Report on U.S. Military Power 2012 (22)

III. The Concept of Globally Integrated Operations and Its Requirements for joint forces

On September 10th, 2012, U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) released the “Capstone Concept for Joint Operations: Joint Force 2020“. It is composed of Introduction, Future Security Environment, The Concept, Select Implications For Joint Force 2020, Risks of Adopting This Concept, and Conclusion. The main ideas of the document are as follows:

1. Specifying Future Challenges Facing Joint Forces

As pointed out in the document, future security environment is characterized by proliferation of WMD, rise of modern competitive states, violent extremism, regional instability, transnational criminal activity, and competition for resources. Besides, the diffusion of advanced technology in the global economy means that middleweight militaries and non-state actors can now muster weaponry once available only to superpowers. The proliferation of cyber and space weapons, precision munitions, ballistic missiles, and A2/AD capabilities will grant more adversaries the ability to inflict devastating losses; adversaries continue to explore symmetric ways to employ both crude and advanced technology to exploit U.S. vulnerabilities; they will have more advanced capabilities in every domain, and meanwhile, more of them will have the ability to simultaneously conduct operations across multiple domains; space and cyber space will play a particularly important role in the future; diffusion of technology is transforming warfare and reshaping global politics; and digital technology is profoundly transforming command and control of the U.S. Armed Forces.

Taken together, these factors give rise to a future security environment that is more unpredictable, complex, and dangerous in which armed conflicts are inevitable. The major challenge facing the U.S. joint forces in the future, therefore, is to protect U.S. national interests from the threats of increasingly strong enemies in an uncertain, complicated, changing, and increasingly ransparent world with constrained resources.

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