By Ann Roosevelt
The four-star led combatant command U.S. Joint Forces Command (JFCOM) officially will come to a close at the end of August, while certain vital joint functions are gathered under the purview of the Joint Staff, the commander said.
“I do want to stress that this will be a different organization,” said Army Gen. Ray Odierno, JFCOM commander. “You don’t need a four-star command to do these things anymore– these things are still critical–but we certainly can do them in a more efficient and effective way, and I think that’s what we’re discovering.”
The centerpiece of the coming reorganization, Odierno said during a roundtable at the command Feb. 9, is centered on joint training, joint integration and joint concept and doctrine development.
“Concepts, doctrine, training and education are the driving forces that will sustain our joint forces and enable them to meet the many challenges that they face in the future,” he said.
Modeling and simulation will underpin experimentation and lessons learned as the joint efforts continue to work to better understand the environment.
The reorganized joint efforts will be linked under a two-star general officer, the deputy director of the Joint Staff J-7–Operational Plans and Joint Force Development. That officer will live in the Norfolk area.
That officer also will maintain links with NATO Allied Command Transformation, and other multinational force partners. Today there are 33 liaison officers from other militaries as part of JFCOM. Those officers will remain as part of the Joint Warfighting Center. Another 17 nations have requested to join the command and the program will continue, Odierno said.
Part of the command’s reorganization includes outlying organizations such as the Joint Warfare Analysis Center, Dahlgren, Va.; the Joint Personnel Recovery Agency, Ft. Belvoir, Va., and the Joint Communications and Support Element at McDill AFB, Tampa, Fla.; and the NATO School in Germany.
All will be realigned and reduced for efficiency and assigned to other combatant commands, Odierno said. No physical move for those organizations is planned.
Service components to JFCOM will revert to respective service control Aug. 1: Fleet Forces Command, Air Combat Command, Marine Forces Command, and Army Forces Command. About 51 percent of the JFCOM workforce will remain in Virginia, dropping from about 4,700 to about 2,425, Odierno said. Specific job details will be worked out in coming weeks. A workforce footprint of about 450 also will remain in Norfolk, about 1,450 in Suffolk, and about 1,900 in the Hampton Roads area down from about 3,800.
All command personnel moves will be completed by March 2012.
The president approved the disestablishment of the command Jan. 6. Odierno received guidance on the reorganization from Defense Secretary Robert Gates on Feb. 9.
During the next 30 days, Odierno must publish a detailed implementation plan for the changes and submit them to Gates (Defense Daily, Feb. 9).
“Going forward we are not simply trimming down each staff element, we are making a major departure from past organizational design, procedure and mindset to more effectively execute the core functions and sustain the jointness we’ve worked so hard to achieve in the past,” Odierno said.