STATEMENT BY
DR. PAUL HERBERT

AND

MR. STUART WILSON
ASSOCIATES, BOOZ ALLEN HAMILTON INC.

BEFORE THE SUBCOMMITTEE ON TOTAL FORCE
HOUSE ARMED SERVICE COMMITTEE
UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

MARCH 19, 2003  
 

Mr. Chairman and Members of the Sub-Committee, thank you for this opportunity to update the Sub-Committee on our recently completed independent study of Joint Officer Management and Joint Professional Military Education.

The Congress called for the study in PL 107-107, the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2002.  Our firm, Booz Allen Hamilton, was awarded the contract by the Department of Defense in September, 2002.  We submitted our report to the DoD on March 17, and will submit it to the House and Senate Armed Services Committees on March 28.  Our written statement today includes the Report's Executive Summary, about which we would like to make a few short points.

First, the focus of our study was the effectiveness of JOM/JPME in view of proposed operational concepts.  JOM/JPME as established by Chapter 38, Title 10, of the United States Code, is a key pillar of the Goldwater-Nichols Department of Defense Reorganization Act of 1986.  The purpose of Chapter 38 is to ensure the four individual services provide joint commanders and joint organizations a fair share of their best officers, many of whom have been trained and are experienced in joint matters.  The intent is to promote the joint warfighting effectiveness of the Armed Forces.

Second, our study concludes that JOM/JPME has been effective since 1986, but requires an update in practice, policy and law.  Due to Goldwater-Nichols, and initiatives within the Department of Defense and the services, today's Armed Forces are far more capable of planning and conducting joint operations.  Joint organizations are staffed today with a fair share of high quality, trained and experienced officers.  Further, there is a significantly different culture today in the Armed Forces and the officer corps that embraces joint warfare and the Goldwater-Nichols provisions.   The debate today is not over whether to advance joint warfighting, but over how to do so.

Third, positive changes in the Armed Forces are in no small part due to the joint professional military education of officers required by the Goldwater-Nichols Act and given powerful stimulus by the 1989 review panel of the House Armed Services Committee chaired by the Honorable Mr. Skelton.  Generally, JPME works well.  We make two recommendations: (1) to convert the Joint Forces Staff College at Norfolk, Virginia, from a 90-day school to a full, 1-year, joint staff college, and (2) to authorize the professional education of future joint specialists at service PME colleges as well as at NDU.  This investment is necessary because an emerging style of joint warfare requires enhanced professional education of some officers.

Fourth, update in practice, policy and law is necessary because that emerging style of warfare, and the strategic situation of the United States, are very different than in 1986.  At that time, large, service formations were coordinated at high levels of command, such as the unified commands.  Today, the Armed Forces integrate their capabilities at lower levels of command as well.  This puts a premium on joint awareness and proficiency by more officers, as well as other people in the Department of Defense.  It requires that military professionalism within each service include a strong component of joint acculturation and proficiency. 

Fifth, joint officer management can be better attuned to these joint requirements, especially with regard to the development and utilization of joint specialty officers, established by Chapter 38.  As multiple previous studies also show, the Department of Defense complies with the law technically with regard to JSOs, but the concept has not been made to work well.  Many of our recommendations address the JSO concept. 

Sixth, whatever changes to law may be made, control of joint officer assignments should not revert to the four services.  The law presents difficulties for the services and the Department of Defense and can be streamlined to better align with today's requirements.  We make several recommendations in that regard.   However, streamlining should be approached with care.  Chapter 38 removed control of officer assignments to joint organizations from the four services and gave that control to the Secretary of Defense and Chairman, JCS.  That external control remains necessary to balance the interests of joint organizations with those of the services and service organizations.  Nearly every former Chairman, JCS, we interviewed stressed this point.

Therefore, we recommended to the Department of Defense a more "strategic" approach to joint officer management and joint professional military education.  The Department should cast recommended changes clearly in the context of developing the officer corps for joint, multinational and interagency operations.  Equally important, for all recommended changes, DoD should specifically address the original purposes of Goldwater-Nichols, including how the Secretary and Chairman, JCS, would retain control over joint officer assignments.  This strategic approach should have the personal imprimatur of the Secretary of Defense and Chairman, JCS.   On the basis of such an approach, update to the law is appropriate.

