Leaders...must understand the fundamentals of combat power represented by the other Services...(and) how these capabilities are integrated for the conduct of joint and combined operations.Service skills form the very core of our combat capability. Trust...is based on the mutual confidence resulting from honest efforts to learn about and understand the capabilities each member brings to the team.
Joint Pub 1 Joint Warfare of the Armed Forces of the United States
The Joint Force Capabilities course is designed to introduce you to the capabilities and limitations of one major instrument of national power, the U.S. Armed Forces, as well as the joint, interagency, and multinational context within which that instrument is employed. Students who complete course 5612 will gain a working familiarity with the roles, missions, organization, capabilities, unique cultures and strategic purposes of the Armed Forces, the Department of State, and the US intelligence community. This familiarity undergirds and complements their learning in other core courses, and especially Course 5605, Military Strategy and Operations.
There is typically a great disparity in knowledge about the U.S. Armed Forces in general and each Service in particular within the National War College (NWC) student body. This disparity requires that we introduce the Armed Forces early in the curriculum, and from the perspective of the joint employment of those Services. To do so, this course draws upon your expertise and that of your fellow students. Some of the most valuable learning you will do about other Services and agencies will be in discussion with your colleagues in committee and seminar during the year.
The task of understanding the capabilities and limitations of military forces (established by the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in Joint Pub 1 as an imperative for leaders in the U.S. Armed Forces) can be formidable. It takes a professional lifetime to acquire expertise within a given Service. Now military leaders confront the additional requirement to understand the other Services and the joint doctrine and procedures by which they operate together. This does not mean trying to become expert in these other Services, but it does mean appreciating their capabilities, limitations, and organizational cultures.
The institutions covered in this course are important elements and participants in the formulation of American national security strategy. As addressed in Course 1, the President prescribes strategy for meeting the security challenges of the modern world in his National Security Strategy (NSS). The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff derives guidance from the NSS and from other guidance and directives of the President and the Secretary of Defense. He then provides his military advice, in consultation with the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the combatant commanders, in theNational Military Strategy (NMS). As Course 3 will illustrate, the NMS is an important consideration in the development of defense and security policies, but is by no means the only consideration. Major policies and decisions regarding the security of the country are deliberated in an interagency process supporting the National Security Council in which the Department of State and the intelligence community (as well as other executive departments) play key roles.
The purpose of each lesson, then, is to introduce students to each institution so that their appreciation grows throughout the year through additional exposure in core and elective course work, extra-curricular activities such as PREP-Ts, discussions with faculty and classmates who are members of that institution, and exercises. Each lesson is a 2-hour lecture/seminar, organized generally as follows: formal lecture, 30-45 min; Q& A, 15-min; break, 10 min; discussion in committees, 50-min.
Objectives:
Course 5612 provides the essential foundation for the following objectives of the Program for Joint Education (PJE) as established in CJCSI 1800.01, Officer Professional Military Education Policy, Encl C, App D:
Learning Area 2.a. Analyze the bureaucratic process within which national security policy decisions are made in the United States
Learning Area 2.b. Demonstrate a thoroughly joint perspective and comprehension of the synergies derived from joint, interagency and multinational action in the planning, organizing and executing of strategic level national security operations
Learning Area 2.c. Analyze the fundamental tenets of US joint doctrine and apply those tenets in the planning, organizing and executing of strategic-level national security oeprations.
Learning Area 3.a. Comprehend the limitations and capabilties of military power as an instrument of policy
Learning Area 3.c. Comprehend defense and joint planning processes and demonstrate the ability to develop a fiscally constrained national military strategy as well as to program forces and supporting resources to fulfill that strategy.
Learning Area 3.d. Comprehend the limitations and capabilities of the forces available to joint force commanders, to include joint command structures and communication processes.
Learning Area 4.a. Analyze the employment of unified and joint forces
Learning Area 5.b. Examine and assess current and future joint and Service systems and their integration as they affect the future of conflict at the strategic level.
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