Wednesday
5 April 2000
0800-1000 (L)
You've got to be careful-if you don't know where you are going, you might not get there.
Yogi Berra
If we could first know where we are and wither we are tending, we could better judge what to do and how to do it.
Abraham Lincoln
Purpose
The purpose of this lesson is comprehend the Joint Strategic Planning System; evaluate its utility with regard to military strategic planning, civil-military relations, and defense bureaucratic politics; and create and devise concepts of strategic planning appropriate to the future security environment.
Learning Objectives
1. Comprehend the Joint Strategic Planning System (JSPS) as a system for reconciling the diverse views of the US military establishment in order to provide timely, effective military advice to the National Command Authority and to formulate military plans in support of policy.
2. Know the main products of JSPS and the roles of the main participants in
JSPS.
3. Evaluate JSPS as a strategic planning tool.
4. Evaluate JSPS as an instrument for managing US civil-military relations from the perspectives of the SecDef, CJCS, unified commanders and Service chiefs.
5. Create and devise alternative concepts for military strategic planning appropriate to the future security environment.
Discussion
This topic introduces a new block on military strategic planning. Now that we have looked at the range of possible threats and missions, and at the components of US military power, we need to examine how the US military considers all of these together in order to generate military strategic advice to the NCA and unified strategic direction to the US Armed Forces. The block will start with the overarching Joint Strategic Planning System (JSPS), and then look in more detail at each of three of its subordinate functions: campaign planning, theater engagement planning and force planning.
JSPS is one of the primary formal means by which the Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff, in close consultation with the Service Chiefs and the CINCs, carries out his mainstream strategic planning and policy responsibilities. JSPS is at the core of civil-military relations. It is the means by which the CJCS provides strategic assessments and recommendations from our military to our civilian leaders regarding the future strategic environment, military strategy, contingency planning, budgetary planning, the "joint vision," and force planning.
The major products of JSPS are Joint Vision 20XX [currently Joint Vision 2010], the Joint Strategy Review (JSR), the National Military Strategy (NMS), the Joint Strategic Capabilities Plan (JSCP), the Joint Planning Document (JPD), the Chairman's Program Recommendation (CRP), and the Chairman's Program Assessment (CPA). These documents and the processes which build them comprise the bulk of JSPS. Each of these documents plays a unique but complementary role in building a common perspective and analytical framework used by our senior military leaders in providing a broad range of military assessments and recommendations to the National Command Authority and to the Congress.
Understanding the purpose, structure and logic of JSPS is vital to a national security strategist who desires to bring some sophistication to his or her task. It deepens one's understanding of the origins of military advice beyond generalizations about "the brass" or "the Pentagon." Military advice emanating from the JCS is rarely ad hoc, but instead springs from the context of continuous, cyclical strategic discussions driven by JSPS. Although the Chairman, and the other Chiefs as well, have an obligation to render their best, personal advice, that advice rests on the comprehensive consideration of issues allowed by JSPS. This is not to say that JSPS is a perfect system. It has many critics and many qualities that invite criticism. In this lesson, we want to become sufficiently familiar with it that we understand its role in US military strategy and have an informed opinion of its worth.
Issues for Consideration
1. What function does JSPS serve? What are its key component products, and how would you characterize each one? How are they interrelated? How do the CJCS, the Service Chiefs, and the CINCs of the combatant commands interact in the JSPS process? What is the role of the Joint Staff?
2. Why is the recent re-establishment of the Joint Planning Document (JPD) so crucial to the JSPS process? How is it serve as a "bridge?"
3. Do you agree or disagree with the assertion that JSPS is needed even more now that the Cold War has ended? Why?
4. Does JSPS produce "group-think" and recommendations watered down to the least common denominator by the need to reach a consensus? What is the difference between building a common framework for analysis and building a framework which discourages creative, independent thinking. How does one know when the line between these two "poles" has been crossed? Is consensus among our senior military leaders about the future strategic environment and associated military requirements necessarily bad?
5. How would you improve the JSPS process?
6. How do the key elements of the current NMS (i.e., "shaping the international environment, responding to the full spectrum of crises, and preparing now for an uncertain future") guide the theater commander's actions in peace, crisis and war? If you were a CINC, would you want more or less national-level direction?
7. Should CINC responsibilities continue to be assigned based on current geographic and functional distinctions? What adjustments would you recommend to better prepare for the uncertainties of today's and tomorrow's environment.
Required Readings
1. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Instruction (CJCSI) 3100.01A, Joint Strategic Planning System," 1 September 1999. (Student Issue)
2. . Joint Pub 5-0, Doctrine for Planning Joint Operations. Chapter I, "Principles and Concepts"; Chapter II, "Strategic Direction and Integration." (Student Issue)
3. Joint Pub 0-2, Unified Action Armed Forces. Chapter II, "Functions of the Department of Defense and Its Major Components." (Student Issue)
4. Harvey Sapolsky, Eugene Gholz, and Allen Kaufman, "Security Lessons from the Cold War," Foreign Affairs, vol LXXVIII, no 4 (July-August, 1999), pp. . (Reprint)
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