As we go further into the time when finding ways to continue to meet mission with diminished resources, some have suggested that we consider the words of Nobel prize–winning chemist Sir Ernest Rutherford: “Gentlemen, we have run out of money, it is time to start thinking.” In every corner of the United States and beyond, economic problems persist and are entering the fifth year since the 2008 Wall Street crisis. The U.S. military is not immune from the repercussions of these economic forces. The joint force will get smaller while formations large and small will be adjusted and made less costly, at least in the short run. The world of jointness is experiencing this pressure as well. One part of these readjustments for both budgetary and important mission considerations is the future of joint professional military education (JPME) and leadership development.

Soldier directs AH-64 Apache attack helicopter strike on target at close combat attack lane during competition at U.S. Army Garrison Grafenwoehr, Germany

U.S. Army (Robert Hyatt)

After so many years of combat operations, each of the Services to varying degrees has reached a point where the best of what we have learned needs to be made a part of what and how we train and educate succeeding military generations. You will find this and succeeding editions of Joint Force Quarterly increasingly filled with voices, especially those who are in JPME classrooms, seeking to provide the wisdom these authors have gained on a range of topics that are the keys to this evolution of the joint force’s training and education. While budgetary pressures have begun to bite and units get smaller (even JFQ in recent issues), the mission will continue to get done and the force will, in the long run, be better trained and educated for the challenges ahead.

In the Forum, we offer two discussion topics: the futures of both security partnerships and professional military education. First, two authors with key insights discuss security cooperation and force assistance. From his perspective as director of plans at U.S. Africa Command, Charles Hooper reminds us that building partner capacity—an essential mission and an important component of the U.S. Government’s approach to preventing and responding to crisis, conf lict, and instability globally—should be seen as not just an “indulgence” but an enduring strategic imperative. Gene Germanovich then reviews Department of Defense (DOD) approaches to building partner capacity and offers a series of recommendations to better scope these efforts.

If you are a good observer of the writings of our 18th Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, General Martin Dempsey, you are aware of his white paper on JPME that he sent out earlier this year. This paper is crucial for a number of reasons, most importantly as a statement of where we are and where we need to go to support the Chairman’s vision of the joint force in 2020. After many years of crisis and combat operations, combined with an increasingly austere fiscal environment, a serious review of the entire training and education system, Service and joint, is both needed and welcome. We are fortunate to be able to explore two other views on the mission of reinventing JPME to support the joint force in the next decade as the Chairman has asked us to do.

Fresh from leading the largest resident JPME course in DOD, Vince Bowhers examines a key issue, Service personnel management, that needs to be addressed in achieving success in joint education for the force. Often difficulties in getting the right student the right education at the right time can be found in the disconnects between how the Services manage the careers of their officers and the requirements of gaining appropriate joint experience and education. One promising means of achieving a wider exposure of the joint force to education and training is distance learning. In another persepective on delivering education, two seasoned veterans at the Air Command and Staff College, Kathleen Mahoney-Norris and John Ackerman, take us through how the college’s distance learning experience is an increasingly accepted and valued form of delivering high-quality graduate military education to warriors around the world.

The judges of the 2012 Secretary of Defense and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Essay Contests have selected another outstanding trio of winning papers from what they described as the best group of submissions in recent years. Having read every one of the more than 60 papers, I am certain they are correct in their judgment. In his firstplace winning Secretary of Defense National Security Essay, Lieutenant Colonel Joseph Berger, USA, reviews the practice of placing uniformed Servicemembers under the control of the Central Intelligence Agency, using the raid that successfully killed Osama bin Laden as a framework for analysis. Lieutenant Colonel Andrew Foltz, USAF, won top honors in the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Strategic Research Paper Contest by effectively exploring when cyber operations constitute a prohibited use of force as defined by the United Nations Charter. Taking first place in the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Strategy Article Contest, Gregory Macris from the Department of State argues that U.S. interests are supported best as we assist the government of the Republic of Korea in convincing as it works to convince its citizens that the immediate and short-run costs of reunification are actually important investments in the future of all Koreans.

Commentary brings a set of articles that mark a number of recent firsts, and we hope these will be followed in future editions by related discussions. Somewhat surprisingly given the amount of writing seen in other publications, Admiral (Ret.) Mark Fitzgerald has provided our first discussion on Air Sea Battle aside from General Norton Schwartz’s answer in our interview several issues ago (JFQ 63). Admiral Fitzgerald argues that the approach to systems dedicated to making Air Sea Battle happen may be missing the mark but that the concept itself is sound. In another area related primarily to air and sea control, Lieutenant Colonel Pete Ohotnicky, USAF, Lieutenant Colonel Braden Hisey, USMC, and Jessica Todd argue that a renewed focus on the Arctic due to continuing ice melt and increased maritime activity is required with the reestablishment of a subunified command to protect U.S. interests there. From a recent research paper presented here at the National Defense University, Robert Butterworth provides an important discussion and context to the relationship between the medium of space and the joint warfighter. Seeing a way to continue to improve North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) regional partnerships, Colonel (S) Arthur Davis, USAF, examines the newly formed NATO Special Operations Headquarters as a model for conducting operations to counter terrorism in defense of the Alliance.

U.S. Marine Corps amphibiuos assault vehicle comes ashore during mechanized raid during exercise Cobra Gold 2012 in Hat Klad, Thailand

U.S. Marine Corps (Jonathan Wright)

Our forces sometimes find themselves forced to adapt in combat when a capability is used that doesn’t fully match with our society’s expectations or understanding, such as the atomic weapon in 1945 or the armed drone. History has also shown examples of how the task given to the military by its political masters may be in line with national interests but may also be at the limits of capabilities resident in the joint force. Our Features section offers some serious concepts to consider in the areas of new capabilities in need of some social adjustments as well as the way ahead on close air support, an area that seems to be relearned in each new war. Major Jeffrey S. Thurnher, USA, suggests that the deployment of lethal autonomous robots raises significant legal and ethical concerns for commanders and their political masters. Highlighting a likely Air Sea Battle related system of systems, George Galdorisi and John Morton report that the Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense is evolving into a global enterprise as the system migrates from U.S. to allied navies, in turn becoming the interoperable “glue” that binds the United States and its regional allies and partners into a credible combat force and, by extension, a credible deterrent. Colonel (S) John Schaefer III, USAF, describes the work behind reducing the response time for close air support in Afghanistan where aircraft arriving even a few seconds earlier can make the difference between life and death for our troops in contact with the enemy. Curtis Neal, Robert B. Green, and Troy Caraway offer the way ahead to institutionalize improvements in close air support response and integration for the joint force. They describe an emerging capability, the Joint Air Ground Integration Center, as a solution that takes advantage of existing organizational structures and 21st-century communications to conduct operations in a more efficient, linked, and situationally aware manner.

In Recall, we are fortunate to have a returning JFQ contributor and expert to mark the passing of the 30th anniversary of an important crisis and combat far from any U.S. interests but between two of our friends at war in the Falklands. Brigadier General Raymond Bell, USA (Ret.), revisits the experiences of the British joint force operations and the logistics challenges of a short notice, long distance winter battlespace. As with every issue, we offer three significant book reviews and a review of current joint doctrine issues and events.

Given that there will be fewer resources but increasing challenges ahead, we offer the pages of Joint Force Quarterly as a means to help the joint force not only to “start thinking” but also to make sure the troops coming up behind today’s force benefit from our collective wisdom. JFQ

—William T. Eliason, Editor