Sustaining expeditionary joint forces

Army Logistician, Sept-Oct, 2003 by Terry E. Juskowiak, Michael Williams

Evidence from current operations, including joint and service wargaming exercises, clearly shows that the operational environment has changed. Joint, interagency, and multinational (JIM) operations are now the norm. New organizational structures and mobility and distribution platforms provide new opportunities for deploying, employing, and sustaining operational capabilities. Tactical, operational, and strategic lines have long been blurred in the sustainment arena, and now joint and service planners can contemplate a similar blurring of the functional lines of deployment, employment, and sustainment. Effects-based sustainment will complement the emerging Effects-Based Operations concept of the U.S. Joint Forces Command (JFCOM).

Operation Iraqi Freedom confirms that future operations will be jointly executed, with each service component lending its unique and important capabilities to the joint battle plan. Army warfighting and sustainment concepts must be developed within a JIM environment.

This new environment requires different sustainment command mid contcol (C2) organizations and continuing improvements to critical sustainment enablers. Joint sustainment C2 organizations for regional combatant commanders and a joint national logistics command also will be required. Further technological enhancements, an increased logistics common operating picture capability, and improved mobility and distribution assets will he needed to achieve a more rapid and agile joint distribution network.

This spring, the Army and JFCOM cosponsored a wargame, Unified Quest 2003, that provided glimpses of future conflict and military requirements. Evidence from the wargame clearly shows that joint sustainment C2 and enhanced technologies that lead to improved distribution management processes are critical to supporting future joint operations. This article addresses issues emanating from Unified Quest 2003.

Unified Quest

Unified Quest 2003 (UQ 03) was conducted at Carlisle Barracks, Pennsylvania, from 27 April to 2 May. The theme was "Expanding the Power of Coherent, Joint Operations." It was the first of a series of transformational wargames cosponsored by JFCOM and the Army. UQ 03 employed a demanding scenario--major contingency operation in a total JIM environment--that allowed joint and service planners to work in the environment envisioned for future operational-level warfare. Army sustainment concepts were played in support of JFCOM's Joint Operations Concepts (JOpsC).

Joint and Army sustainers were involved in operational planning, exercise assessment, and game and information systems analysis. Participating Army personnel came from the Office of the Deputy Chief of Staff, G--4, Headquarters, Department of the Army (DA); the Army Materiel Command; the Army Forces Command; the Army Special Operations Command; and the Army Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC). Each partieipent brought unique and valuable experience to the exercise. Broad Army participation will help ensure that sustainment insights and issues captured during the wargame will be integrated into ongoing development of Combined Arms Support Command (CASCOM) and Army Objective Force sustainment concepts and doctrine.

Two overarching themes surfaced during the game. First, we observed that what had been three distinct functions--deployment, employment, and sustainment--are merging into one continuous operation across a distributed bartlespece. Second, we identified critical components needed to achieve successful joint sustainment: a logistics common operating picture; distribution and sustainment enablers; and joint distribution management.

These emerging themes give rise to two questions

* Within the JIM environment, what is the best joint sustainment management process?

* Under an appropriate joint sustainment management process, what are the requirements for a logistics common operating picture, physical enablers, and distribution management?

The JIM environment and the evolving operational concepts will determine potential solutions to the first question. It therefore is important to understand the operational frmnework before trying to frame an appropriate joint sustainment management process.

Future Operational Framework

The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (in Chairman Directive CM 907-93) tasked JFCOM to develop a coherent joint process and operational structure that captures the complexities, opportunities, and realities that the joint commander and his service components will encounter in futttre conflicts. The operational requirements and the resulting supporting concepts developed during UQ 03 provide a clear understanding of what will be required from joint force sustainers.

The Deployment, Employment and Sustainment (D), E&S) operational framework is a maturing JFCOM concept that recognizes the changing complexity and interdependence of what had been three separate and distinct operational actions. Coherent operations are chieved when the functions of deployment, employment, and sustainment are coupled into one operational process and not developed as distinct individual actions or separate phases of an operation. In the end, D, E&S will result in a coherent joint process.