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| 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.
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