interoperable computer software and for communications systems; they have developed common requirements for night-vision devices; and they now are working to develop an integrated theater ballistic-missile-defense system. More important, these boards reflect a greater willingness on the part of all services to cooperate on pressing issues of the day.
Looking to the Future
• • From the Sea” lays down the strategic concept for the naval service into the next century. It calls for an accelerated and expanded effort to bring unique naval capabilities into the mainstream of joint operations. The Soviet blue-water threat is gone. The United States holds the capability in our Navy to command the seas anywhere in the world. As we face the prospect of fewer permanent U.S. bases overseas, the need becomes clearer for increased naval contributions to joint force operations.
Naval forces today are full partners in these joint operations. The Navy and the Marine Corps are exploring innovative ways to do more with less, by capitalizing upon the inherent flexibility and expeditionary character of naval forces. We have begun significant changes in training, procurement, organization, and funding priorities, which will amply demonstrate our commitment to joint war fighting. We have made progress already, but much more remains to be done. It will take the best efforts of all of us to meet the challenges of an uncertain future. Our goal is to ensure that naval forces make the most effective and efficient contribution possible to joint military capabilities. Nothing less is acceptable in honoring our commitment to the American people than naval expeditionary forces, shaped for joint operations, operating forward from the sea, tailored for national needs. •
Admiral Kelso is Chief of Naval Operations and president of the U. S. Naval Institute. General Mundy is Commandant of the Marine Corps.