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| (ARLINGTON,
Va.) – U.S. Joint Forces Command's Air Force
Col. Terry Kono speaks to a media roundtable
at the Pentagon Oct. 18, 2006, about the ways they are
pushing the boundaries of how the military operates.
While he was speaking, one of the buildings in the Urban
Resolve 2015 (UR2015) environment happened to get blown
up setting off sensors and alerting the real people participating
in the event. UR2015 involves over 1000 people and 19
different sites across the country and explores ways
that the military can improve operating in an urban environment
as well as its role in stability and reconstruction operations.
The people involved with UR2015's series of three "human-in-the-loop" sessions,
are the "live" portion of the "Live, Virtual,
and Constructed" experiment which uses models and
simulations to replicate real-world geography and structures – in
some cases down to the centimeter.(Photo by Air Force
Staff Sgt. Bryan D. Axtell)(RELEASED) |
Command's
experiment bringing focus to urban challenges
During
Urban Resolve 2015, U.S. Joint Forces Command and partners
from across the services and the government are aiming to examine
the challenges which come with operating in cities.
By
Jim Garamone
American Forces Press Service
(WASHINGTON
- Oct. 19, 2006) -- U.S. Joint Forces Command is
in the midst of the most important and complex experiment
the command has conducted since Millennium Challenge
in 2002, officials said here yesterday.
The experiment is Urban Resolve 2015 and is designed to
test solutions for that most complicated warfighting task:
combat in cities.
Dave Ozolek, executive director of the Joint
Futures Lab at the command, said the experiment is designed to examine
solutions for current and future gaps in warfighting capabilities.
He
said the experiment is enabling the command to get inside
two concepts. First, how does the U.S. military operate
in the new urban environment? "Ten years ago,
we saw the (military) operating space as the great plains
of Europe and the deserts, and we basically avoided operating
in the urban environment," Ozolek said. "That's
no longer possible. That's where the fight is, that's where
the enemy is, that where the center of gravity for the
whole operation is."
This
is more than the old military operations in urban terrain
that the armed forces practiced for years. "We
need a new approach, because the environment is not only
terrain, it's infrastructure, it's culture, it's governance,
it's rule of law, it's legality, food, water, fire and
safety and all of those things that make up a complex environment
of a city," he said.
The
military must make the urban environment "toxic" to
the enemy and achieve success in ways other than trying
to hunt them down one at a time and kill them, he said.
The
second concept is stabilization operations. How does
the military stabilize the situation in a city, transition
to local control and rebuild a shattered economy? "How
do we bring safety and security to the city without destroying
it?" Ozolek asked.
The experiment takes place in Baghdad, but it could be
any urban environment. The scenario is five days of major
combat operations, followed by 30 days of stability operations.
An insurgency arises that requires a joint task force.
The joint task force now faces the threat.
More
than 1,400 people around the United States have worked
on and operated the experiment. The main place is the
command's Joint
Experimentation Directorate in Suffolk,
Va., but the Army, Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps have
integrated their systems into the U.S. Joint Forces Command
system for it. Representatives from 12 nations are participating,
as well as members of other federal agencies, such as the
State Department, Commerce and Justice.
The experiment is testing seven solutions for urban operations
capability gaps, according to Air Force Col. Terry Kono,
head of experimentation and design at the command.
The
population is the center of gravity for any urban operation,
Kono said. "The urban operations concept
breaks into two ideas: isolating the adversary, controlling
the urban environment," he said.
The experiment plugs the seven solution sets into the
scenario. The first is a Joint Command Post of the Future.
The experiment will examine ways to improve joint force
collaboration and provide the tools needed for commanders
and their staffs to operate in the environment.
A second solution is the Communication Strategy Board.
This enables commanders to develop a coherent communications
strategy using information operations, public affairs,
special staffs and other to influence public opinion and
keep all populations informed.
A third solution is the Joint Intelligence Operations
Center. This is essentially a merger of an intelligence
center and an operations center. Divisions in Iraq are
already moving in this direction and are integrating the
two separate staffs into one.
A fourth solution is the Joint Urban Operations Surveillance
System. These are network-controlled, long-duration, unmanned
aerial vehicles that can be used for continuous and persistent
surveillance. It could, for example, backtrack a vehicle
used in a car bomb attack.
Fifth, Predictive Analysis. This is modeling that commanders
can use to assess decisions.
Sixth, Integrated Chemical, Biological, Radiological and
Nuclear Defense. The year is 2015 and the predictions are
that a terror group would possess a chemical or biological
weapon. The U.S. military needs to understand what it has
to do to protect a city under such a threat.
And finally, Tags. These are radio frequency vehicle tags,
personnel identification and invisible tags that can be
used to track critical targets and activities.
The experiment ends Oct. 27, but the analysis should be
very quick to turn around, Ozolek said. Urban Resolve 2015
took about a year and $25 million to set up. Millennium
Challenge, conducted in 2002, took about three years to
set up and cost about $250 million.
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