Interview ISSUE 5.2011 MS&T MAGAZINE
24
We’re pulling in social networking. That is one that has come to the forefront. That gives us more folks to pull into training so we are increasing relevance of the training by including security challenges at the COCOMs with a realistic replication of the social networking. It’s here to stay. That is a viable aspect of how it is that we have to train. So our current training efforts are focused on our joint task force headquarters that are deployed to Operation Enduring Freedom, but we’re expanding it to other combatant commanders’ exercises as well. We’re continuing to consider an urgent task based on the National Security Strategy and National Military Strategy with regards to how you increase the environmental condition of social networking. We have to expect that those types of threats will continue well into the future so it is imperative that we replicate networks and train staffs on how to neutralize them if, in fact, they are hostile as problems arise. That is one of the better examples of what is on the horizon. Thematically, what I am trying to do, and I think our organization will be able to do this, is take what has been, heretofore, a long lead time in experimentation and the products from our experimentation, and have those spiral out much earlier even before the actual experiment is concluded and pull them back into the training audience. Once again, this is where the single organization construct helps us. In the past we had both JFCOM J7 and J9 doing their own version of experimentation. These were good efforts all being delivered on behalf of the COCOMs in a prioritized fashion. But I think we had our “shot group” spread a bit too far. As we tighten it, we’ll be able to take the outputs of ongoing experiments and have them spiral back into the next training event. That training event could be a seminar or other academic event, or a mission rehearsal event or an actual exercise itself. I’m excited that we can take aspects of experiments that are ongoing and then while they may not be fully mature, they’ll be matured enough that the training audience wants to see them pulled into the training event. MS&T: Your thoughts on how the frequency of DoD joint training events and exercises may change in a more austere budget environment?
MGR: Here’s what I can tell you. This organization is committed to working to deliver the same quality of joint training as we’ve had in the past with no significant decrements or diminishments in the joint force. How do we do that? We have got to deliver the historical demands to the COCOMs and the services. That’s a commitment we are starting from. We’re not starting with a clean slate but with the historical demands of the COCOMs. For example, if each COCOM has had two exercises that we supported in a year that will continue to happen. I am not diminishing or obviating the fact that we have a more austere environment. The fact is our organizational construct is about right – this is building a plane in flight and we’re going to have to make adjustments in the coming year. We have about the right organization to deliver the same response to joint training that we have had delivered to the COMCOMs in the past. I offer for emphasis the unknown is what else do they need, what more do they need. And that’s where I have to get ahead of it so I can build a capacity for the next training cycle. I have to tell you this organization is smaller, but we also have a lot of horsepower. We’ve retained the right folks. I think we’ve got the right positions. I will hedge it a little bit and say it is not perfect and that we’re going to have to make some changes. I don’t know what they are yet. We’ll figure this out. I am going to have two, 1-star officers working for me, in charge of the development and training aspects of our organization. I have three senior executive service personnel working for me. I have a lot of brainpower and leadership at my disposal to increase the flexibility of our organization to the maximum, even under the new constraints of a smaller organization. That’s not a subtle point – we’re smaller but we have a lot of horsepower. MS&T: And as a final question, how will the evolving joint training paradigm permit the U.S. DoD to more effectively train with allies, friends and in the interagency context? MGR: You brought up some key points that I didn’t want to leave out of our conversation, namely, our coalition partners and the interagency. Regarding coalition, we have geography working in our favor. We have Allied Command Transformation (ACT),
a NATO command, right down the road. We are going to continue a robust dialogue and transformation with Allied Command Transformation, just now under the Joint Staff. USJFCOM, was entrusted with the special relationship with ACT. We are going to be one of the key agents for the Joint Staff to ensure that we are not missing a beat with regards to outreach and responsiveness to ACT. They are going to continue to have direct coordination and connection with the Joint Staff J7 (Lt.Gen. Flynn) and the chairman. We are going to have tripartite talks next month with the Joint Staff, ourselves and ACT. The goal is a clean handoff between JFCOM and ACT as we transition to the Joint Staff, and then working with ACT to see what it is they are getting and what kind of continued partnership we’ll have. I am particularly excited that LGen [Karlheinz] Viereck, the joint trainer at ACT, has reached out to me. I am expecting a very viable and robust coordination with NATO regarding training of NATO forces, for instance. That piece is going to continue. We’re also going to have a very significant foreign liaison officer presence [28] within JCW, so we’ll have a continued integration and outreach to the multinational community through them. And we have some additional foreign liaison officers coming in as well. I think this is a growth industry. While we couldn’t get the “I” (interagency) in our title, the fact is interagency is still there. And we have to absolutely include interagency. One of your previous questions alluded to that – on cyber. And it’s not just cyber, it’s across the board. And so that is an integral part of who we are and how we operate. We have to work with the interagency. And while it’s not part of our title it is very much part of our charter. One of the key things we were keen on maintaining was our interagency partners who were heretofore part of JFCOM and were working with us at JCW – we didn’t want to lose them. By and large we have kept the members of the interagency that have been part of JFCOM. We’ve managed to keep them on now as part of Joint and Coalition Warfighting. [There are 10 NGA (National Geospatial Intelligence Agency), two NRO (National Reconnaissance Office), and 15 NSA (National Security Agency) representatives assigned] ms&t