United States Joint Forces Command
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United States Joint Forces Command (USJFCOM) is one of nine unified combatant commands of the United States military. Unlike the five commands with responsibility for war plans and operations in specified portions of the world, USJFCOM is a functional command that provides specific services to the military.
USJFCOM was formed in 1999 when the old United States Atlantic Command was renamed and given a new mission: leading the transformation of the U.S. military through experimentation and education.
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[edit] Mission
U. S. Joint Forces Command (USJFCOM) is one of nine combatant commands in the Department of Defense, and the only combatant command focused on the transformation of U.S. military capabilities.
Among his duties, the commander of USJFCOM oversees the command's four primary roles in transformation - joint concept development and experimentation, joint training, joint interoperability and integration, and the primary conventional force provider as outlined in the Unified Command Plan approved by the president.
The Unified Command Plan designates USJFCOM as the "transformation laboratory" of the United States military to enhance the combatant commanders' capabilities to implement the president's strategy. USJFCOM develops joint operational concepts, tests these concepts through rigorous experimentation, educates joint leaders, trains joint task force commanders and staffs, and recommends joint solutions to the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines to better integrate their warfighting capabilities.
The benchmark of USJFCOM's efforts is to create effects in the battlespace in support of campaigns designed and conducted by the combatant commanders in pursuit of presidentially-approved policy goals.
In doing so, USJFCOM seeks the coherent integration of military capabilities with other elements of national and allied power. The joint force concept development and experimentation focus is an inherent component of this mission. The cornerstone of this program is the development of future concepts for joint warfighting.
This work builds on and strengthens service efforts, draws on the best of industry, and flows directly from the president's National Security Strategy, the Secretary of Defense's National Defense Strategy and the chairman of the Joint Staff's National Military Strategy.
The joint force trainer role allows USJFCOM to rapidly introduce new doctrine and receive immediate feedback from the warfighters, while preparing warfighting commanders to prepare for their missions in a realistic joint environment. USJFCOM has also led the way in developing a Joint National Training Capability that ties together existing service training sites so forces can train in a common joint environment.
As the joint force integrator, USJFCOM helps develop, evaluate, and prioritize the solutions to the interoperability problems plaguing the joint warfighter. At USJFCOM, joint interoperability and integration initiatives continue to deliver materiel and non-materiel solutions to interoperability challenges by working closely with combatant commanders, services and government agencies to identify and resolve joint warfighting deficiencies.
This work is one of the most important near-term factors required to transform the legacy forces and establish a "coherently integrated joint force."
In late 2004, U.S. Joint Forces Command assumed the role of primary conventional force provider. This landmark change assigned nearly all U.S. conventional forces to Joint Forces Command. Along with this responsibility came the task to develop a new 'risk-assessment' process that provided national leaders a world-wide perspective on force-sourcing solutions.
This process not only helps national decision makers make more informed choices on supporting ongoing and emergent operations, but also allows military commanders to foresee potential readiness problems and develop mitigation strategies, thus allowing the United States to maintain our nation's forces at the highest possible levels of readiness.
Headquartered in Norfolk, Va., USJFCOM is a force of more than 1.16 million active and reserve soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines, spanning USJFCOM's four service component commands and eight subordinate activities. USJFCOM personnel include members from each branch of the U.S. military, civil servants, contract employees, and consultants.
[edit] Organization
The commander of USJFCOM is U.S. Air Force General Lance L. Smith. JFCOM has four component commands, a sub-unified command and eight subordinate activities, including: Joint Warfighting Center; Joint Systems Integration Command; Joint Transformation Command for Intelligence; and Joint Warfare Analysis Center (JWAC). The JFCOM commander also serves as Supreme Allied Commander Transformation within NATO.
[edit] Joint Experimentation Directorate
The Directorate oversees the joint innovation and experimentation roles/responsibilities delegated to USJFCOM. These roles are outlined in the Department of Defense-issued Unified Command Plan:
The Directorate collaborates with the military services, combatant commanders, U.S. government agencies, multinational partners, and other to validate those concepts and to provide recommendations to the military and civilian leadership. The measure of success is improved future military capabilities in the hands of warfighters, as well as improved coalition capabilities in multinational operations.
[edit] External links
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| Regional responsibilities | |
| US Northern Command - US Central Command - US European Command - US Pacific Command - US Southern Command | |
| Functional responsibilities | |
| US Special Operations Command - US Joint Forces Command - US Strategic Command - US Transportation Command - US Unified Medical Command | |
