Any thoughts on the joint operational access concept?

Q

Qasim

New Member
Dear all,

The American chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Dempsey, recently came out with a paper proposing a potentially new way of warfare- Joint Operational Access. As the paper describes it, operational access is a strategy to defeat enemy attempts at employing anti access (keeping forces out of a theater) and area denial (preventing/spoiling tactical movement within a theater) efforts used to thwart US forces.

There is some interesting thought here, courtesy some strategic thinkers on the joint staff and the rump JFCOM, but I am wondering if the forum members have any thoughts on this. It gives the obligatory mention to the importance of cyber (it is 2012 after all) but it seems to be essentially saying:"Eventually, the US will fight a smart adversary, and will not just sit back and let us build up huge logistics bases (as the US did in ODS and OIF) and let us pummel them with precision weapons from stand off."

Interested to hear some thoughts. I personally think this could be a good point of departure for a military that has been focused on irregular warfare for a decade, and whose air services have (minus Libya last year) basically been relegated to flying CAS and reconnaissance for the same length of time.

Did want to get the URL posted, but I'm under 10 posts so I can't embed a link.

Regards,

Qasim
 
Q

Qasim

New Member
  • Thread Starter Thread Starter
  • #3
My2Cents said:
I assume that the paper you want the URL for is this one?


I particularly like Section 11, it lays out the risks to implementation very nicely, especially the logistics component.
Click to expand...
Indeed, that is the one. The forum didn't let me post the URL since I'm a n00b. It is good that they addressed risk.

Yes, alternately hardening a logistics tail or freeing yourself from it are both challenging. Given the Army's experiences in Iraq and Afghanistan over the past decade, I think this is going to be a stretch for them. The other services also have sizable logistics tails, but the idea of the Army freeing itself from lines of communication to temporarily dash deep into enemy territory seems a bit of a cultural stretch to an organization that pioneered forward-deployed fast food (and did so before Iraq, even). Yes, the Marine Corps is more expeditionary, but even they as a service have changed in the past decade, their role at times being indistinguishable from that of the Army.

There is a lot here to chew on. Thanks for the reply.

-Q
 
gf0012-aust

gf0012-aust

Grumpy Old Man
Staff member
Verified Defense Pro
Qasim said:
Indeed, that is the one. The forum didn't let me post the URL since I'm a n00b. It is good that they addressed risk.
Click to expand...
I've been fortunate enough to read a higher classified version of this doc, so it is a bit thinned out for a number of reasons

a couple of the comments about event enabling in advance, playing to strengths etc have been articulated before in other docs, so not necessarily "new" concepts. This is esp so when you consider that the US military have been practicing and playing in joint space in ex such as red flag, blue flag, various Cobra events and the largest joint multi-national ex conducted via Talisman Saber nn events. All of those ex's generate immediate lessons learnt which everyone absorbs with some enthusiasm

re the cyber issue. the US in the last few years has been heavily focussed on cyber contact /mgt issues, so although "passed over lightly" in this doc, it is certainly not the reality, They are absolutely focussed on cyber contact coming from outside known managed and owned locales (down to server level, not just country level which is where the average person focuses , ie coming out of mainland china, known geographic hubs in the area bordering and around and favoured by Mackinder :)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top