TESTIMONY
OF
DR. PAUL W. MAYBERRY
DEPUTY UNDER SECRETARY OF DEFENSE
(READINESS)
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON READINESS
AND
THE SUBCOMMITTEE ON TERRORISM,
UNCONVENTIONAL THREATS AND CAPABILITIES
HOUSE
ARMED SERVICES COMMITTEE
UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
REGARDING
JOINT NATIONAL TRAINING CAPABILITY
March
18, 2004
Mr. Chairman, members of the
Committee, I am pleased to be here to
discuss the progress in our transformation
efforts to better enable joint operations in
the Department
of Defense and to specifically address your
interest in the development of a Joint
National Training Capability (JNTC). We
welcome your counsel, oversight, direction,
and support.
Earlier
this month the Deputy Secretary of Defense
addressed an assembly at the Heritage
Foundation gathered to assess the status of
Defense Transformation. He discussed our
ability to implement transformational
initiatives from both an organizational and
a cultural perspective and to assess our
ability to resource such programs.
The
Deputy Secretary of Defense credited the
Congress with the creation of a great
example of transformation-the
Goldwater-Nichols Act of 1987-that helped to
transform the department's approach to "jointness."
Dr. Wolfowitz remembers when "I came in as
Under Secretary under Secretary Cheney it
was a rather new innovation. The full
impact of it really could just barely be
glimpsed. We've seen it dramatically,
though, in the course of the last two years
of war when jointness, combined with new
technologies and networking technologies,
has been able to allow us to combine forces
widely disparate geographically.something
that I don't think could have been
contemplated when Goldwater-Nichols was
enacted, but something that would not have
probably been possible without that landmark
legislation."
Secretary Rumsfeld has said, "The wars and
the conflicts of the 21st century will not
be fought by individual services. Rather,
they will be fought by joint forces, and
more often than not, by combined forces.
Therefore, we will have to think, train, and
exercise jointly and combined, because let
there be no doubt, that is the way that we
will fight."
This
basic principle of "training as we intend to
fight," sounds simple - and it is a great
bumper sticker - but this is exceedingly
difficult. I would like to discuss how we
are seeking to overcome these difficulties.
We
continue to be a nation at war and because
of our success some have questioned our need
to transform our approach to training. In
fact, it is the imperative and conditions of
war that demand that we transform training.
In many cases, joint operations have far
exceeded our training capability to prepare
our forces - individuals, units, and staffs
- for the complexities of their joint
responsibilities.
A
company commander noted to a senior DoD
official during a recent Joint National
Training Capability event "the only time
that I get to fight jointly was in the war,
that was the only time that we got to use
all the toys." But training transformation
must be more than simply getting to use all
the toys. The ultimate challenge is to
blend the training environment and the
operational environment so that we no longer
think in terms of independent training, but
rather focus on our ability to prepare our
forces under dynamic and adaptive conditions
that ultimately focus on mission rehearsal
and true joint performance enhancement.
In our
security environment today, the Armed Forces
must be responsible for the full spectrum of
military operations - ranging from the
extremes of major combat operations to
humanitarian assistance - and is some cases,
combining these extremes even in the same
deployment. Today's world is complex,
filled with uncertainty and surprise. We no
longer fight against known enemies with
standing armies, but often-faceless networks
of terrorists. These adversaries fight
asymmetrically, focused on exploiting our
weaknesses, and are agile enough to change
tactics rapidly based on our responses.
In many
cases, we will not be fighting wars at all
but our national leadership may determine
that our military capabilities would be
beneficially employed in humanitarian
missions, training foreign militaries, or
collecting valuable intelligence.
Today's
training must train commanders and staffs in
the strategic and operational levels of war,
as well as the tactical. It must train the
force, from top to bottom, to adapt while en
route. Education, individual and collective
skills training, and force integration, we
believe must be delivered on demand, rather
than according to a predetermined schedule,
to prepare our forces to be everything from
a war fighter to a diplomat.
The
fundamental question then is how do we
prepare our forces to be successful under
such arduous conditions, against known and
unknown threats, operating often in
non-traditional environments, and employing
tactics that morph daily? How do we seek to
do this?
Secretary Rumsfeld published his training
transformation vision back in March 2002.
The cornerstone of this vision was that it
be capabilities based. We cannot prepare
for everything; we cannot do it all. We
must have fundamental training systems and
processes in place, but these structures
must be sufficiently dynamic and responsive
to changing, emerging, and ambiguous
"requirements;" able to deliver prepared
forces anywhere at anytime. This is a
revolutionary shift in thinking, from
emphasizing structured learning environments
to knowledge development, that is ultimately
generated from an approach that is oriented
around mission rehearsals.
Second,
to be successful in an environment of
uncertainty and surprise, we must emphasize
education, as well as training - therefore,
the attention to transformation of training
is incomplete and a misnomer, if equal
attention is not devoted to education.
