Pacific Command's Multinational Planning Augmentation Team

A modernized and ready, tailored land force capability to meet combatant commanders’ requirements across the range of military operations meets a number of ASPG near term objectives. The imperative addresses operational adaptability, maintains a global stabilizing presence, and regionally aligns forces.

Geographic Combatant Commander (GCC) are the vital link between those who determine national security policy and strategy and the military forces or subordinate JFCs that conduct military operations within their AORs [JP-1]. GCCs takes on a lot of responsibility they are normally responsible for a large geographical area; not mention the effective coordination of operations within that area falls on the shoulder of the GCC. Directives flow from the President and SecDef through CJCS to the GCCs, who plan and conduct the operations that achieve national or multinational strategic objectives. GCCs provide guidance and direction through strategic estimates, command strategies, and plans and orders for the employment of military force. One plan

Joint operation planning begins when an appropriate authority recognizes potential for military capability to be employed in response to a potential or actual crisis. At the strategic level, that authority—the president, SecDef, or

The efficient integration of Title 10 and National Guard forces during domestic operations increases the threshold of a state’s capacity to respond to disasters or security requirements. Pre-event preparation is required to achieve efficient integration. This preparation requires three critical elements, building relationships, integrated planning and exercises. To successfully incorporate federal forces during a response, states must develop positive relationships with key Title 10 partners during steady-state operations. Building upon these relationships, state and federal partners conduct deliberate planning for the integration of Title 10 forces in a state response. Finally, exercises validate plans and grow relationships. This paper describes

The threat environment has expanded from a strategic, nuclear, symmetrical threat from bombers, ICBMs, and air-or-sea-launched cruise missiles, to a continuing symmetrical threat in addition to an emergent asymmetric threat, focused across all domains, borders and agencies. Accordingly, our political leaders recognized a need to transform the military for a new ‘home game’. United States Northern Command (USNORTHCOM) was established to assume responsibility for the defence of the US homeland, and this new Command was tasked to provide military assistance to civil authorities (MACA).

While a commander’s staff conducts planning at any level, whether it is strategic, operational, or tactical, the importance of identifying both theirs and the adversary’s center of gravity (COG) is a critical part of the planning process. Three factors should be carefully analyzed in order to gain a full understanding of the COG; they are critical capabilities, critical requirements and critical vulnerabilities (U.S. Office of the CJCS 11 August 2011, III-24). Although a COG can be attacked directly, the indirect approach which seeks to destroy or neutralize the COG by attacking an adversary’s critical vulnerabilities can be a more efficient use of available resources. The United States Marine Corps’ Warfighting publication MCDP 1 draws a direct correlation between a COG and its critical vulnerability by stating, “we should focus our efforts against a critical vulnerability, a vulnerability that, if exploited, will do the most significant damage to the enemy 's ability to resist us” (United States Marine Corps 1997, 47). The Marine Corps favors the indirect approach to defeating an adversary’s COG because the functions assigned to them by the Department of Defense (DoD) require expeditionary operations and expeditionary forces typically are limited in size, assets, and resources driving them to target an adversary’s critical vulnerabilities.

In addition to Talisman Sabre 2013, I Corps developed and tested Pacific Pathways, which is a model similar to the Marines’ UDP. I Corps will deploy a HQs, tactical force, with an aviation detachment and enablers will deploy to the USPACOM AOR to participate in exercises and to respond to a contingency. Therefore, the regional alignment of I Corps, represents an opportunity to scale

The goal of APEX is to give senior decision makers (POTUS, SECDEF) a variety of strategic options to respond to crisis and problems around the world. This is a direct result of Secretary Rumsfeld’s frustration with the difficulties of translating policy guidance into operational plans. APEX has not solved all of the problems thus far. The sheer size of the planning community hinders their ability to build workable plans in very short timeframes. Outside coordination with foreign nations is very difficult and time consuming as

