The Joint Enabling Capabilities Command (JECC) has assisted with all major military operations since 9/11. As part of its successful history, in the midst of the frantic pace that has included contingency missions in Afghanistan and Iraq and disaster relief in Haiti and Pakistan, the Secretary of Defense announced assignment of the command to U.S. Transportation Command, where the same vision will underpin its global responsibilities: providing short-notice scalable, employable, and deployable capabilities to joint force commanders. JECC recruits skilled Active and Reserve personnel to increase the arsenal of talent that it can offer to commanders, enabling rapid and effective global response by employing the whole range of capabilities to the full spectrum of military operations.

Learning to operate on the sea has taken mankind two or three thousand years. The UN Convention of the Law of the Sea took a decade to work out, but now 195 sovereign nations steer their ships and actions at sea according to its charts and grids and legal stipulations. There is a similar need to find an international accord on how to navigate what might be called the Cyber Sea. There is not nearly so much time to create such a regimen for cyberspace, yet the lack of charts and accords places users in danger of a cyber Pearl Harbor. Hard national and international decisions are needed on what constitutes incidents and attacks as well as policies prescribing proportional responses, pursuit of attackers across national boundaries, and other concerns. White House, Pentagon, and NATO strategies are addressing these matters, but these efforts must expand.

The National Defense University (NDU) has contributed to the emerging “strategic partnership” with Vietnam through visits from senior Vietnamese defense officials, helping Washington to carry on a tradition of countries sharing information on how each country trains and equips its forces and does things. NDU also aspires to be permanently on the itinerary of future visitors from that country. Defense Minister Phung Quang Thanh held a talk with university President Vice Admiral Ann E. Rondeau and a plenary session with senior fellows in 2009, and National Defense Academy Commandant Lieutenant General Vo Tien Trung visited in 2011, conducting meetings at NDU and conferring with congressional staffers on bilateral defense relations. Both schools seek to engage in more academic exchanges, joint research, communication between subject matter experts, and visits by institutional leaders, students, and faculty. All this is only possible because of NDU’s effort to explore fresh approaches to old problems.