1.         INTRODUCTION

This report presents the results of an independent study by Booz Allen Hamilton to determine the effectiveness of joint officer management (JOM) and joint professional military education (JPME) based on the implications of proposed joint organizational and operational concepts (such as standing joint force headquarters) and emerging officer management and personnel reforms under consideration by the Secretary of Defense.[1]  Congress mandated an independent study and report on JOM and JPME in the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for 2002 partly in response to requests by the Department of Defense (DoD) to change certain provisions of the Goldwater-Nichols Department of Defense Reorganization Act of 1986 (Goldwater-Nichols Act [GNA]). 

Key Finding and Recommendations

JOM/JPME requires updating in practice, policy, and law to meet the demands of a new era more effectively.  It has been and is effective by the terms set for it in 1986: the Armed Forces now are significantly more capable of conducting joint planning and joint operations.  However, as part of a strategic approach to officer development for joint warfare, DoD should-

• Focus JOM, and especially the utilization of JSOs, on "joint matters" as defined in law

• Define core competencies of joint organizations, in order to better articulate the individual competencies required of officers and other personnel

• Identify and classify JDA positions according to their relationship to joint warfighting

• Develop new methods of awarding JDA-equivalent credit to reflect joint integration below the unified combatant command (UCC) level. 

• Define the term "joint specialty officer" more comprehensively

• Develop detailed career guidelines and tracks for the professional development of JSOs in joint warfighting and strategy 

• Convert the Joint Forces Staff College to a 1-year, JPME I & II, joint intermediate level college with a charter to educate officers in the joint operational art, from a joint perspective

• Authorize intermediate and senior level service colleges to establish programs for JPME II to be accredited by the Chairman, JCS

• Seek legislative relief from the requirement in Title 10, Section 619a. (a)(2) for officers to be JSOs before promotion to general or flag officer (O-7)

• Tailor appropriate JPME programs for the entire officer corps, from pre-commissioning through the general and flag officer grades

• Implement a joint officer management program for Reserve Component (RC) officers and allow RC officers who meet all qualifications to be designated as JSOs

• Develop joint training programs that exploit educational technology and address the skills needed by all DoD personnel in joint organizations

A strategic approach can help DoD identify further improvements that may require changes to legislation and can provide a sound and credible basis for seeking legislative update.  It requires emphasis by DoD's leadership from the Secretary of Defense and Chairman, JCS, through the entire chain of command.  The challenge for the government is to find the right combination of law and policy that in practice sustains the original purpose of GNA, but allows DoD to develop the officer corps, as well as other personnel, for a new era of joint, interagency and multinational warfare.

Background:  The Goldwater-Nichols Act and JOM/JPME

JOM and JPME are a single, interwoven system established as part of the GNA reforms. GNA sought to improve joint operational capability by enhancing the power of joint commanders and limiting that of the service departments, service chiefs and service components. At the time, military officers shunned joint staff positions, leaving the Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS), and the UCCs with inexperienced and constantly changing staffs.

JOM/JPME empowers the Secretary of Defense, Chairman, JCS, and the UCCs by providing the Secretary, and not the services, control of joint assignments, in order to place trained, experienced, quality officers with a joint perspective on their staffs.  In addition, JOM/JPME promotes a joint culture within the Armed Forces by ensuring that officers, and especially future general and flag officers, have joint education and experience.  Proponents of reform viewed these measures as indispensable to future joint warfighting ability.

Title 10, Chapter 36, Section 619a, and Chapter 38 of the United States Code (U.S.C.) prescribe in detail how JOM/JPME is to work.  Chapter 38 requires the Secretary of Defense to maintain a list of JDAs that yield meaningful joint experience and qualify an officer for promotion. The Secretary may define such positions, but they may not be within service departments and must be related to "joint matters," as defined in law: 

" Joint matters are matters relating to the integrated employment of land, sea and air forces; national military strategy; strategic and contingency planning; and the command and control of combat operations under unified command."  Title 10, Section 668 (a).

The list is the JDA List (JDAL).  GNA also requires some officers to become JSOs, who serve multiple tours in JDAs.  DoD must fill half of all the JDAs on the JDAL with either a JSO, or an officer nominated to become a JSO-the "50-percent fill rule."  In addition, JSOs as a group must be promoted at a rate not less than that of officers assigned to their service's headquarters.

JSOs receive JPME beyond that provided to other officers.  Service staff colleges and war colleges, in both resident and nonresident courses, teach about joint warfare from a service perspective in accredited programs known as JPME I, which prepare all officers for JDA duty.

