World
US closure of Joint Forces Command marks shift to thrift
By Zhao Chenyan (People's Daily Online)
Updated: 2010-08-20 14:21
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Gates believed that the U.S. Department of Defense must save taxpayers' money and he hoped that the proposal world lead to the kind of cultural changes that over time become a part of this department's DNA and institutional memory.
Third, the United States' construction of integrated joint operations has become basically mature. At the turn of the century, the United States vigorously implemented a new revolution in military affairs, which stressed a break down of the boundary between armed services and the realization of integrated joint operations. The Joint Forces Command, established in October 1999, was once used to allocate forces around the world and encourages the services to work together on the battlefield.
However, fast forward 11 years and the United States decided to close it and at the same time to close its integration network office and C4 general staff division.
It's not difficult to find that the U.S. military has largely embraced joint operations as a matter of culture and practice after decades of operational experience. Both joint operations training and the equipment support in it have synergized in the construction of institutionalization and standardization as well as the theories on joint operations. So the Joint Forces Command's historical mission as a "transformation laboratory" should be basically complete.
"Training joint forces, generating joint forces, creating joint doctrine and experimenting with that doctrine are all valuable tasks. However, they do not necessarily require a separate four-star combatant command, which in the case of JFCOM entails about 2,800 military and civilian positions and roughly 3,000 contractors of all kinds at an annual cost of at least $240 million to operate," Gates explained.
Today's self-reduction is to save for the future war preparations. "It is to significantly reduce its excess overhead costs and apply the savings to force structure and modernization," Gates said.
"Making sure that we keep this organization relevant, competitive, agile for the next-generation conflicts is at the core of this activity," James E. Cartwright, Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said.