By Donna Miles
American Forces Press Service
WASHINGTON, Dec. 21, 2012 – Despite words like “cuts,”
“streamlining” and “drawdown” sprinkling nearly every reference to the
Defense Department, the commander of Joint Enabling Capabilities Command
sees no downturn in the appetite for the specialized skills and
experience his people provide.
Army
Spc. Sonya Johnson, center, sets up a Hawkeye III to provide
communications during Operation Tomodachi at Yokota Air Base, Japan,
March 22, 2011. U.S. Air Force photo by Osakabe Yasuo
(Click photo for screen-resolution image);high-resolution image available. |
|
That’s because the new defense strategy and Chairman of the Joint
Chiefs of Staff Gen. Martin E. Dempsey’s Capstone Concept for Joint
Operations both recognize that contingency operations are likely to
become more -- not less -- frequent in the decade ahead, Navy Rear Adm.
Scott A. Stearney explained.
Whether for combat operations or a
response to a humanitarian disaster, U.S. military forces will be called
on to provide support, Stearney said. And wherever they operate, it
will almost assuredly be as a joint force that deploys with little
advance notice and hits the ground running.
That means they’ll need a command-and-control structure able to spring into action with them at full throttle.
That’s the calling card for Joint Enabling Capabilities Command, the
Defense Department’s 9-1-1 force for joint force headquarters
operations, Stearney said.
The JECC is the department’s “A team”
for the capabilities needed to quickly stand up and operate a Joint Task
Force, with experts in operations, plans, knowledge management,
intelligence, logistics, communications and public affairs.
They
deploy anywhere in the world within just a few days’ notice, organized
in teams tailored to the specific combatant commander’s mission to
augment assets already on the ground.
“The service forces always
have the bulk of the response. They have the bulk of the headquarters
staff and the largest number of people,” Stearney said. “So when we find
out what the requirement is, we send just what is needed. We send very
high-performing, small, mission-tailored teams that are very
experienced” in joint task force headquarters operations.
“They bring those joint skill sets that are required to make those task forces truly joint,” Stearney said.
The JECC and its three support elements -- joint planning, joint
communications and joint public affairs -- have supported every major
military operation since 9/11. That has ranged from contingency missions
in Iraq and Afghanistan to humanitarian assistance and disaster relief
missions in Pakistan, Haiti and Japan.
Over the past year, the
JECC deployed teams to support training for the next U.S. and NATO
rotation to Afghanistan and during U.S. European Command’s annual
Unified Endeavor exercise with Israel. Most recently, 22 JECC members
deployed to New Jersey and New York to provide communications and public
affairs support for U.S. Northern Command’s Hurricane Sandy response.
“We provide the rapid joint task force enabling capabilities for the
Department of Defense as a 9-1-1 force that provides these skill sets to
any type of JTF that would stand up as a result of any type of emerging
crisis,” Stearney said. “It doesn’t matter if it’s Pacific Command or
Central Command or Southern Command or another command. We support them
all.”
To keep their skills sharp and ensure they’re familiar
faces on the scene when they deploy to a crisis or contingency, the JECC
members work closely with every geographic combatant command. JECC
teams deploy to every major “Tier 1” annual training event in support of
the Joint Staff and combatant commands. They serve as
observer-controllers, sharing expertise, and sometimes, as participants.
“By exercising broadly across the multiple geographic theaters, we are
creating these very live networks with the people who we support,”
Stearney said. “We are staying plugged in to the different scenarios
across the spectrum of military operations, and by doing that, we are
staying current.”
This broad, military-wide exposure, he said,
gives JECC members a perspective that their peers at the COCOM level who
don’t regularly conduct joint task force operations might not see.
They’re able to identify mistakes and share best practices, both with
the specific command, but also will the Joint Staff to enhance joint
task force operations military-wide.
Regardless of the nature of
location of a contingency, Stearney said successful JTF headquarters
operations boil down to a core truism. “Command and control is command
and control,” he said. “Although the scenario may change a bit, it is
all a matter of how rapidly that commander can take charge of the
situation by going through the stages of the joint operational planning
process, how they do joint public affairs and how they do the joint work
that we specialize in.”
DOD identified the need for this
capability in 2000, and war-gamed the concept of a deployable JTF
headquarters during the Millennium Challenge 2002 exercise.
Based
on that experience, every geographic command except Central Command
stood up its own standing joint task force headquarters. The
since-dissolved Joint Forces Command’s standing JTF headquarters focused
at the time on operations within Centcom and augmented the other units,
as required.
The JECC stood up as a separate command in 2008,
and it assumed the missions of the COCOM-level standing joint task force
headquarters when former Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates eliminated
the COCOM-level headquarters in 2010 as part of his department-wide
efficiency review.
In another organizational change, the JECC was
moved under the umbrella of U.S. Transportation Command when Joint
Forces Command was dissolved in 2011.
Air Force Gen. William F.
Fraser III, the Transcom commander, has become a big fan of the JECC,
recognizing its contributions to Transcom’s global deployment and
distribution enterprise. Citing myriad JECC missions during
congressional testimony earlier this year, Fraser called the joint
enablers a key element in the United States’ ability to project national
power and influence anywhere, at any time.
“Though the missions
were of varying size, scope and complexity, in each instance, the JECC
provided immediate, short-duration support to increase the effectiveness
of joint command and control at the operational level,” he said.
Looking ahead to the future, Stearney recognizes that the JECC, like
every other DOD entity, will face tight fiscal scrutiny. “But as most of
the services are drawing down and making plans to potentially reduce
different types of accounts, I think I am in a growth business,” he
said, recognizing the importance placed on command and control and the
high demand for joint enabling capabilities.
That’s because
Dempsey’s vision, outlined in the Capstone Concept for Joint Operations,
“is clearly that the future of warfare is rapidly forming, agile, joint
globally integrated operations,” Stearney said. “There will be more
conflicts as opposed to fewer conflicts. And each will require some type
of command and control structure.”
Despite downsizing pressure
across the military, Stearney said it’s important not to undo progress
made over the past 11 years that will ensure the success of the U.S.
military and its joint forces for the next decade.
“I think one
of the lessons we have learned over the last 11 years at war has been
that we are really, really good when we are in joint coalition command
and control centers,” he said. “We are able to share information, to use
information and really develop the value of information, ideas, words
and networks as the weapons systems of the future.
“And that is
what makes Joint Enabling Capabilities Command such a valuable asset,”
he added. “They have immediate credibility when they reach their
destination after any kind of crisis event. They get the job done and
then they redeploy, without a lot of fanfare.”
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