JSOs receive more than JPME I; they go on to study joint warfare from a joint perspective at resident JPME schools as part of the National Defense University (NDU).  Officers may attend 90-day JPME II courses at NDU's JFSC in Norfolk, Virginia, or, instead of attending their parent senior service college, they may attend either NDU's National War College (NWC) or Industrial College of the Armed Forces (ICAF).  After such education, a JSO's career should mix joint and service assignments to build real competence in joint warfighting.  To enforce this progression, GNA requires DoD to identify no fewer than 800 "critical" JDAs that must be occupied by JSOs.  Chapter 38 establishes detailed rules and procedures and an annual reporting requirement by the Secretary of Defense to Congress showing full compliance.

Reformers wrote this prescriptive legislation because they did not believe that DoD and the services would carry out a more general reform mandate.  In so doing, they created in the joint specialty a de facto fifth dimension of military professionalism whose requirements seem to come at the expense of service professionalism.  JSOs must undergo schooling and assignments outside traditional, demanding career tracks, and still compete successfully for promotion.  The tension between service and joint requirements shows in the continued exchange between DoD and Congress.  DoD believes that today's officers "get joint," and more permissive measures are now appropriate.  Some in Congress hear echoes of earlier antireform arguments and do not want to risk even unintentional setbacks.  For them, change is possible, but only if  soundly based on joint requirements and accompanied by equivalent safeguards that prevent control of joint officer management from reverting to the individual services. 

The relationship between service and joint professionalism is well illustrated by the central issue of JOM/JPME on which much of this report focuses: the relationship of JSOs, critical JDAs, and JPME II. On this fundamental question, two very different views exist.  The legislation directing this study also required that, by 2007, all officers promoted to general or flag officer must first be JSOs.  However, in almost all interviews, active and retired senior officers across the Armed Forces stated that the JSO designation is a hollow distinction because there appears to be little difference in performance between JSOs and non-JSOs. 

Because there are positions in all joint organizations that appear to require previous, relevant joint experience, the concept of the JSO appears valid and useful.  Therefore, this study proceeded on the presumption that JOM effectiveness is largely a matter of developing and using JSOs effectively while preserving the other controls over joint officer management established in Chapter 38.

Methodology

This study adapted a workforce analysis approach consisting of an assessment of the current workforce system (Chapter 38); an estimate of likely future requirements; a "gap analysis" to determine whether the current workforce and system can meet future requirements; and identification of strategies to close the gaps.  The Booz Allen team conducted site visits to the UCCs, Service headquarters, service personnel centers, the Joint Staff, the Office of the Secretary of Defense, and professional military education institutions; examined numerous prior studies on the subject; conducted hundreds of interviews of experts and current and former officials, military and civilian; polled 2,748 officers currently participating in JOM/JPME; and analyzed personnel data from multiple joint and service sources.

Organization of the Report

The report is composed of four chapters and supporting appendices.  Chapter 2 assesses 21st century joint warfare, proposed operational and organizational concepts, and their implications for JOM/JPME.  In view of those implications, Chapter 3 analyzes the effectiveness of JOM/JPME as it operates today.  Chapter 4 identifies alternatives and makes specific recommendations for updating practices, policy, and, where necessary, law.  Detailed analyses and responses to tasks specified in the statement of work are included in the appendices.

2.         FUTURE REQUIREMENTS

A strategic approach is necessary because an update to JOM/JPME should not take place for its own sake but as part of DoD's overall adjustment to changed circumstances.  Responding to historical, geopolitical, and technological trends, the strategic situation of the United States today is very different from the situation in 1986, as are the Armed Forces.  Especially compelling is the demand for horizontal integration of capabilities at strategic, operational, and tactical levels, rather than deconfliction of forces at strategic and operational levels.  The Standing Joint Force Headquarters (SJFHQ) initiative is one manifestation of this change.  There are two important implications to this emerging joint style of warfare:

• Joint integration of multiple capabilities is a skill in and of itself, and requires focused study, preparation, and practice by many officers.

• An increasing number of people (including RC officers, junior grade officers, noncommissioned officers [NCO], and civilians) are involved in joint matters, and they will need knowledge, skills, abilities, and other qualities not needed by their predecessors.

