The evolution of joint warfare - Joint Warfighting

Joint Force Quarterly, Summer, 2002 by Williamson Murray

The Great War

Joint warfare existed primitively and under specialized conditions before 1900. It became increasingly crucial with a fitful start in World War I. The Dardanelles campaign, which Winston Churchill launched over strong opposition from Admiral Sir John ("Jackie") Fisher, failed largely because the British army and navy could not cooperate. This dismal example of jointness on the tactical and operational levels resulted in the collapse of the one strategic alternative to slugging out the war on the Western Front with an enormous cost in men and materiel.

One area of joint cooperation on the tactical level did enjoy significant success. By 1918 both the Allies and Germany were using aircraft to support ground attacks. The Germans actually designated close air support squadrons, specially equipped and trained for the Michael Offensive in March 1918. Similarly, the British supported tanks and infantry with air in the successful attack of August 1918--which General Eric Ludendorff described as the blackest day in the war, especially because of the "increased confusion and great disturbance" air attacks caused the ground troops. (2) However, only the Germans learned from such experiences in the joint arena.

There was more movement toward creating joint capabilities in the interwar period, though there were major differences among nations. In Germany, the Luftwaffe became a separate service in 1935. Its leaders showed considerable interest in strategic bombing from the outset, but they also supported other missions. As a result, they devoted substantial resources to capabilities to assist the army in combined-arms mechanized warfare. At the same time the navy and air force exhibited virtually no interest in working together, the results of which were evident in World War II.

The British organized the only joint higher command during the interwar years, the Chiefs of Staff Subcommittee. On the other hand, the military proved unwilling to develop joint doctrine and capabilities. The Royal Air Force, fearing that joint cooperation would end its independence as a separate service, wrote such exclusionary basic doctrine on strategic bombing that real teamwork among services hardly existed. When war came in 1939, the air force proved quickly that it could support neither land forces with interdiction attacks nor maritime forces in protecting sea lines of communication in the Atlantic. In addition, the air force provided the navy with carrier aircraft that were obsolete in comparison to American and Japanese planes.

But the other services were hardly more forthcoming than the Royal Air Force. In 1938 the commandant of the Royal Navy Staff College raised the possibility of joint amphibious operations, which met with total rejection. The attitudes of senior officers ranged from a smug belief that such operations had been successful in the last war to plain confidence that they would not be needed again. The Deputy Chief of the Air Staff argued that Gallipoli revealed that nothing was really wrong with amphibious techniques except communications. The navy was just as unenthusiastic. The Deputy Chief of Naval Staff, Admiral Andrew Cunningham, who eventually commanded naval forces in the Mediterranean, reported that "the Admiralty at the present time could not visualize any particular [joint] operation taking place and they were, therefore, not prepared to devote any considerable sum of money to equipment for [joint] training." (3) Finally, the Chief of the Imperial General Staff, Lord John Gort, declared that the railroad enabled landpower to be concentrated more rapidly than seapower. Thus the strategic mobility conferred by seapower, while politically attractive, would no longer work in favor of seapower. Such attitudes go far in explaining the disastrous conduct of the Norwegian campaign.