This attack validated the demand for more crisis response forces forward deployed in and around North Africa and the Middle East. The USMC response was the deployment of the Special Purpose Marine Air Ground Task Force Crisis Response (SPMAGTF-CR) positioned to reduce our response time and to deter instability. One of the advantages of this transformative idea is that it mitigates the capability gap created by a lack of amphibious ships, a traditional employment method. Another advantage is the employment of equipment and supplies associated with the Marine Corps Prepositioning Program- Norway (MCPP-N). MCPP-N provides access to additional resources required for low to mid-intensity conflict and the employment of resources is costed shared with Norway. Marine planners intelligently presented a clear solution by forward deploying Marines and employing ready resources to solve compelling challenges in a dynamic environment. (359 words, 750-1200

As a one of the world’s top maritime power, United States declared it’s “National Military Strategy”. Two essential principles of NMS is forward presence and crisis response. Based on the NMS, Navy and Marine Corps

The US Central Command’s planning for Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF) was not the all-inclusive plan that joint operations require. Joint operations are no longer limited to major combat operations, but encompass a wide range of actions. Planning for joint operations requires input from many sources to produce a successful campaign plan to meet the desired end state. Operational design provides a concept and a construction framework that underpins a campaign and its execution. (JP GL13). Evaluating the planning process by using the operational design identifies some of CENTCOM’s shortfalls. US military planners’ lack of understanding of the operational environment led to an inadequately defined problem that resulted in a faulty operational approach. CENTCOM’s approach did not have the right assessment to gauge the effectiveness of the plan such as alerting planners when and if the plan needed modification. Current joint planning policy incorporates several of CENTCOM’s shortfalls in an attempt to provide a better planning process for future joint operations.

Ensuring that future Army forces are prepared to win in a complex world requires a focused, sustained, and collaborative effort across the institutional Army, the operating force, the joint community, industry, academia, and other interorganizational and multinational partners. Future force development must also cooperate and integrate efforts across doctrine development, organizational design, training, materiel development, leader development and education, personnel management, and investments in facilities.

The 2003 invasion of Iraq, Operation IRAQI FREEDOM (OIF) provides an excellent case study to evaluate military campaign planning. OIF demonstrates the complexity of campaign planning, while providing relevant lessons for today’s planners and leaders. OIF was successful in achieving its initial tactical objective of capturing Baghdad. However, due to a insufficient understating of the operational environment (OE) and a poorly defined problem, OIF’s initial operational approach failed to achieve strategic interests. Fortunately, a successful operational approach under Secretary Gates and General Petraeus occurred and through iterative reassessment and reframing allowed the military to establish conditions, which facilitated reaching national

Since 2007, NATO has accepted to assist the AU mission in Somalia (AMISOM) by providing strategic airlift and sealift in support to AU member states willing to deploy in Somalia under AMISOM. NATO has also provided subject-matter experts for the Peace Support Operations Division (PSOD). The PSOD is responsible for the planning, conduct and management of AU operations and missions, including AMISOM. NATO experts, working side by side with AU counterparts, offered expertise in specific areas for a period of six to twelve months, renewable at the AU’s request. OPERATION IN MIDDLE EAST, COUNTERING THE ISIS:

The 'Joint and Coalition Operational Analysis (JCOA) case study is regarding the U.S-Philippines partnership in counter-terrorism (CT) operations that took place from 2002-2011. The CT operation was titled as 'Operation ENDURING FREEDOM-PHILIPPINES (OEF-P) and was conducted by the partnership of Philippine security forces and US Joint Special Operations Task Force-Philippines (JSOTF-P). The CT cooperation took place at three levels, tactical, operational, and strategic. The role of JSOTF was that of 'advise and assist' whereby ground operations were conducted by the Philippine forces. The US cooperation for CT in Philippines was guided by the Joint Publication (JP) 5-0, Joint Operation Planning, and a policy and action framework to act as a binding framework for conducting joint, interagency, and multinational CT operations using full range of military operational capacity. The OEF-P was also conducted by incorporating JP 5-0 principles and guidelines of engagement. The OEF-P took place in Southern Philippines. Following is an assessment how the US forces used termination, military end state, and objectives of operational design (Joint Pub 5-0, page III-18) to develop and refine their operational approach.