Joint Warfare and Its Impact on Personnel

The population of officers and other military personnel dealing with joint matters as defined in law is changing.  Where joint duty used to be the preserve of senior active duty officers in UCC and national headquarters, it increasingly includes officers at the O-4 and O-3 levels, DoD civilians, RC personnel, and senior NCOs.  This is especially true in the headquarters of joint task forces (JTF) and other joint headquarters below the UCC level.  For example, research showed that a current UCC has 11 subordinate joint headquarters involving roughly 1,000 staff officers in grades O-1 to O-6, 33 percent of whom are in grade O-3.  Of the 2,748 officer poll respondents, 475, or 18 percent, had already served in a JTF headquarters.  Hundreds of RC officers are helping to staff regional and functional UCC headquarters nationwide and overseas.  These trends have the following implications for JOM/JPME:

• Joint-experienced senior leaders remain vitally important; they must be developed in a deliberate manner to match competency to responsibility

• Demand for joint competence at earlier stages in officers' careers should be met by a combination of training, experience, and education

• JOM/JPME must allow for early joint experience for officers

• DoD should track officers with joint competencies and experience so that their skills are readily available and identifiable in a highly flexible joint force

• Joint competence is now required of a larger subset of the DoD workforce that includes some civilians, NCOs, junior grade officers, and reservists.

Joint Warfare and Changing Officer Competency

The key emerging discipline of joint warfare is joint integration. Interviews, polling data and analysis of available literature on current and future operations reveal some of the important competencies that officers require for joint warfare:

• Knowledge of other services' capabilities

• Ability to envision the integrated application of force and nonviolent means to achieve strategic objectives

• Knowledge and skill in joint planning procedures (including virtual collaboration) and command and control (C2) doctrine

• Aptitude for joint integration; they should instinctively look for the implications of integration

• Knowledge and ability in interagency and multinational matters

• Knowledge of national and theater strategy and the skill to recognize the strategic implications and ramifications of operational and tactical activity

• Understanding of the new information environment and an inclination to participate in it and use it to their advantage.

Nearly every officer is likely to be affected to some degree by joint considerations.  Joint competence must become an inherent, embedded part of service professionalism.  This underscores the need for a broad, strategic view of how joint warfare creates new requirements for joint skills and personnel.  In this sense, JOM/JPME reform is a subset of the broader change management effort and must be approached accordingly.

3.         JOINT WARFARE AND JOM/JPME:  AN ASSESSMENT

JOM/JPME operates today according to legal requirements, institutional imperatives and long-standing, inherited practices, rather than according to a plan to advance joint warfighting. Specifically, the JDAL, critical JDAs, JSOs, and JPME II reflect different interpretations of joint matters; consequently, they are not as effective as seems possible to meet future joint warfighting needs.

Because many see little distinction between the performance of JSOs and non-JSOs, and little need for critical JDAs, DoD believes that these concepts are unrelated to effectiveness and are no longer required.  To the services, meeting all the metrics in law is very difficult. Congress views such arguments cautiously, recalling similar arguments of the 1980s.  However, many of the original Title 10 prescriptions now need update.  A more comprehensive approach to officer development for joint warfare can help DoD work toward a middle ground wherein JOM/JPME can be made more effective and more palatable within the intent of the law.

Two Understandings of "Joint Matters"

The operative understanding of "joint matters" throughout DoD has devolved from the original definition of matters relating to the integrated employment of land, sea, and air forces.  Consequently, JOM is not focused well on joint warfighting, making "effectiveness" very difficult to judge.

JSOs are to be "particularly trained and oriented toward joint matters."  The Secretary of Defense is to define JDAs as positions "limited to assignments in which the officer gains significant experience in joint matters."  Of these, some are to be designated as  "critical" because of the high importance of the occupant being a joint specialist with previous particular training, orientation, and experience in joint matters.[2]  The law further requires that "An [active duty] officer.may not be appointed to brigadier general or rear admiral unless they (sic) have completed a full tour of duty in a JDA."[3] 

This creates a dilemma.  If the definition of joint matters were applied strictly, not enough JDAs could be identified to provide promotion-qualifying opportunities to a sufficient pool of flag officer candidates.  Furthermore, because service in a JDA is required for promotion to general or flag officer, joint organizations want to have many, if not all, their positions on the JDAL to compete for the services' best officers.  Accordingly, in 1987, DoD designated 100 percent of the positions for officers in grade O-4 and above in the Office of the Secretary of Defense, the Joint Staff, and the UCC headquarters, and up to 50 percent of those grades in defense agencies, as JDAs. 

