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The United States Joint Forces Command (USJFCOM) was a Unified Combatant Command of the
United States Department of Defense The United States Department of Defense (DoD, USDOD, or DOD) is an United States federal executive departments, executive department of the federal government of the United States, U.S. federal government charged with coordinating and superv ...
. USJFCOM was a functional command that provided specific services to the military. The last commander was Army Gen. Ray Odierno and the Command Senior Enlisted was Marine Sergeant Major Bryan B. Battaglia. As directed by the President to identify opportunities to cut costs and rebalance priorities, Defense Secretary Robert Gates recommended that USJFCOM be disestablished and its essential functions reassigned to other unified combatant commands. Formal disestablishment occurred on 4 August 2011.


History

USJFCOM was formed in 1999 when the old
United States Atlantic Command The United States Atlantic Command (acronym from 1947-1993 USLANTCOM, after 1993 USACOM) was a Unified Combatant Command of the United States Department of Defense. In 1999, U.S. Atlantic Command was renamed and given a new mission as United ...
was renamed and given a new mission: leading the transformation of the Department of Defense through experimentation and education. USLANTCOM had been active from 1947 to 1993 as a primarily U.S. Navy command, focused upon the wartime defence of the Atlantic sea lanes against
Soviet Union The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...
attack. After the end of the Cold War, a 1993 reorganization gave the Command a new acronym, USACOM, and brought
United States Army Forces Command The United States Army Forces Command (FORSCOM) is the largest command of the United States Army. It provides land forces to the Department of Defense's unified combatant commands. FORSCOM is headquartered at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, and ...
and
Air Combat Command The Air Combat Command (ACC) is one of nine List of Major Commands of the United States Air Force, Major Commands (MAJCOMs) in the United States Air Force, reporting to Headquarters, United States Air Force (HAF) at the Pentagon. It is the prim ...
under its authority. In late 2004, U.S. Joint Forces Command assumed the role of primary conventional force provider in the Department of Defense. This landmark change assigned nearly all U.S. conventional forces to Joint Forces Command. Requirements, for example, for U.S. service personnel to support the transformation of the Armed Forces of Liberia, were fed to JFCOM, in this case via
Africa Command The United States Africa Command (USAFRICOM, U.S. AFRICOM, and AFRICOM) is one of the eleven unified combatant commands of the United States Department of Defense, headquartered at Kelley Barracks, Stuttgart, Germany. It is responsible for U ...
, and JFCOM liaised with the service staffs to obtain available forces. Along with this responsibility came the task to develop a new 'risk-assessment' process that provided national leaders a worldwide perspective on force-sourcing solutions. Its operations and exercises included Noble Resolve, an experimentation campaign plan to enhance homeland defense and improve military support to civil authorities in advance of and following natural and man-made disasters and Empire Challenge, an annual intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) interoperability demonstration.


Mission

United States Joint Forces Command was the only combatant command focused on the transformation of U.S. military capabilities. The commander of USJFCOM oversaw the command's four primary roles in transformation – joint concept development and experimentation, joint training, joint interoperability and integration, and the primary conventional force provider as outlined in the Unified Command Plan approved by the
President President most commonly refers to: *President (corporate title) * President (education), a leader of a college or university *President (government title) President may also refer to: Arts and entertainment Film and television *'' Præsident ...
. Its Unified Command Plan designated USJFCOM as the "transformation laboratory" of the United States military to enhance the combatant commanders' capabilities to implement the president's strategy. USJFCOM developed joint operational concepts, tested those concepts through rigorous experimentation, educated joint leaders, trained joint
task force A task force (TF) is a unit or formation established to work on a single defined task or activity. Originally introduced by the United States Navy, the term has now caught on for general usage and is a standard part of NATO terminology. Many ...
commanders and staffs, and recommended joint solutions to the
Army An army, ground force or land force is an armed force that fights primarily on land. In the broadest sense, it is the land-based military branch, service branch or armed service of a nation or country. It may also include aviation assets by ...
,
Navy A navy, naval force, military maritime fleet, war navy, or maritime force is the military branch, branch of a nation's armed forces principally designated for naval warfare, naval and amphibious warfare; namely, lake-borne, riverine, littoral z ...
,
Air Force An air force in the broadest sense is the national military branch that primarily conducts aerial warfare. More specifically, it is the branch of a nation's armed services that is responsible for aerial warfare as distinct from an army aviati ...
and
Marines Marines (or naval infantry) are military personnel generally trained to operate on both land and sea, with a particular focus on amphibious warfare. Historically, the main tasks undertaken by marines have included Raid (military), raiding ashor ...
to better integrate their warfighting capabilities.


