Letters

Joint Force Quarterly, July, 2009 by Robert H. Bryant, Michael R. Lehnert, Gian P. Gentile, John A. Nagl

To the Editor--I have completed Joint Professional Military Education Phase I at the Army Command and General Staff College (CGSC) in Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. From this education, I have become more discouraged rather than encouraged about the Services' desire to become more joint. The CGSC has done an outstanding job in its curriculum. Joint doctrine has been taught and discussed, each Service's capabilities and weaknesses have been reviewed, and the importance of coordinating and synchronizing each Service's actions has been stressed, but it seems something is missing.

The CGSC curriculum is full of historical and current examples of operations where two or more of our Services have come together to fight the Nation's wars with varying levels of success. Yet at the same time, we review case studies involving finger pointing between the Services in Operation Anaconda, discuss the relevance of the F-22 versus growing the Army for the counterinsurgency fight, read articles in Force Management class about how each Service fights for limited resources through the Planning, Programming, Budgeting, and Execution System (PPBES), and hear about debates at the highest levels of leadership over which Service is best suited to be the "lead" agency for the unmanned aerial vehicle. These heated topics do not scratch the surface of the friction between the Services in their struggle for legitimacy and scarce resources. These issues are indicators that although each Service is dedicated to achieving national security objectives, there are distracters that reduce a Service's full effort toward national security.

One of the overarching concepts for operational art is, for instance, ends, ways, and means. In this light, the ends are the operational objectives directed by the combatant commander, ways are the methods in which the means are employed, namely doctrine, and means are the personnel and equipment of each Service. This being said, each Service's contribution to the means through the PPBES and to the ways through joint doctrine puts the Services in direct competition rather than in a cooperative environment. In our time of limited resources and elusive adversaries, our efforts should not be hampered by inter-Service rivalry and irreconcilable doctrine. It is necessary to further the goals of the Goldwater-Nichols Act by changing the system to allocate resources and redesigning doctrine so that the Services fight from one consolidated "playbook" rather than a "scrapbook" of irreconcilable doctrine.

Joint doctrine is the area that could improve jointness among the Services. Currently, joint doctrine has been described as the "skim milk" of doctrine; it is what remains after all of the "good stuff" has been removed. It seems that if two Services cannot agree on a concept to be placed in joint doctrine, then it should simply be omitted from the document and written in the respective Service's doctrine. This method sets up each Service for increased friction when they must come together in the joint fight. A change to the current system of doctrine would be to require U.S. Joint Forces Command to develop the doctrine for the Services, with the only purpose for specific Service doctrine being to clarify joint doctrine to the Service's lower echelons. This idea also builds each Service as a joint force from the beginning, rather than attempting to find common ground and concessions during the joint fight.

Joint should be more than knowing each Service's capabilities and weaknesses, deconflicting fires, and establishing the supported and supporting commander. Joint must be more than finding compromises between Services during conflict. Joint should be established at the beginning of the process, with each Service growing its personnel and designing its equipment with jointness in mind. In doing so, when it is time to bring two or more Services together in a conflict, joint operations will be a natural rather than an uncomfortable phenomenon.

--Major Robert H. Bryant, USA

To the Editor--In the last two issues of Joint Force Quarterly, you have featured articles that address the long-term costs of irregular and hybrid conflicts. One of my greatest concerns is the hidden cost of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). While we say that we are destigmatizing PTSD within the Armed Forces, a diagnosis of PTSD effectively shuts the door to many kinds of future civilian employment when our warriors conclude their military service.

I recently spoke to a Reserve lance corporal in my command who has been diagnosed with a mild case of PTSD. He was certified by medical authorities as fully deployable and stated that he felt he was making good progress through the Veterans' Administration hospital. However, when he recently came off Active duty and went to apply for a job with the Transportation Security Agency as a baggage inspector, he was denied consideration for the position due to the PTSD diagnosis. When I asked him how we could help, he replied, "General, how is it that I am fully qualified to go back to combat and carry a weapon, but not qualified to inspect bags at an airport?"