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USJFCOM
and U.S. Marine Corps Co-sponsor Joint Urban Warrior 05
U.S.
Joint Forces Command and the U.S. Marine Corps are set to
co-sponsor the second Joint Urban Warrior seminar wargame
through May 26 at the Bolger Center in Potomac, Md.
By
JO1(SW/AW) Chris Hoffpauir
USJFCOM Public Affairs
(POTOMAC,
Md. - May 22, 2005) - U.S. Joint Forces Command and the U.S.
Marine Corps began co-sponsoring the Joint
Urban Warrior 05 (JUW05) seminar wargame here today.
It is the second in the JUW series of co-sponsored workshops,
seminars, and events designed to uncover and capture lessons
for future joint urban
operations (JUO) and runs through May 26.
The
goal of the series is to give joint and combined force commanders
a knowledge base for separating adversaries from the rest
of the population and minimizing unnecessary destructive effects.
Additionally,
lessons from JUW 05 will improve the design of future urban
experiments, influence ongoing development of the Joint Urban
Training Strategy, and suggest improvements to the Department
of Defense Joint Urban Operations master plan.
According
to Don Streetman of USJFCOM's Joint Experimentation Directorate,
JUW05 is intended to provide a vehicle for communicating and
integrating the activities of the different services and agencies
addressing urban operations concept development and experimentation.
"We'll
have a wide range of participants," Streetman said, "including
all armed services, multinational partners, and the intelligence
and interagency communities."
Additionally,
Department of Defense organizations, non-governmental organizations
and private volunteer organizations will explore a scenario
that includes combat, stability, and support as well as humanitarian
operations.
"We
recognize not every problem is going to be solved by military
action," Streetman said. "We have to look at this
in terms of what instrument of national power is best applied
to get to the end state or solution that we want."
Air
Force Lt. Col. Ron Rosenkranz, USJFCOM's military lead for
JUW05, agreed the mission doesn't end at finding and defeating
the enemy.
"The
traditional battlefield still exists," Rosenkranz said,
"but in an urban environment a lot of that gets blurred
or isn't applicable because it's such a different environment.
Adversaries aren't always dressed in uniforms, so the problem
of identifying them is much more difficult."
"The
warfighter who defeated the enemy now has different responsibilities,"
said Rosenkranz. "He's inherited the city's functions
because the folks who were in charge have left town. He's
got to fill that void before the bad guys do or chaos will
reign."
Rosenkranz
said an essential element of urban operations is allowing
the populace to return to daily life.
Streetman
said JUW05 builds on last year's wargame, JUW04, and continues
exploring, developing, and assessing innovative operational,
organizational, and command relationships and approaches for
conducting joint, combined, and interagency urban operations.
"We're
not starting with a blank sheet of paper," Streetman
said. "There are a lot of people coming back who participated
in JUW04. They have pressing concerns about urban warfare.
They're experts and it gives them opportunity to learn and
flex the concepts they're working on."
In
addition to studying concepts for conduct of combat, stability
and support, and humanitarian operations in an urban environment,
JUW05 will focus on coalition and interagency coordination,
integration, and interoperability.
Participants
will be organized into three 'Blue Cells,' or operational
planning teams.
"We'll
have two teams that'll be looking at the near-term, the 2007
time frame," Streetman said. "The third is going
to be looking at the 2015 timeframe.
"They're
going to organize the way they see fit, because we're looking
for innovative approaches to the organization of staffs and
incorporating interagency and multinational participants.
Each of the cells will probably come up with something different."
"The
primary military planners are in those three cells,"
Rosenkranz said. "The first two will use current capabilities
and planning techniques. The difference between them is that
the first cell will be led by an active duty U.S. Marine colonel.
The second cell will be led by a British Army colonel, so
we'll instantly get an international perspective.
"The
multinational piece is important. We often look at an area
through our own eyes and we never really consider what an
allied officer might think about a certain situation. We all
have our own experiences.
According to Rosenkranz, the scenario places a combined task
force in a capital city to provide stability and support the
needs of a population in a 25 square kilometer area. The force
must keep the city's services functioning, plus combat insurgent
elements that have risen.
"We're
looking at how we would do this in 2015," Rosenkranz
said, "when our capabilities are changed or advanced.
What capabilities do we think we'll need to provide stability
operations and conduct joint urban operations?"
"There
will be standard planning and analysis, developing courses
of action directed toward what we're going to do," Streetman
said. "We're going to have some heavy thinkers there.
We're also going to have people who have very recent experience,
coming right out of Iraq or Afghanistan."
"We
expect a lot of good things to come out of the mid-level officers
coming in with fresh experiences and fresh ideas," Rosenkranz
said. "The benefit of this is bringing people together
from various communities and allowing their brainpower to
flow. What we're trying to do is advance concepts through
experimentation, so we can give commanders a spectrum of things
to consider in an urban environment."
According
to both Rosenkranz and Streetman, the results of JUW05 will
be fed back into the JUW series in preparation for JUW06 next
year.
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