Education focuses on leader development and
it is through such development that the true
ability to operate in uncertain environments
will be achieved.
Third,
training capabilities must address the full,
enhanced nature of jointness. This extends
beyond the traditional military definition
of joint and the four Services. This
includes training and education to plan and
deal in the interagency world, to work
intergovernmental homeland security issues
with local and first responders, and to be
interoperable with our multinational
partners in coalitions. The vision is
supported by three overarching goals
creating new joint capabilities:
-
Joint
Knowledge Development and Distribution
Capability to prepare forces individually.
This capability must be worldwide,
deployable and able to address the life-long
learning needs of the total force - both
active and Reserve components.
-
Joint
National Training Capability to prepare
forces collectively. We do not always need
to move people around, too often they serve
as expensive training aids for higher staff
level training needs. Rather, we must build
a robust live, virtual, and constructive
training and mission rehearsal environment
that in fact will provide an appropriate
joint context to conduct training at the
tactical, as well as operational levels of
war.
-
Joint
Assessment and Enabling Capability: we need
to focus on measurement and enabling
success. What is the return on our
investment, have we truly been
transformational, and the ultimate question
- what difference does it make from a joint
performance perspective?
Today's
hearing is focused on the Joint National
Training Capability, but JNTC is part of the
Department's broader Training Transformation
initiative that addresses the synergy
between these collective joint
capabilities.
The
Services are world-class trainers - bar
none. Our military is successful because we
train more often, to higher standards, and
under realistic combat conditions. The
first training transformation occurred in
the late 70s with the establishment of the
Service major training centers and range
complexes. We seek to affect a second
training transformation based on the
successful principles of the Services'
earlier training revolution: realistic
joint training, against thinking and
credible opposing forces, with appropriate
instrumentation to establish ground truth,
and a process for identifying and correcting
weaknesses and exporting lessons.
The JNTC
seeks to leverage the excellence of
Services' Major Training Centers, our test
ranges, models and simulations, and training
capabilities embedded in defense systems.
JNTC focuses on both horizontal training
(unit-unit) and vertical (HQ-HQ or HQ-unit)
training in an appropriate joint context
according to joint doctrine and tactics,
techniques and procedures. The training
environment incorporates live training
augmented with simulators and constructive
forces - a robust live, virtual, and
constructive joint training environment.
The training would use the same C4ISR
architecture that is used in operations -
train as we intend to fight. Realistic
combat training should not be rooted only in
the major training centers and range
complexes, but be able to deploy to
international training locations as well.
A
dedicated OPFOR requires multidimensional
and peer-level capabilities to stress the
jointness of training - to provide a worthy
threat/adversary. Also, there is a need for
an ability to provide asymmetric challenges,
as well as the targets we would see in real
combat, to also include civilians on the
battlefield.
JNTC is
a tremendous resource with value and benefit
well beyond training. The T can also stand
for "testing." The underlying pillars for
JNTC are the same as those required for a
realistic operational test event. We must
partner with the testing community to
maximize our commonality in the areas of
instrumentation, data collection,
cross-functional use of ranges, as well as
long-term range sustainment. The same
arguments can be made for the
experimentation community, as they need to
validate emerging operational concepts.
The JNTC
Joint Management Office (JMO) is operational
and is under U.S. Joint Forces Command's
leadership. The JMO has on its horizon the
completion of a number of strategic goals,
which will be described during this hearing,
including range modernization; the ability
to link joint experimentation and lessons
learned into our Capability; establishing a
Joint Technical Architecture; embedding
training capabilities into our weapons
systems and weapons platforms; and
establishing a JNTC research, development
and demonstration program.
JNTC is
no longer a dream. We conducted our first
joint horizontal training event in January
involving live forces operating in the
Western Range Complex, supplemented by
helicopter and Special Forces simulators,
with a constructive force wrap-around - all
within a common operating picture. Sixteen
different locations linked together to
provide realistic joint tactical and
operational level training. It was a great
start. Three other JNTC events are
scheduled for this fiscal year.
The
initial JNTC Event at the Western Range
Complex has been deemed a very successful
first step with great leadership and support
from the Services and Joint Forces Command.
Other major steps necessary to make the JNTC
a success include the deployment of the
Capability to overseas venues, the conduct
of events at overseas sites, and achieving
Full Operational Capability by 2009.
It is not easy to plan and execute complex
joint combat operations when the Services
have not had the ability to persistently and
routinely train to accomplish those tasks.
Consequently, during the January JNTC Event
our forces honed their warfighting skills in
joint close air support and other
challenging joint tactical tasks that were
used on the battlefields of Afghanistan and
Iraq. Admiral Giambastiani, Commander, U.S.
