What USJFCOM Does

What is USJFCOM?

Force Provider

Joint Trainer

Joint Capability Development

Joint Enabling Capabilities

Joint Concept Development and Experimentation

Reserve & Command Support

Follow Us (Link will open in a new window)

USJFCOM news service
USJFCOM on Facebook
USJFCOM on Flickr
USJFCOM on Twitter
USJFCOMLive - USJFCOM's Official Blog
	About USJFCOM News RSS

Learn More

Joint Operating Environment (JOE 2008)

Joint Concept Development and Experimentation Directorate

About Joint Operations Concepts

Recent Experimentation News

Experiment looks to inform future joint force operations USJFCOM's Joint Concept Development and Experimentation Directorate recently completed an experiment to develop and assess processes and technical capabilities to improve the execution of joint future joint distributed operations. The experiment, running for almost two years and ending soon, brought a human element together with previous simulations conducted during the project. • Comment on this article at USJFCOMLive

Capstone Concept for Joint Operations (CCJO)

The Capstone Concept for Joint Operations (CCJO) describes in broad, conceptual terms the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff’s vision of how the future joint force will operate in complex, changing and uncertain environments.  It is informed by the Joint Operating Environment, which outlines the strategic framework that forecasts possible threats and opportunities that will challenge the joint force in the future.

The three guiding ideas are to address each situation on its own terms in its unique political and strategic context, conduct a combination of combat, security, engagement, and relief and reconstruction activities tailored to the situation, and assess results in relation to expectations and modify accordingly.  The CCJO defines how the joint force will deal with those three challenges.  

The CCJO’s primary purpose is to inform U.S. force development and employment.  It also establishes a common framework for military professionals to contemplate joint operations and describes future joint operations to policy makers and others.

The CCJO advances 10 precepts which underlie successful future joint operations:

• Achieve and maintain unity of effort within the joint force as well as between it and the U.S. government, international and other partners
• Plan and manage operational transitions over time and space
• Focus on operational objectives that achieve the broadest and most enduring results
• Combine joint capabilities to maximize complementary – rather than additive – effects
• Avoid combining capabilities when doing so adds complexity without clear advantage
• Drive synergy to the lowest echelon at which it can be managed effectively
• Operate indirectly through partners to the extent that each situation permits
• Ensure operational freedom of action
• Maintain operational and organizational flexibility
• Inform domestic audiences and influence the perceptions and attitudes of key foreign audiences as an explicit and continuous operational requirement

The four military activities described in the CCJO – combat, security, engagement, and relief and reconstruction – are the basis for CCJO activity concepts.  These concepts will provide a detailed description of these activities for use in the development of joint and service concepts and inform doctrine and force development areas.

• Download the CCJO (Opens in a new window and requires Adobe Acrobat)
• Download this page as a printable fact sheet (Opens in a new window and requires Adobe Acrobat)