News From USJFCOM: Joint Urban Warrior 05 provides catalyst for coordination in urban environments

Soldiers from the 940th Military Police Company, Kentucky Army National Guard, and Mongolian troops search for insurgents in Al Hillah, Iraq. (U.S. Army photo by Army Spc. Arthur D. Hamilton)

Joint Urban Warrior 05 provides catalyst for coordination in urban environments

Multinational forces, interagency and non-governmental communities examine the future of urban operations during Joint Urban Warrior 05.

By Jennifer Colaizzi
USJFCOM Public Affairs

(BOLGER CENTER, Md. - May 26, 2005) -- U.S. and coalition forces teamed with the interagency and non-governmental communities to explore and discuss ways to refine combat, stability, and humanitarian operations in the urban environment during the Joint Urban Warrior 05 (JUW 05) seminar wargame this week.

JUW 05, which concludes Friday, represents the second in a series of U.S. Joint Forces Command (USJFCOM)/U.S. Marine Corps co-sponsored wargames aimed at improving urban operations.

According to wargame planners, JUW 05 provides a vehicle for communicating and integrating service and agency activities in an urban environment.

Although several wargame participants have real-life experience in Iraq, the game, set in Baghdad, is not a reconstruction of Operation Iraqi Freedom according to wargame organizers.

Instead, planners said the game uses Baghdad as a backdrop because recent Iraqi operations provide a large base of demographic, infrastructure, and cultural knowledge, which is a vehicle for what circumstances may be presented and what lessons can be applied to future urban operations.

During JUW 05, participants focused on simultaneous combat, stability and humanitarian operations and coalition and interagency coordination and integration for two separate future urban operation scenarios, one for 2007 and one for 2015.

Wargame participants include: all the services, regional combatant commands, coalition partners, the Department of State, the U.S. Agency for International Development, the Defense Intelligence Agency, and other government entities.

Wargame participants agree that both friendly and adversarial tactics and technologies will be different in the next decade. Retired Marine Maj. Gen. John Admire, who headed the 2007 blue (friendly forces) cell, speculated on some of the technological advances during the wargame's media day.

"There's nothing new about an asymmetrical enemy" but 2015 could likely see a narrowing in the technological gap, said Admire.

He added that the future may hold kamikaze-type unmanned aerial vehicles and the ability to potentially block cell phone connections.

No matter what future technologies may hold in the terms of capability, participants agree that the success of future urban operations relies heavily on political end state planning and the idea that military units are not necessarily leading operations, but are often supporting operations.

Royal Marines Col. Nick Borwell, who led a second blue cell, commented that combat operations and stability and reconstruction operations are continuous and non-linear.

"Often the steps overlap," said Borwell. As combat operations morph into stability operations, "we need to provide the security" for the agencies and the non-governmental organizations which often support reconstruction efforts.

During the wargame, a strategic issues cell discussed the ways that preventative medicine and veterinarian services could create friendships or bonds with the people in country.

"Hey, you save my cat and I'd be appreciative," one participant joked.

Although many strategies were discussed, the wargame isn't about knowing all the answers, according to Admire.

"We are trying to get insights" and discover better ways to approach urban warfighting and the challenges of interagency coordination during and preceding the onset of urban operations, said Admire.

"When you are wrestling with interoperability issues" like figuring out if your tank can work with someone else's fuel, and "working with non-military actors" and attempting to understand how other nations approach operations, unity of purpose and information-exchange are important to reach a desired political end-state, which is a game objective, said another wargame participant.

JUW 05 acts as a catalyst for joint, combined, and interagency coordination, according to Amb. David Passage, who played in the wargame's Joint Interagency Coordination Group (JIACG).

He said that it was important to get agencies involved in the planning process as soon as possible.

"Our objective is to open the way for maximum interagency cooperation," said Passage.

According to Royal Army Brigadier Jeremy Thorn, he will return to England with interagency and non-governmental community coordination suggestions based on insights from JUW 05.

He and several other international officers agreed that it would be beneficial to hook their interagency groups up directly with the U.S. interagency groups.

Resolutions from problems encountered in JUW 05 will play out in Urban Resolve, which is scheduled for next fiscal year.