These decisions went beyond the definition of joint matters and set the precedent of extending to all staff officers, without regard to their duties, the strategy, planning, C2, and integrated employment functions of the Secretary of Defense, Chairman, JCS, and UCCs.  Examples of current JDAs include a morale/welfare/recreation staff officer, an assistant director of advertising, directors of military equal opportunity policy, directors of military compensation, and other officers in positions far removed from strategy, planning, integrated employment of forces and C2.  Service in these positions qualifies officers as JSOs and for promotion to general or flag officer without really providing the experience intended.[4]   JDAs in practice are viewed as a prerequisite for promotion-that is, a ticket to be punched.[5]  

DoD's broad interpretation of joint matters for construction of the JDAL has become the accepted understanding of joint duty as existing only at command and national levels, and consisting of anything involving two or more military departments.  This practice confuses the purpose and understanding of JSOs, JPME II, and critical JDAs, while weakening the contribution of those concepts to joint warfighting effectiveness.

Joint Specialty Officers

The JSO concept operates differently than envisioned and therefore has not realized its potential value.[6]

The law requires DoD to "establish policies, procedures, and practices for the effective management" of officers "particularly trained in and oriented toward joint matters" (JSOs).  However, there is no working definition of what a JSO is or should be.  The DoD definitions mirror the Title 10 language without elaboration.[7]  JSOs are defined instead by what they do: attend JPME II and serve in any JDA, in numbers sufficient to meet the mandated annual reporting requirements of the Secretary of Defense.

To ensure that the services actually produce JSOs, the law requires that approximately half the JDAs above the grade of O-3 (9,102 currently) be filled at any time by a JSO or JSO nominee..[8]  DoD uses the 50-percent rule as a JSO production goal but not a management tool.  DoD fills any 50 percent of JDAs with JSOs or nominees rather than concentrating on that 50 percent of the JDAL most involved in strategy, planning, integrated employment and C2.[9] 

The consequences are several.  DoD produces JSOs of sufficient quality and distributes them fairly evenly among joint organizations.  This effort creates a pool of joint generalists with little common expertise in joint warfighting.  JSOs do not put their JPME II education to best use in joint warfighting positions and therefore seem not to perform much differently than their non-JSO colleagues.  The experience they gain in their first JDA is not necessarily relevant to increased responsibility in joint warfighting.   The understanding of the JSO as an officer particularly trained, oriented, and experienced in strategy, planning, integrated employment, and C2 is further diluted.  Although all are well qualified officers, the senior military leadership does not view them as critical to the integration of U.S. land, sea, and air forces.

Joint Professional Military Education II

The tension between the narrow definition and broad interpretation of joint matters affects JPME.  By law, JSOs are to attend "an appropriate program at a JPME school."[10]  The JPME schools of the NDU provide that education according to the Title 10 definition of joint matters: strategy, planning, integrated employment, and C2.  However, the graduates of these schools are assigned to any and all JDAs equally, where their schooling may or may not be relevant.[11]

This problem especially applies to the JFSC in Norfolk.  As a 90-day school with a 300-seat capacity, a JPME I prerequisite and an annual production requirement of 900 graduates, JFSC must run three courses per year.  Only one course can accept the spring JPME I graduates of most PME schools.[12]  Other officers intended by their services to become JSOs must report to their JDA and return later for one of the other courses, leaving their JDA vacant for 90 or more days.  This manpower "tax" is significant.  Of the 6,126 JSOs now on active duty, 2,633 (47 percent) attended JPME II sometime during their JDA-649 man-years of vacant positions.  These absences seem especially unreasonable when the officer's JDA is not significantly related to joint matters and does not capitalize on the officer's education.

Although the purpose of JPME II is to educate officers in joint matters for service as JSOs throughout their careers, JPME II is almost universally perceived as preparatory training for one's first JDA.  The law requires that JPME I precede JPME II and that officers nominated for the joint specialty complete their qualifying JDA service "after" JPME II.[13]  For most officers, then, JPME II must precede their first JDA.  As such, not surprisingly, it is found wanting:  it does not prepare officers specifically for the range of JDAs in which they serve; it is not accomplished before the officers arrive at their JDA, but requires their absence; and it is not available to all officers serving in JDAs, but only to those selected by their service to become JSOs.  JFSC conscientiously educates future JSOs in joint matters; its graduates laud its performance by a significant margin.[14]  However, its mission is not well understood and is little appreciated in the commands in which the graduates serve.[15]  Combined with the turbulence created in joint organizations by officers vacating their JDAs to attend the school, the consequence is that the school does not enjoy the legitimacy of its service PME counterparts.[16]

"Critical" Joint Duty Assignments

The broad interpretation of joint matters affects how DoD understands and manages critical JDAs.  The law requires that-

 "The Secretary shall designate not fewer than 800 JDAs as critical..Such designation shall be made by examining each [JDA] position and designating.those positions for which, considering the duties and responsibilities of the position, it is highly important that the occupant be particularly trained in, and oriented toward, joint matters.  Each position designated by the Secretary.may.be held only by an officer who has the joint specialty."[17]  

This small core of positions is so central to joint warfighting that only officers already experienced in joint matters (that is, JSOs) are to fill them. 