Joint Forces Command, said it best when he
reflected on the importance of JNTC - "What
the joint community has been able to do with
the JNTC is to begin the second wave of
training transformation-where we can now
link the service training ranges with forces
around the country-and in time, around the
world-to a common joint environment at the
operational level. In a sense, this new
training transformation is producing 'born
joint training' that seamlessly brings
together a combination of live, virtual and
constructive capabilities to create a common
joint training environment. An important
aspect of the JNTC is that it also avoids
any additive requirements to Service
training.."
We are committed to meeting joint mission
operational and training requirements of our
Regional Combatant Commanders. We must
ensure that Headquarters and Component
staffs and individuals deploying to a
combatant command are fully trained to joint
standards and in the concepts of
network-centric warfare prior to their
deployment. Our focus is to prepare for
joint operations so that we never conduct an
operation for the first time in combat.
I can
report first-hand observations on the
fielding of the JNTC. I accompanied the
Deputy Secretary of Defense and the Director
of the Office of Force Transformation to the
Western Range Complex JNTC event in
January. Joint Forces Command Major General
Nash and my Military Service colleagues will
provide you the details of the impact on
joint force readiness and the value to the
Armed Forces from a Joint and Service
perspective, but I would like to share with
you one personal story.
During our visit to the National Training
Center, the Army's 3rd Brigade, 3rd
Infantry Division, was completing its
rotation before deploying to the Middle
East. You may recall that the Brigade's 3rd
Infantry Division fought its way to Baghdad
during Operation Iraqi Freedom. I noted the
comments of Capt. Vern Tubbs, Charlie
Company Commander, and a combat-hardened
veteran from that campaign. Tubbs reflected
on the high fidelity of the JNTC Event and
said, "With all the confusion, I started to
get flashbacks, like I'd seen this before.
Only in Iraq, I was a lot more scared."
It is
important to note the seminal and essential
change in the department's culture as it
relates to the post-911 world. As the
Deputy Secretary observed, that "It wasn't
long ago that I heard some very senior
generals and very smart ones, too.observing
that the tank commander really doesn't need
to know what the guy in the cockpit is
looking at. Well, that era has passed, and
we're looking now at how to integrate tank
training with Air Force training, and we are
persuaded that trying to create a new joint
national training center was the wrong way
to go. We have some absolutely incredible
individual service training centers, but
it's possible, again, thanks to a lot of
virtual technology, to combine what's being
done at Nellis with what's being done next
door at Fort Irwin and in the various other
Service-training centers around the
country. And this will be called not a
joint national training "center," but a
joint national training "capability," which
I think will bring jointness into the
training area in a dramatic and important
way."
We have
the vision for transforming training in the
Department of Defense to better enable joint
operations. Our senior leadership has been
explicit, unequivocal, and demanded change
sooner rather than later. The global war on
terror has only strengthened their resolve.
They have provided resources to back-up
their position.
Our goal
is to focus on enhancing and measuring joint
performance and capabilities. Our ability
to train and educate must focus on the
ultimate customer - the Combatant Commander
and provide an adaptability that can quickly
turn to new or emerging requirements.
There
are multiple audiences in our total forces -
individuals, units, and staffs in the active
and reserve components. There are multiple
means of delivering joint education and
training - live, virtual, and constructive -
and such capability must be persistent, with
global reach and reach-back. Joint content
runs the full gamut - at the strategic,
operational, and tactical levels of war,
across the full spectrum of military
operations - from infantry to infants.
Our
commitment is to a process of life-long
learning and the means to deliver on this
promise. This is true for both training and
education.
We face
tremendous future joint challenges - as we
try to appreciate and execute on the full
meaning of effects-based operations and the
interdependencies of jointness that it
demands. We are well on our way to
transforming joint training in DoD.
Allow me
to close with a hint of the value of the
Joint National Training Capability and a
testament to your past support.
"It was all so fierce, so
terribly fierce, a symphony of fire. It was
combined arms at its most lethal, the
relentless orchestration of air, armor,
artillery, infantry and all the other
killing modalities. It was combined and, in
Pentagon jargon, it was joint, with the Army
complemented by Navy, Air Force and Marine
aircraft. The US military for 60 years had
worked to make this the signature of
American firepower, and no other nation
could approximate such a synchronized
application of violence. Until recently,
this synchronization has been the presence
of senior generals, but now I cold see that
it was routine for colonels, captains and
sergeants on the battlefield to summon the
genies of the air and the earth and the sea
and to sic them on the enemy. On occasion,
of course, violence could be misplaced, or
imperfectly leveraged."
The Making of a Combat
General, 'A Very Tough Place' by
Rick Atkinson, The Washington Post,
March 8, 2004, adopted from In the
Company of Soldiers: A Chronicle of Combat,
Commander of the 101st Finds
Rhythm of Battle, Iraq, 2004
On behalf of the
courageous men and women who serve today
around the world fighting the global war on
terrorism, the department thanks the
Congress for its forethought, leadership,
and direction. We also appreciate your
support for the President and Secretary's
effort to transform the Department of
Defense to meet the security environment of
uncertainty and surprise that we face in the
21st Century. Thank you.