Organization

USJFCOM included members from each branch of the U.S. military, civil servants, contract employees, and consultants. It had four component commands, a sub-unified command (Special Operations component i
SOCJFCOM
and eight subordinate activities, including

and Joint Warfare Analysis Center (JWAC). JFCOM's Service components were the
CONUS ''Conus'' is a genus of venomous and predatory cone snails.Bouchet, P.; Gofas, S. (2015). Conus Linnaeus, 1758. In: MolluscaBase (2015). Accessed through: World Register of Marine Species at http://www.marinespecies.org/aphia.php?p=taxdetails&i ...
based commands that provided forces to other combatant commands:
United States Army Forces Command The United States Army Forces Command (FORSCOM) is the largest command of the United States Army. It provides land forces to the Department of Defense's unified combatant commands. FORSCOM is headquartered at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, and ...
(FORSCOM),
United States Fleet Forces Command The United States Fleet Forces Command (USFFC) is a service component command of the United States Navy that provides naval forces to a wide variety of U.S. forces. The naval resources may be allocated to Combatant Commanders such as United Sta ...
(USFLTFORCOM),
Air Combat Command The Air Combat Command (ACC) is one of nine List of Major Commands of the United States Air Force, Major Commands (MAJCOMs) in the United States Air Force, reporting to Headquarters, United States Air Force (HAF) at the Pentagon. It is the prim ...
(ACC), and
United States Marine Corps Forces Command The Commander, U.S. Marine Corps Forces Command (COMMARFORCOM), headquartered at the Naval Support Activity Hampton Roads in Norfolk, Virginia, commands service retained-operating forces; executes force sourcing and synchronization to affect for ...
(MARFORCOM). USJFCOM Joint Concept Development and Experimentation (JCD&E) (J9) aimed to develop innovative joint concepts and capabilities providing experimentally proven solutions to the most pressing problems facing the joint force. It aimed to rapidly deliver operationally relevant solutions to support current operations and drive DOTMLPF and policy changes to better enable the future joint force. JCD&E aimed to provide thought leadership and collaborative environments to generate innovative ideas with a range of interagency, multinational, academic and private sector partners. The C2 (Command and Control) Core was a DoD project sponsored by Joint Forces Command and the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense/Network and Information Integration (OASD/NII) to develop an open standard-supporting, extensible markup language (XML)-based command and control (C2) data exchange. It represents the first major implementation of the Universal Core v2.0, a federal information sharing initiative. It supports the DoD Net Centric Data Strategy by enabling data to be visible, accessible, understandable, trustworthy and interoperable. The overarching goal of this project is to support national and coalition warfighters by improving joint interoperability at the data and information layer. Accomplishing these strategic goals within the C2 community involves publishing and evolving agreed-upon standards that exchange partners (services and, down the line, combatant commands and agencies) can use to share data more broadly, efficiently and effectively. The C2 Core standards also link C2 design guidance emerging at both the DoD enterprise level and within multiple C2-related communities of interest and programs of record to support the broadest range of interoperability requirements possible. Among the command's many directorates and departments was Project Alpha, a JFCOM rapid idea analysis group created to "identify high-impact ideas from industry,
academia An academy (Attic Greek: Ἀκαδήμεια; Koine Greek Ἀκαδημία) is an institution of tertiary education. The name traces back to Plato's school of philosophy, founded approximately 386 BC at Akademia, a sanctuary of Athena, the go ...
and the defense community that could transform the
United States Department of Defense The United States Department of Defense (DoD, USDOD, or DOD) is an United States federal executive departments, executive department of the federal government of the United States, U.S. federal government charged with coordinating and superv ...
into an organization better equipped to deal with the uncertain landscape of the future." Project Alpha was discontinued as part of an internal reorganization of U.S. Joint Forces Command's Joint Experimentation Directorate. As of 1 August 2011, the Joint Warfighting Center (J7), Joint Center for Operational Analysis, and the Joint Concept Development and Experimentation directorate (J9) merged and transitioned from Joint Forces Command to the
Joint Staff The Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) is the body of the most senior uniformed leaders within the United States Department of Defense, which advises the president of the United States, the United States Secretary of Defense, secretary of defense, ...
J7 as part of USJFCOM's disestablishment. The new organization created by this merger will remain in Suffolk, Va., and be known as the deputy director J7 for joint and coalition warfighting, a subordinate element of the Joint Staff J7. "We will continue our mission to provide comprehensive training that meets demands of the joint warfighter who continue to engage our adversaries in an ever-changing operational environment," said Army Maj. Gen. Frederick S. Rudesheim, deputy director for joint and coalition warfighting. "Key functions and missions will be linked together in a more efficient and effective manner, providing an integrated approach to joint development and joint training."


