By Ann Roosevelt
CARLISLE BARRACKS, Pa.–Army Integrated Process Teams (IPTs) are using the seminar wargame, Unified Quest 2008, to find capability gaps in several specific areas.
The IPTs are adjuncts to, but not part of, the war game, which the Army is co-sponsoring with U.S. Special Operations Command and U.S. Joint Forces Command throughout the week.
IPTs, all driven by Army headquarters, include: Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance; Sustainment; Security Sector Reform (Rule of Law); Cyber/EW; Generating Force; Army Force Generation; and Strategic Communication.
The teams–fewer than 10–work in small rooms throughout the game area at the Center for Strategic Leadership, in Collins Hall, U.S. Army War College, Carlisle Barracks, here.
The IPTs are using the game to find capability gaps.
“For example, right now there is no doctrine in the Army on how to do strategic communication,” Harvey Perritt, deputy chief, Public Affairs at Army Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC), told Defense Daily.
Each IPT drives its own area of interest through issues and questions passed into the game scenario through the facilitators in each of the four regional wargame panels: AFRICOM Current, AFRICOM (Future), U.S. Pacific Command and U.S. Southern Command.
Panelists are unaware of this as they discuss their scenario.
For instance, strategic communication is a component in framing the campaign design of the AFRICOM (Future) panel, a piece of the puzzle as are ammunition loads, transportation and personnel, Perritt said. Campaign design is a broad approach to help a commander solve a problem linking tactical activity with strategic aims.
After the game is over, analysts at the Army’s Training and Doctrine Command Analysis Center at Ft. Leavenworth, Kan., will look at the results in each IPT-specific area.
This is the capability gap analysis, a formal document. That document moves on to an analysis of how to fill the gap(s), how much it will cost and how long it will take. The assessment stretches across doctrine, organizations, training, leader development, materiel, personnel and facilities.
Looking across these areas works out such things as where is the office, how it fits in the service hierarchies, how many people are needed, what training do they need, and a prime mover: costs.
“The capability gap analysis results in an Operational Needs Statement that is part of the requirement determination process,” Perritt said.
This is the same development process a new piece of equipment goes through.
Strategic communication is only one of the elements the Army is refining as it faces the uncertainties of a world of persistent conflict it sees in the future.
Results of the capability gap analysis for the IPTs could result in actionable recommendations for the Army chief of staff–as expected from Unified Quest 2008, or more work, analysis and further refinement.