News From USJFCOM: USJFCOM and Joint Forces Staff College partner for joint C4I education

C4I collage USJFCOM and Joint Forces Staff College partner for joint C4I education

U.S. Joint Forces Command and the Joint Forces Staff College are continuing their partnership of working together to deliver joint command, control, communications, computers, and intelligence (C4I) instruction to joint task force and combatant command C4I decision makers.

By Jennifer Colaizzi
USJFCOM Public Affairs

(NORFOLK, Va. – Feb. 3, 2006) -- U.S. Joint Forces Command (USJFCOM) and the Joint Forces Staff College (JFSC) continue their partnership of working together to deliver joint command, control, communications, computers, and intelligence (JC4I) instruction to joint task force (JTF) and combatant command C4I decision makers and leaders.

“Today’s working relationship between JFSC and the USJFCOM is growing larger everyday. In many aspects the JFSC and USJFCOM mission roles parallel each other, said Army Maj. Gen. Kenneth J. Quinlan, JFSC commandant.

“USJFCOM’s responsibilities to prepare joint task force staffs for duty in a theater of operation, capture lessons learned, to include evolving concepts and joint doctrine is a natural match with JFSC’s mission to train and educate joint staff officers to operate in a complex 21st century world. JC4I is but one of many areas of collaboration ongoing today; the future will increasingly include more,” said Quinlan.

“Working with joint professional military education programs is an important aspect of USJFCOM's global joint force trainer responsibilities,,” said Marine Corps Maj. Gen. Jon A. Gallinetti, USJFCOM’s director of joint training and commander of the command’s Joint Warfighting Center. “Our individual and collective joint training support focuses on fully preparing warfighters for their role in the joint environment, in large part, by incorporating lessons learned from today's operations. The overarching purpose is to help them fully understand and be prepared to engage in today's real-world operations involving joint, multinational, interagency, and non-governmental partners.”

“JFSC curriculum developers and instructors interact with multiple directorates within USJFCOM almost every day and are continuing to expand our relationship, especially in the area of C4I,” said Army Lt. Col. Robert Casper, an instructor at the Joint C4I Staff and Operations Course (JC4ISOC).

“USJFCOM supports the college’s curriculum and lesson plans by hosting local site visits and providing subject matter expert (SME) guest speakers in all the areas of joint C4I,” said Casper, himself a former USJFCOM staff member.

As the concept of net centric operations evolves, communications and intelligence systems capabilities are more important than ever, and according to Casper, the JC4ISOC keeps communications and intelligence systems professionals abreast of the newest technologies and doctrine.

Students in the three-week JC4ISOC not only receive briefings from various USJFCOM and Department of Defense (DoD) agency SMEs, they also visit USJFCOM’s Joint Warfighting Center, the Joint Futures Laboratory, and the Joint Systems Integration Command, all located in Suffolk, Va.

At these locations, students receive instruction and demonstrations from personnel who specialize in transforming joint force command, control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (C4ISR) concepts and capabilities.

The most recent partnering effort between USJFCOM and JFSC is the introduction in January of a new block of instruction provided by USJFCOM to the current JC4ISOC class - the Joint Capabilities Mapping Environment (JCME) architecture tool - which is currently gaining momentum across DoD for its ability to assist JTF commanders organize and man their JTF through the use of integrated architectures, Casper said.

JCME provides for a net-centric, web-enabled, extensible, collaborative enterprise from which all stakeholders can re-utilize architectural information to develop, analyze, test/assess, exercise, and plan for current and future military capabilities within a standardized business process tool suite.

“ We are grateful to JFSC for allowing us to provide information on the Joint Battle Management Command and Control (JBMC2) JCME to their students. Once these leaders learn of the enriched data that is available in JCME, we hope that we get requests for access and reuse of this information from all over the Department of Defense,” said Kim Frisby, deputy JBMC2 integrated architectures and systems engineering division at USJFCOM.

“We believe that JCME provides the key to more rapid and efficient stand-up of JTFs, as well as a way to help us resolve long-standing joint integration and interoperability issues. However, we have always sought a market-driven demand for our product,” said Frisby.

Frisby said exposing JFSC students to JCME supports this approach.

" The more personnel who can take advantage of the hard work that has already gone into the development of this data, and who can help us extend and improve it -- the quicker this information will be disseminated to the joint warfighters who need it,” she said.

“When USJFCOM brings cutting edge concepts such as JCME into our classrooms, students can learn the concept from an SME and see for themselves the benefit of having a tool like that at their command,” said Casper.

He went on to explain how the JFSC, a component of the National Defense University, educates and prepares joint and multinational warfighters to plan and lead at the operational level of war. Current operational tempo makes it increasing difficult for a combatant command (COCOM) to send key staff to Norfolk for a three-week course.

Casper said that he and his staff are continually exploring opportunities to make their training and education more exportable and accessible to the people who need it.

The JFSC is currently coordinating with several COCOM staffs to bring their product directly to the COCOM location through the use of the mobile training team concept.

“Mobile C4I training teams appear to be a sound means for the JC4ISOC to get it’s expertise to the edge”, said Casper, who indicated that his team should be deployed on their first mobile training mission by this spring.

Former students indicate that the course provides them a broad and valuable understanding of current joint C4I systems, technology, and doctrine.

"I attended the course nearly a year ago, but it remains relevant. For example, in today’s telecom environment, while I've listened to someone brief a certain system or communications-related topic, I've made the connection on how what they’re talking about impacts me or other systems in JC4I, because I heard about it in JC4ISOC,” said Air Force Maj. Gene Mattingly, who works with special communications links in the Global Information Grid (GIG) combat support directorate of the Defense Information Systems Agency.

“That breadth of knowledge is really empowering in our field,” said Mattingly. “As fast as technology changes, it’s a course worth taking every few years – to remain educated on the day's key JC4I issues."

“The course, geared for those slated for billets on a JTF or combatant command staff, isn’t just for communications and intelligence specialists. It is also for operators going into C4I related billets - for example, the career helicopter pilot being assigned to a combatant command J6 billet,” said Casper.

Upcoming JC4ISOC courses are scheduled for:

27 Feb. – 17 Mar.
24 Apr. – 12 May
30 May – 16 Jun.
10 Jul. – 28 Jul.
14 Aug. – 1 Sept.

Other classes that USJFCOM and JFSC are partnering on include:

• Joint Advanced Warfighting School
• Joint Combined Warfighting School JPME-II
• Joint, Interagency, and Multinational Planner's Course
• Joint Planning Orientation Course
• Joint Transition Course