Disestablishment

US Joint Forces command was in charge of the theater surrounding Washington, DC and New York during the 9/11 attacks. During a cost cutting session, General Mattis, then in command of JFCOM suggested to disband because in his interviews with his own staff it was clear to him that most did not see added value. On 9 August 2010 Secretary of Defense
Robert Gates Robert Michael Gates (born September 25, 1943) is an American intelligence analyst and university president who served as the 22nd United States secretary of defense from 2006 to 2011. He was appointed by President George W. Bush and retained b ...
announced that Joint Forces Command has been slated for elimination as a budget-saving measure. General Ray Odierno was given the task of winding down JFCOM. On 6 January 2011, the plan was officially approved in a memorandum by President Obama. On 4 August 2011, Joint Forces Command cased its flag colors and officially disestablished on 31 August 2011. Special Operations Command Joint Forces Command (SOCJFCOM) was transferred to U.S. Special Operations Command after the disestablishment of JFCOM, but was then disestablished in 2013.


Former commanders

Until 24 October 2002, all combatant commanders held the title of " Commander-in-Chief", including the commander in chief of Joint Forces Command (USCINCJFCOM). However, an order dispatched by Secretary of Defense
Donald Rumsfeld Donald Henry Rumsfeld (July 9, 1932 – June 29, 2021) was an American politician, businessman, and naval officer who served as United States Secretary of Defense, secretary of defense from 1975 to 1977 under President Gerald Ford, and again ...
renamed all CINCs in the
United States military The United States Armed Forces are the Military, military forces of the United States. U.S. United States Code, federal law names six armed forces: the United States Army, Army, United States Marine Corps, Marine Corps, United States Navy, Na ...
as "Commanders" with the use of "CINC" as an acronym for anyone other than the President being strictly forbidden. Additionally, the dual-hatted title of
Supreme Allied Commander Atlantic The Supreme Allied Commander Atlantic (SACLANT) was one of two supreme commanders of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO), the other being the Supreme Allied Commander Europe (SACEUR). The SACLANT led Allied Command Atlantic was based ...
carried over to JFCOM from U.S. Atlantic Command and remained until October 2003 when it was superseded by the title of Supreme Allied Commander Transformation.


References


External links


USJFCOM official site

Small Wars Journal stitch-together of news articles covering JFCOM deactivation
{{Authority control Joint Forces Command Military units and formations in Virginia Military units and formations established in 1999 Military units and formations disestablished in 2011 1999 establishments in the United States 2011 disestablishments in the United States