Click here to read JFQ 117 →
Communication is a critical element to the human experience. As warfighting demands high-quality, immediately available, and secure communications, you would think that the Services and the forces who fight together have something as simple as radios sorted out. While I do not have any immediate field experience to draw on, I can offer a look at how the good intentions of the military Services, almost 20 years ago, failed to ensure that units fighting alongside each other were trained to rapidly communicate when conditions of life and death were at play.
In chapter 3 of Navy SEALs Jocko Willink and Leif Babin’s The Dichotomy of Leadership (St. Martin’s Press, 2018), Babin describes the direction given to a group of SEALs prior to moving into the Iraqi city of Ramadi in 2006. The simple request from the team commander was for all team members to learn how to reprogram their radios to change frequencies to communicate with other SEAL teams as well as with Army and Marine units. No one readily complied, and when asked to perform reprogramming before stepping off, none of the team members beyond the radioman were able to do so. The team perceived ownership of such a simple task as the responsibility of a single specialist on the team. But what if the team members were separated and had radios but could not reprogram them to communicate with another Service’s team?
Babin’s part of the story was to consider the responsibility of leaders within a team both to maintain standards for themselves and to enforce them—and to do so in a way that ensures success without generating disloyalty or mistrust. The simple task of radio reprogramming resulted in Babin’s being able to directly call off an Army tank’s fire on his team’s position, saving them to fight another day.
Being able to communicate effectively is a skill that is learned over time and is necessary for successful planning and execution of joint warfighting. But if that skill is not learned and perfected at the lowest level, then leadership is doing a disservice to those they are leading. While the Services each have their own culture, jargon, and equipment, to be successful as a joint force they must find a common way to communicate and use it well. Are you able to reprogram your “radio” to speak to your joint warfighter teammates? If you are, what do you have to say to them? Here are some of the best communications on joint warfighting and joint matters we have received since our last issue. I hope they are useful.
Leading off in Forum, Joel Wuthnow, a senior research fellow in NDU’s Institute of National Strategic Studies, discusses the current state of military reform in China’s People’s Liberation Army. Two of the Nation’s leading scholars on nuclear arms, Jeffrey Larsen and James Wirtz, next give us their views on the problems of achieving integrated deterrence.
In Commentary, we offer two topics, each with wide interest to everyone in the joint force. Suggesting we look at how we teach leadership to the joint force, James Browning asserts that we must produce future leaders who are both bold and visionary. Examining the military housing crisis, Michael Kittrell and Michael Borders draw from the U.S. Air Force’s recent real-world experience to offer some important suggestions on how to resolve it.
Taking you from assessing another country’s willingness to cooperate to new strategies for medical support to the joint force, our Features section brings four engaging articles to consider. Continuing the excellent writing and thinking we have received from the Eisenhower School, faculty members Michael Harsch and Shaun Lee have developed an interesting analysis method for assessing the willingness of one nation to partner with another. As our joint operations become more dispersed and take place in more contested environments, Ian Richardson offers his breakdown of what will be most effective in protecting the force in these agile combat environments. As the Services are always looking for ways to improve recruiting, especially in understaffed specialties, Shawn Cook, Andrew Hall, and Todd Spanton offer their take on how to do so while maintaining our combat edge. Taking a page from recent technological leaps forward, George Barbee and Benjamin Ingram believe the time has come for a medical offset strategy to better support the joint force.
Recall has a double bill of World War II history to consider as we develop our strategies for operations in the Pacific. First, Sanders Marble takes us to Okinawa and the medical lessons—both joint and otherwise—encountered there in 1945. Then we go to the Philippine island of Leyte in October 1944, where Michael Trimble, Douglas Burkman, and Michael Simmons recount the movements of U.S. forces during that critical battle to see what we might learn for today.
Regarding effective communication, Joint Force Quarterly has used photography over the years to paint a picture of the joint force and the men and women who defend our nation. For the past 15 years, not only has our teammate Dr. John Church leveraged his world-class talents with the English language to make the content of this journal a pleasure to read, but he has also used his keen eye and artistic talents to bring us the best of military photography from the millions of Defense Department images available. John was able to show the work and talents of nearly every kind of specialist in the joint force. He did so with little if any guidance from his boss, and the results speak for themselves. As John takes a well-deserved retirement from government service, we thank him for his dedication to the joint force and the Chairman’s journal and wish him all the best in the years ahead.
A brief note on future events here at NDU and JFQ: the annual Secretary of Defense and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff essay competitions will not be held this year because of unanticipated logistical issues that put the ability to properly conduct them beyond my team’s abilities. We will look to once again conduct the competitions next year. Any student who has an essay that he or she believes is competitive is welcome to submit it to JFQ as a regular submission. We apologize for any inconvenience this circumstance causes. JFQ
—William T. Eliason, Editor in Chief
Click here to read JFQ 117 →