DoD requires every joint organization to nominate about 9 percent of its JDAs as critical, in order to meet the legislated minimum total of 800 positions.[18]  This forces organizations to identify as "critical" positions that probably are not.  Roughly 15 percent of critical positions now on the JDAL appear to have very little to do with strategy, integrated employment of forces, or C2, including military assistants to Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD) officials, commanders of electronics supply centers, defense attachés, and officers of the Military Entrance Processing Command.  These are so loosely related to joint matters that their existence creates confusion over the purpose of the critical designator and the importance of filling critical positions only with officers who have JPME II and previous joint experience.[19]

In October 2002, of the 808 critical JDAs on the JDAL, 290, or about 36 percent, were filled by JSOs or JSO nominees, when there were approximately 4,574 JSOs in the inventory, theoretically available to fill the remaining positions.  This continues a steady trend since 1994 of filling fewer and fewer critical JDAs with JSOs.  The law requires that non-JSOs be approved to fill critical JDAs on a case-by-case basis by the Chairman, JCS, but such variances are so regular that fully 40 percent of all critical positions are filled by non-JSOs.  Another 24 percent are not filled at all.[20]

The absence of a waiver limit has resulted in a steep downward trend line in the JSO fill rate since 1997.[21]  Personnel managers believe the fill by non-JSOs reflects the lack of validity of critical JDA's, not a lack of management.  A linear projection of JSO fill rate, based on the downward trend since 1997, would show that by 2006 there would be only six JSOs in critical billets. 

There are many reasons that critical JDAs are not filled by JSOs.  First, each position requires a JSO of a certain service, grade, and warfare specialty who is "available"-that is, nearing the end of an assignment and able to move.  Often, no officer is available who holds all credentials; consequently, an otherwise qualified and available non-JSO is sent. 

Second, supervisors and commanders perceive that JSOs and non-JSOs perform effectively in these critical JDAs and do not insist on a JSO replacement.[22]  The critical JDA roster calls for 330 O-5s, 390 O-6s, 23 O-7s, 29 O-8s, 24 O-9s, and 15 O-10s.[23]  The non-JSOs filling 40 percent of critical JDAs are officers qualified enough to have earned these ranks.  They likely have JPME I, may have previous joint experience, and are "quality" officers by the promotion comparison rules that ensure a fair share of top-quality officers go to JDAs.[24] 

Third, one of the latter rules, that officers must serve in a JDA before promotion to O-7, works as a disincentive to returning JSOs to critical JDAs-better to fill that position with a competitive officer who has not yet served in a JDA if he or she is otherwise qualified. 

Fourth, critical JDAs are competing for the very best officers at the most demanding point in their careers.  JSOs become eligible for critical JDA assignment at the exact time they are being selected for O-5 command, senior service college, promotion to O-6, and O-6 command.  If the UCC does not insist on filling the critical JDA with a JSO, the service will not insist on sending one because they have other duties for their officers.

Fifth, general or flag officer leaders in joint organizations frequently override critical JDA designations to place an officer they have personally selected in a critical JDA, regardless of whether that officer is or is not a JSO.  Personnel managers credit the general or flag officers with knowing what is best and believe that they cannot afford the time and trouble to second-guess the judgment of a senior officer in a distant headquarters.[25]  

JSO production or JPME II throughput is not a cause of empty critical JDAs.  The Army has 1,550 JSOs at grades O-4 through O-6 (353 of them assigned to joint commands) to fill the 293 critical JDAs at those grades for which the Army is responsible.  However, only 93 are in critical JDAs, meeting 32 percent of the Army's requirement.  The Navy has 1090 JSOs with which to fill 147 critical JDAs.  Both services send JSOs and nominees to the joint commands in larger numbers than the critical JDAs they are responsible for filling.[26]

JSOs, JPME II, and Critical JDAs-A System?

