Within the

United States Department of Defense The United States Department of Defense (DoD, USDOD or DOD) is an executive branch department of the federal government charged with coordinating and supervising all agencies and functions of the government directly related to national secur ...

, the Joint Capability Areas (JCA) are a

standardized Standardization or standardisation is the process of implementing and developing technical standards based on the consensus of different parties that include firms, users, interest groups, standards organizations and governments. Standardization ...

set of United States military definitions that cover the complete range of military activities. The system was initially established in May 2005 by the United States Department of Defense

Joint Staff The Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) is the body of the most senior uniformed leaders within the United States Department of Defense, that advises the president of the United States, the secretary of defense, the Homeland Security Council and th ...

with input from each of the services, designed to begin "a new framework that paves the way for side-by-side comparisons of service contributions to joint warfighting and a tool that will assist decision-makers in deciding whether to move resources between service budgets." The establishment of the JCA was primarily a result of an Operational Availability study from 2005 and from the ''Joint Defense Capabilities Study'' of 2003 (also referred to as the ''Aldridge Study'' after its primary author,

Edward Aldridge Edward "Pete" Cleveland Aldridge Jr. (born August 18, 1938) is an aerospace engineer and former government official in the U.S. Defense Department. He was also selected as a payload specialist for the Space Shuttle mission STS-62-A, scheduled to ...

). The ''Aldridge study'' called for the establishment of a new joint lexicon that would allow leaders to clearly discuss mission areas and how to most responsibly manage resources. Further information on JCAs can be found at the Joint Experimentation, Transformation and Concepts Division (JETCD

of the Joint Staff J-7, Operational Plans and Joint Force Development Directorate.

Current Joint Capability Areas

# Force Integration # Battlespace#Battlespace awareness, Battlespace Awareness (aka INTEL) # Force Application (FA) # Logistics (LOG) #

Command and Control Command and control (abbr. C2) is a "set of organizational and technical attributes and processes ... hatemploys human, physical, and information resources to solve problems and accomplish missions" to achieve the goals of an organization or e ...

(C2) # Communications & Computers # Protection (FP) # Corporate Management and Support (CMS)

Initial Joint Capability Areas

* Joint battlespace awareness * Joint command and control * Joint network operations * Joint interagency coordination * Joint public affairs operations * Joint information operations * Joint protection * Joint logistics * Joint force generation * Joint force management * Joint homeland defense * Joint strategic deterrence * Joint shaping and security cooperation * Joint stability operations * Joint civil support * Joint non-traditional operations * Joint access and access denial operations * Joint land control operations * Joint maritime/littoral control operations * Joint air control operations * Joint space control operations

References

{{Reflist

External links

The JCA Framework (.xls)Detailed JCA Definitions(.doc)
Media:JCA SecDef Memo 2005.pdf United States Department of Defense