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By MC1 (AW) Tim Comerford
The Flagship Staff Writer
VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. – Leaders from military services expressed the need for future cooperation in our inter-service, inter-national and inter-business relationships during the Joint Warfighting Conference, May 11-13.
While introducing Gen. Stéphane Abrial, the NATO Supreme Allied Commander Transformation, Gen. James N. Mattis, commander U.S. Joint Forces Command pointed out how important support between the United States and the NATO has become.
"NATO is engaged in combat operations, like the U.S. operations that are similarly engaged and is transforming," said Mattis. "General Stéphane Abrial was what we would call the chief of staff of the French air force and is now, for the second time in NATO's history, a supreme commander who is not American. It shows again the increasing partnership we have with Europe. We now have an abiding friendship and a commitment to the U.S. - NATO linkage. I look forward to continuing the closest possible relationship between U.S. Joint Forces Command and Allied Command Transformation and maintain, even enhance, the spirit of collaboration that we are fomenting between our two commands."
Abrial pointed out the importance of events like the Joint Warfighting Conference.
"This is the sort of event that should be replicated throughout the alliance," Abrial said. "It is an interesting question that Gen. Mattis has posed to us, 'Combatant and Coalition Commanders: What Will They Need Five Years From Now?'"
Abrial said that there was a need to balance the military picture. "We need to balance the energy and attention that we devote to operations today with preparing for the needs of tomorrow," he explained.
Abrial had six observations on the future. His first dealt with multi-national forces. "Coalitions will be the rule. It shares a burden, it strengthens often overstretched forces, it shares a political responsibility and increases interest nationally and internationally," he said.
His second observation was on building the coalitions.
"You cannot just improvise a coalition," he explained. "History shows that sometimes you have to play a pick-up game, but coalition work should be prepared well upstream. NATO operations are more effective than ad-hoc collations and ad-hoc coalitions are more effective when they capitalize on common practices and standards divvied up through NATO than when they don't. Ad-hoc coalitions may be quicker to assemble, but they are also quicker to fall apart."
His third observation was a belief that in the political arena it will be difficult for military to receive assistance.
"Coalition commanders will need political support. The appetite for operations in the coming years has been greatly diminished and Secretary Gates notes himself in the latest issue of foreign affairs that 'the United States is unlikely to repeat a mission on the scale of Afghanistan or Iraq very soon.' Since the train towards protracted engagements will continue, the coalition commander of 2015 will need to pay close attention to public opinion in dozens of contributing nations."
His fourth observation was on trust.
"Commanders will need the trust of contributing nations and participating nation will need to trust each other," Abrial stated. "Moving from the need to know to the will to share is the mantra of JFCOM to the point where I wouldn't be surprised to see General Mattis have 'will to share' tattooed on his knuckles. Information and intelligence sharing is difficult; it is sensitive and needs to begin with a first circle of trusted partners."
As with shared intelligence Gen. David H. Petraeus, commander, U.S. Central Command who talked to the audience through video teleconference shared some of the concerns with both Abrial and Mattis.
"The philosophical change we need to make is from 'need to know' to 'need to share.' If you approach this issue with the imperative of sharing you would change the way you approach the whole process," Petraeus said. "It is one that we have tried to implement here in CENTCOM. We have over 60 countries represented here and it has worked pretty well for us."
Abrial's fifth point was on the introduction of civilian organizations.
"The commander will need a comprehensive approach. I can no longer imagine a serious security crisis that can be resolved by military means only," he explained. "There is every reason to believe that operations in five years will increase deals with public threats in one configuration or another. The common thread of these threats is that they often bypass the conventional strength of our military – our response has to include the whole range of economic, social, informational and political effort that the military cannot deliver alone. That means organizing a capability that may already exist in nations outside NATO, as well as national, inter-national and non-governmental organizations. The future commander will not operate through a unity of command, but through a unity of effort, the comprehensive approach will be the environment future commander will need to operate."
Petraeus echoed some of these sentiments.
"I have never met a commander and certainly not a combatant commander who didn't say that they needed more of everything," Petraeus said. "I don't think that we are genetically capable of saying that we don't need more troopers, more allies, more civilians, more authorities, more technology and more funding."
Abrial's last thought was on interoperability.
"Interoperability must be hardwired into a programs initial DNA," Abrial said. "The ISAF (International Security Assistance Force) commander in Helmand province needed four sets of radios to communicate with four nations contingents and tracking systems allowed nations to track only their own forces, despite the fact that one nation was providing all the close air support for another. It is inefficient and costly. It is offset by the increasing technological gap between the U.S. and even its closest allies and we all know that this will not be filled by a sudden European dip in spending in the near future."
Petraeus also shared some of the concerns for interoperability.
"We have something like 16 different systems in Afghanistan alone," Petraeus said. "We have formed a task force to figure out how to integrate all these systems and make it so you are working on fewer of these, so everyone can have a common operational picture."
| Date Taken: | 05.12.2010 |
| Date Posted: | 05.18.2010 08:50 |
| Story ID: | 49873 |
| Location: | VIRGINIA BEACH, VIRGINIA, US |
| Web Views: | 165 |
| Downloads: | 136 |
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