There is a latent demand for special joint expertise in joint organizations, and especially in JTF headquarters, but that demand is not being met by the current JOM system.  This is due to managing JSOs and critical JDAs primarily according to numerical targets and without more rigorous reference to joint matters.  Accordingly, senior officers and supervisors are not enthusiastic about the JSO concept, but they are not indifferent to an officer's joint skills and experience.  They especially favor previous joint experience and education in plans officers and in officers in key leadership positions in JTFs.[27]  As a senior officer put it, "During [a recent combat operation], we missed the opportunity to integrate what all the services bring.  If we had had people with the right education and training, the folks doing the planning would have seen that and taken the right steps to fix it." (emphasis added).[28]

Because non-JSOs have filled critical JDAs and performed satisfactorily, some officers conclude that the JSO/critical JDA concept is unnecessary and artificial.[29]  Because it is also difficult to manage, they believe, it should be discontinued.

JOM is indeed difficult for the services to manage.  Future combat commanders in all services have demanding career requirements with little room for joint schooling and assignments.  They must also fill their share of other competing requirements.  The services must manage joint duty within the smaller group of their best officers.  As one indication of the difficulties of this challenge, today's JDAL is 9 percent larger than in 1987, but today's active duty officer corps at grades O-4 and above is 18 percent smaller.[30]  

JSOs and critical JDAs appear to be valid, useful concepts that require better definition, clearer understanding, and integrated management in order to assess their real value in terms of advancing joint warfighting.  There are many positions in every joint organization that call for specialized skill and previous experience.  This requires DoD to take a strategic approach that steps back from its focus on numerical reporting targets in law and begins to define what is actually required to advance joint warfighting.  On this basis, significant improvements can be made within current law, and a cogent argument developed for legislative update.  

4.  RECOMMENDATIONS-A STRATEGIC APPROACH TO JOM/JPME

JOM/JPME requires an update in practice, policy, and law to meet the demands of a new era.  DoD should take a strategic approach that places JOM/JPME in the broader context of developing the officer corps for future joint warfare and proceeds in a deliberate, systematic, and disciplined way suggested by workforce management.[31]  This approach should posture DoD for working effectively with the Congress on such action as may be needed.  The Secretary of Defense and Chairman, JCS currently have sufficient authority in law to undertake the approach recommended.

Development and Use of Joint Specialty Officers

The concept of the JSO appears valid and useful but is so loosely defined and managed that effectiveness is difficult to judge.  As part of a strategic approach to JOM/JPME, DoD should-

• Define a JSO in joint warfighting terms

• Identify and classify JDAs in similar terms (see below)

• Assign JSOs and JSO-nominees to JDAs that require their background and experience and have developmental value

• Develop JSO career paths in each service that mix and balance service and joint experience in a manner that produces a seasoned joint warfighter at the senior ranks, ideally a JTF commander and, later, a unified commander.

Identification and Classification of JDAs

To identify and classify JDAs in terms of their relationship to joint warfighting, DoD should develop working definitions for "critical" and "required" positions.  Notional definitions are as follows:

• Critical.  The position is critically related to joint matters.  The occupant holds full-time, primary staff, or command responsibility for the integrated employment of forces, or the associated strategy, planning, or C2.  (Positions might include the unified commander, deputy commander, chief or director of staff, J-3, J-5, J-6, and key leadership positions within those directorates.)

• Required.  The position is directly related to joint matters.  The occupant of the JDA participates full-time (or frequently) and directly in the integrated employment of forces or the associated strategy, planning, and C2.  (Positions might include most of the directors, J-1 through J-9; most officers from the J-3 and J-5 directorates; and some key leadership positions in each directorate.)

• Associated.  The position is associated with joint matters.  The occupant of the JDA participates indirectly and/or occasionally in the integrated employment of forces or the associated strategy, planning and C2.  (Positions might include most JDAs in directorates other than J-3 and J-5; unified commander's personal and special staffs; and many positions in OSD and the defense agencies.) [32]

As part of a strategic approach to JOM/JPME, DoD should-

• Identify all JDAs that meet the critical definition

• Designate the 800 that best meet the definition as critical

• Initiate a similar process to identify the required positions

• No longer allocate critical JDAs as a fixed percentage of all joint organizations' JDAs

• Retain the mandated fill by general or flag officers of a substantial number of critical JDAs as prescribed by Title 10, Section 661 (d) (3)

• Initiate a more thorough analysis of current and emerging joint organizations structures to-

• Produce a new JDAL that more properly reflects the joint warfighting roles of organizations and individuals at all levels[33] 

• Identify as JDAs permanent, nonhost-service positions in service headquarters that have a joint functional role

• Develop new rules for cumulative credit toward a JDA tour in joint headquarters below the UCC level

• Seek to update Title 10, Sections 661 (d) (1) and 661 (d) (2) (A) to establish less arbitrary goals for JSO production.

