Joint Forces Command Transfers More Functions

WASHINGTON, June 30, 2011 — U.S. Joint Forces Com­mand marked two more steps toward its dis­es­tab­lish­ment today as it trans­ferred its Joint War­fare Analy­sis Cen­ter to U.S. Strate­gic Com­mand and its Joint Enabling Capa­bil­i­ties Com­mand to U.S. Trans­porta­tion Com­mand.

The U.S. Strate­gic Com­mand flag is unfurled at the Joint War­fare Analy­sis Cen­ter tran­si­tion-of-com­mand cer­e­mo­ny in Dahlgren, Va., June 30, 2011. The cer­e­mo­ny marked the tran­si­tion of JWAC from U.S. Joint Forces Com­mand to U.S. Strate­gic Com­mand, head­quar­tered at Offutt Air Force Base, Neb. U.S. Air Force pho­to by Staff Sgt. Vanes­sa Valen­tine Click to enlarge

Today’s tran­si­tion cer­e­monies at Dahlgren, Va., and Joint Forces Command’s Joint Warfight­ing Cen­ter in Suf­folk, Va., respec­tive­ly, rep­re­sent­ed the lat­est in a con­tin­u­ing effort to realign the command’s func­tions and gen­er­ate greater effi­cien­cies with­in the Defense Department. 

The Joint War­fare Analy­sis Cen­ter pro­vides com­pre­hen­sive tech­ni­cal analy­ses on a wide array of nation­al secu­ri­ty chal­lenges and issues. This sup­port helps inform and sup­port deci­sion mak­ers involved in com­bat oper­a­tions as well as high-lev­el pol­i­cy-mak­ing ses­sions, com­mand offi­cials said. 

The Joint Enabling Capa­bil­i­ties Com­mand pro­vides imme­di­ate, short-dura­tion sup­port to estab­lish, orga­nize and oper­ate joint force head­quar­ters across the globe, offi­cials explained. It brings capa­bil­i­ty and exper­tise in plans, oper­a­tions, logis­tics, infor­ma­tion supe­ri­or­i­ty, knowl­edge man­age­ment, com­mu­ni­ca­tions and pub­lic affairs. 

All affect­ed ele­ments will remain at their cur­rent loca­tions. The Joint Warfight­er Analy­sis Cen­ter is based in Dahlgren and the JECC head­quar­ters, as well as its Joint Deploy­able Team and Joint Pub­lic Affairs Sup­port Ele­ment, in Hamp­ton Roads, Va. The JECC’s Joint Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Sup­port Ele­ment is at MacDill Air Force Base in Tam­pa, Fla. 

Both the JWAC and JECC com­man­ders offered assur­ances that their sup­port will con­tin­ue unin­ter­rupt­ed dur­ing the tran­si­tion, the most recent at Joint Forces Command. 

Joint Forces Com­mand trans­ferred its Joint Capa­bil­i­ty Devel­op­ment Direc­torate to the Joint Staff June 1. The direc­torate is now known as the deputy direc­tor for com­mand and con­trol, com­mu­ni­ca­tions and com­put­ers with respon­si­bil­i­ty for over­see­ing C4 process­es and initiatives. 

On May 20, Joint Forces Command’s Joint Unmanned Air­craft Sys­tem Cen­ter of Excel­lence at Creech Air Force Base, Nev., trans­ferred to the Joint Staff’s Force Struc­ture, Resources and Assess­ment Direc­torate. The center’s staff focus­es on stan­dard­iz­ing, inte­grat­ing and train­ing joint warfight­ers for unmanned air­craft sys­tems and their products. 

Defense Sec­re­tary Robert M. Gates, who retired today, announced in August that he would rec­om­mend elim­i­nat­ing Joint Forces Com­mand and assign­ing its essen­tial func­tions to oth­er orga­ni­za­tions. With the depth of joint expe­ri­ence now estab­lished in the ser­vices through expe­ri­ence in Afghanistan, Iraq and around the world, Gates said the depart­ment no longer needs a four-star com­bat­ant com­mand specif­i­cal­ly focused on joint train­ing, doc­trine and operations. 

Pres­i­dent Barack Oba­ma approved Joint Forces Command’s dis­es­tab­lish­ment Jan. 6. 

Army Gen. Ray­mond T. Odier­no, com­man­der of Joint Forces Com­mand, said last month at the 2011 Joint Warfight­ing Con­fer­ence that the ser­vices must encour­age young lead­ers to embrace the prin­ci­ples advanced at the command. 

“We need lead­ers with vision. We need lead­ers will­ing to tack­le these dif­fi­cult issues,” he told the forum. “We need lead­ers who will do what’s bet­ter for our force as a whole and not focus inter­nal­ly on their own ser­vice … It’s ulti­mate­ly about achiev­ing greater effec­tive­ness in nation­al secu­ri­ty while act­ing more efficiently.” 

Odier­no told reporters ear­li­er this year he was com­mit­ted to com­plet­ing the reor­ga­ni­za­tion in a way that does­n’t com­pro­mise crit­i­cal capabilities. 

“What I hope to see is that we’re able to do our job bet­ter to sup­port com­bat­ant com­mands in the ser­vices as they request help,” he said, “whether it’s con­duct­ing train­ing exer­cis­es around the world or devel­op­ing new doc­trines for Afghanistan or bal­lis­tic mis­sile defense or oth­er areas.” 

Oba­ma nom­i­nat­ed Odier­no last month to become the next Army chief of staff. The pres­i­dent also named Army Lt. Gen. Kei­th Huber, Joint Forces Command’s deputy com­man­der, to serve as com­man­der of Joint Task Force 435 in Afghanistan. 

(Editor’s Note: Army Sgt. Josh LeCap­pelain of Joint Forces Com­mand Pub­lic Affairs Office and Whit­ney Williams from Joint Enabling Capa­bil­i­ties Com­mand con­tributed to this article.) 

Source:
U.S. Depart­ment of Defense
Office of the Assis­tant Sec­re­tary of Defense (Pub­lic Affairs) 

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