Expanding jointness at the Joint Readiness Training Center

Military Review, Jan-Feb, 2005 by Mick Bednarek, Thomas P. Odom, Stephen Florich

With the advent of the joint national training capability (JNTC), DOD will not fully implement its initiative to train forces jointly until Fiscal Year (FY) 2009. Joint training opportunities at tactical and operational levels offered between now and FY 2009 fall short in supporting the Nation's needs.

The Nation is at war just as its military is transforming. How, then, can Army CTCs act as engines of change to help future leaders become joint leaders? The first step forward is to look inward. The AAR remains the CTCs' cornerstone for leadership development through self-evaluation. If CTCs are to be engines of change driving the development of future joint leaders, they must be evaluated and transformed in JRTC AAR fashion. The strategic setting makes that transformation requirement clear. The JRTC is a premier joint training center for all types of military formations--brigade- and regimental-level equivalents. The ongoing structural transformation within the Army, as part of the expeditionary mindset, is critical to maintaining relevance within the joint force.

Current doctrinal constructs, which lay out the Operations Group's COE, are based on the ability to "see first, understand, decide, and act" faster than an adversary in any situation. Decisions predicated on better understanding of the battlespace precede these actions, allowing commanders to act simultaneously or sequentially to achieve the desired end state at the least cost in lives. The tactical objective is to win the close fight while shaping operational battles for future strategic success. The Army is engaged in such operations in Afghanistan, Iraq, and the Balkans, thus validating this training model.

JRTC mission-rehearsal exercises (MRXs) in support of all three areas of responsibility achieve unprecedented fidelity to the war environment in preparing units for deployment. These are "sustains" in AAR parlance, but what areas need improvement? In the past, the JRTC, like all service centers of excellence, has approached jointness as a matter of deconfliction rather than integration. The JRTC must build seamless jointness into the CTC. The destination is clear. We must move forward.

The Road to Jointness

Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF) provides some lessons for future joint training. Forces now participating in OIF come from around the world. Many did not take part in a joint or coalition training exercise tailored to their expected tasks before they deployed. Many individuals in theater are not even military; they belong to an array of government, nongovernment, private, international, and commercial organizations.

While some U.S. forces might have participated in joint training, most did not train as a joint force in support of a regional combatant commander. Recognizing this, DOD mandated the JNTC, which is a far-reaching, transformational, joint training program at the Joint Warfighting Center, a directorate within Joint Forces Command (JFCOM).

The JNTC is a cooperative collection of interoperable training sites, nodes, and events that synthesizes combatant commander and service training requirements within the appropriate joint context. Training includes live events and simultaneous simulation-driven scenarios at many locations to replicate joint operations. Training addresses tactical-to-operational tasks, including staff planning for a joint task force (JTF) encompassing services and combatant commander training requirements.