The Mix and Sequencing of JSO Assignments

To accommodate JSO careers that mix service and joint experience to produce a thoroughly competent joint commander at the senior level requires more flexibility than exists now.  As part of a strategic approach to JOM/JPME, DoD should-

• Seek legislative update to better recognize significant joint experience below the UCC level, such as in JTF headquarters

• Seek legislative update to recognize a JDA served for the full DoD tour length in a remote area, if at least 12 months long, as a full JDA

• Seek an update of Title 10, Section 661 (c) (1) (B), which requires a JSO's qualifying JDA to occur after JPME II[34]

• Wholly revise policies and practice with regard to accumulated credit to make applying for, receiving, and recording accumulated credit easy; no officer has ever been awarded JDA credit for JTF headquarters service.

Joint Professional Military Education II

Supporting career paths such as those recommended above requires a different structure for JPME II, both richer and with more options.[35]  The most important criterion is that JPME II thoroughly prepare officers for subsequent assignments in which they direct the integrated employment of capabilities and forces as staff officers in key joint positions or as commanders in joint headquarters.  JPME II should be specialized, advanced, professional education that prepares selected officers for such service. As part of a strategic approach to JOM/JPME, DoD should-

• Convert the JFSC to a full academic year, intermediate-level, resident joint staff college for 300 students

• Authorize the service intermediate- and senior-level colleges to establish parallel JPME II resident elective programs to be accredited by the Chairman, JCS.[36]

• This investment should be made because-

• The emergence of joint warfare warrants a military academic institution chartered to study it from a joint perspective and educate some future military leaders about it[37]

• It provides multiple options, more conducive to flexible career paths, for acquiring JPME II

• A genuinely joint, flagship institution provides the standard for comparing service JPME II programs and ensuring that they remain genuinely joint

• Such programs will provide legitimacy to the particular education of joint specialists, who would be schooled in a manner equivalent and synchronous to their peers

• The "manpower tax" on the joint commands and temporary duty expenses of the current system would end.

• JPME II should not be converted to a distance learning program because:

• Personal interaction is a teaching vehicle that builds mutual understanding of each other's service and the trust and confidence critical to JSOs

• Daily, face-to-face critique of peers and teachers and immediate opportunity for introspection and internalization produces a more focused and intense learning experience

• Nonresident education creates an unavoidable competition for an officer's time, attention, and energy between duty and family on the one hand and homework on the other

• Resident education is more conducive to developing professional values and critical and creative thought.

JSO Qualification Before Promotion to General or Flag Officer

If JSOs were developed and used as recommended, the requirement for all officers to qualify as JSOs before promotion to general or flag rank would become unnecessary.  Although there are potential benefits of such a requirement, it is inconsistent with an overall strategic approach that anchors JOM/JPME in the actual joint warfighting requirements of the Armed Forces.  The general rule established in Title 10, Section 619a, that officers promoted to general or flag rank first serve in a JDA should remain.

JOM/JPME and the Reserve Component

As part of its overall strategic approach to JOM/JPME, DoD should-

• Implement a joint officer management program for RC officers

• Provide a robust menu of nonresident training in joint skills to RC officers serving in joint positions

• Allow RC officers who have the time and personal career flexibility to meet JSO qualification requirements to be designated as JSOs

• Analyze the joint tables of mobilization distribution (JTMD) that authorize RC officers in joint organizations using the same definitions of Critical, Required, and Associated to determine a JSO requirement for RC officers.

Roles of the Secretary of Defense and the Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff

The Secretary of Defense and Chairman, JCS, have clear roles and sufficient authority to undertake the strategic approach to updating JOM/JPME that seems necessary.  The strategic approach should be guided and approved by the Secretary; led by the Chairman, JCS; and codified in updated law, regulation, and policy that establishes and sustains the refined balance of joint and service interests.

Changes to Statutes

The recommended strategic approach, and many specific improvements to JOM/JPME, can be undertaken within current law.  The recommendations of this study have been consolidated in Appendix B.  However, an objective of a DoD strategic approach should be to identify and encode in law those requirements that will ensure the appropriate balance of interests between joint and service matters, if not those currently in law.  DoD should be able to make a holistic, clear, and compelling case for all changes in terms of the original purposes of the law and the current and future requirements that necessitate change.

Conclusion

The implications of proposed operational and organizational concepts for JOM/JPME are that change is warranted to better develop the officer corps for joint warfare.   Such change should be undertaken as part of an overall strategic approach to developing the officer corps for joint warfare led by the Secretary of Defense and Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Thank you for your attention.  We are pleased to answer your questions.