 Newsmaker
Profile: Duane Schattle
After
decades of experience with open-field warfare, the
U.S. military has realized that a majority of future
operational missions will likely migrate into urban
areas. Faced with U.S. forces operating in cities,
U.S. Joint Forces Command is focused on designing and
implementing successful joint warfighting processes
and capabilities for urban environments. As part of
a continuing series allowing command personnel to highlight
command priorities, challenges, and solution paths
for the future within their field, Duane Schattle,
who heads the command’s joint urban operations
office, discusses the challenges of urban operations
as part of an ongoing series of articles profiling
command leaders who are helping to deliver solutions
to joint warfighters.
By Jennifer Colaizzi
USJFCOM Public Affairs
(SUFFOLK, Va. – March 31, 2006) – As
military operations migrate to urban areas, U.S. Joint
Forces Command (USJFCOM)
is engaged in efforts designed to equip and train joint warfighters
to operate in cities.
In
2003, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld designated
USJFCOM as the executive agent for improving joint urban
operations
capabilities across the Department of Defense. This includes
working issues and initiatives in policy, concept development
and experimentation, training, multinational engagement,
warfighting, humanitarian assistance, and peace keeping.
With
the mission of overseeing improved capability for urban
operations, USJFCOM has greatly expanded its urban
operations
staff, as well as its partnerships with other agencies
and military organizations over the last two years.
Duane Schattle, a retired Marine infantry lieutenant
colonel, worked urban operations issues at the Pentagon
for several
years before assuming the role of deputy director for
USJFCOM’s
joint urban operations
(JUO) office.
As
the lead urban operations person at the command, he has
the responsibility
of overseeing command projects
and partnerships
designed to improve urban operations while working
to ensure the integrity of vital urban infrastructure,
and
the safety
of city-dwelling non-combatants.
Q:
What’s the purpose of the Joint Urban Operations
Office?
A: Our task is to bring together all things urban, identify
capabilities worth improving and areas where we think there
are gaps, and take that information to the Joint Requirements
Oversight Council (JROC) with recommendations for what
we should do and where we should proceed. We have very
broad, far reaching tentacles to capture what urban capabilities
are out there and what people are doing.
Since 2003, the office has grown from two to 15 people
but urban operations program resources also support embeds
throughout USJFCOM and DOD. For example, we have five people
in the Joint Training Directorate
(J7) working training
initiatives that relate to urban operations; 10-manyears
worth of people in Joint Experimentation
Directorate (J9) doing concept development, urban experimentation, multinational
engagement, and prototyping work related to urban operations;
several people embedded in the Intelligence
Directorate (J2) and one individual in the Joint
Center for Operational Analysis (JCOA) to focus on urban specific lessons learned.
The idea is to use the resources that came with the office
and mission and embed people across USJFCOM and other DOD
areas.
Beyond
USJFCOM, we have embedded contractor support in each
of the four services, to assist the assigned two-star
JUO senior advisory committee members responsible within
their respective services for all things urban; we have
also assigned embeds in the Joint Non-lethal Weapons Directorate
in Washington, and part time support in the Office of Naval
Research, Office of the Secretary of Defense for Science
and Technology (OSD S&T), and Office of the Secretary
of Defense for Advanced Systems and Concepts (OSD AS&C).
Plans include expanding our outreach to Special Operations
Command (SOCOM) and U.S. Northern Command (NORTHCOM) later
this year.
Q: What are some things we are working on?
A: In the near-term, in our joint training strategy, we
are putting a special emphasis on cultural awareness. When
we collectively operate in a different culture, it is necessary
to understand the culture and we are coordinating with
multinational partners to increase cultural awareness and
understanding.
But,
it goes beyond standard military roles, to develop a
better understanding of operating in cities. There are
diplomatic, informational, and intelligence roles. Additionally,
in terms of stability operations, we need to coordinate
with non-government organizations (NGOs). It’s basically
about thinking jointly.
We
are also working future capabilities. In the Urban Resolve
2015 experiment, we’re looking at how we
might improve urban operations by perhaps operating differently
with future technology, a future way of thinking, and future
capabilities.
Because operating in cities has broad implications, those
near-term and future capabilities we find useful through
insights found in our experiments, are being shared with
NORTHCOM and others for appropriate leverage and use in
homeland security missions. Some examples include findings
in areas such as sharing intelligence, surveillance, and
reconnaissance, command and control capabilities etc.
Q: So urban operations is more than combat?
A: Through lessons learned, we know that the three-block
war many people have discussed over the years is a reality.
The term three-block is a metaphor to describe scenarios
where troops are engaged in a spectrum of operations, from
humanitarian missions, through peacekeeping and peace enforcement-type
actions, to full-blown combat -- possibly within the space
of three city blocks.
To
successfully wage such a war requires transitioning between
its three elements as smoothly and
seamlessly as possible highlighting the relationship
between peace keeping and peace enforcement. We believe
that the
future is going to be more about urban than less about
urban. No one wants to operate in the open against us.
What’s happening is our adversaries are gravitating
toward cities and blending in with populations and with
the infrastructure. It’s hard to find them, and once
you do find them – to separate them from non-combatants
and civilians. It’s hard to go after them without
damage to infrastructure and damage to other people and
there is a challenge with line-of-sight intelligence gathering.
Our adversaries are moving to cities and taking up asymmetric
strategies. The Global War on Terrorism is a perfect example
of a global asymmetrical threat in urban areas.
But
urban operations are more than fighting; it’s
humanitarian assistance and transition between the two.
The best way to describe it is: before the weapons are
cold, military commanders are already doing things that
mayors would do. They address humanitarian assistance and
relief problems. Overnight they go from combat operations
to mayoral duties, like providing medical care for civilians,
turning the water back on, getting the sewage system to
work.
Q: How do you train for these types of activities?
A: We are trying to capture how, from an operational perspective,
to train a force to handle the three-block war. How do
you provide the right operational level capabilities and
weapons? Do you need a bigger mix of non-lethal weapons,
networked intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance,
more precise kinetic capabilities? What capabilities do
we need that we do not currently have to get the effect
we are pursuing?
We
are currently identifying lessons learned and attempting
to address problem areas through training, experimentation
and the use of new technologies. Through experimentation
we produce insights to pursue capabilities that we didn’t
have before.
Prior
to 2004, we couldn’t do detailed modeling
and simulations (M&S) in a major city with millions
of entities. But during our initial urban experimentation
in 2004, we tied a number of M&Ss to super computers
which for the first time allowed us to build a synthetic
urban environment with millions of entities. Now, we are
providing tools based on what we find in these experiments
to the troops in theater.
Q: Could you address the difference between now and future
urban operations?
A:
We’re looking at 2015 and determining if there
are capabilities that might be possible in 2015 but aren’t
available today. For example, are there ways to gather
information and intelligence through different types of
sensors that we might have the capability to use in 2015?
If so, how would we network it? Would it make a difference,
or are current capabilities good enough?
In
the 2015 experiments, we’re reviewing what types
of non-lethal capabilities might be effective. Maybe they
aren’t, but we won’t know until we answer questions
like whether or not a mix of lethal and non-lethal weapons
are more effective?
We’re comparing capabilities we have now in relation
to the effect it would have in the urban area. Does it
accomplish the mission? What’s the collateral damage?
Can we do it more effectively with another system? Do we
need to be more precise? Less kinetic? All these things,
we are trying to discover for future. It’s not just
about warfighting – it’s about all urban operations.
Q: So people should think of urban operations
as “beyond
the warfighter?” What you’re saying is that
urban operations is an integration with non-government
agencies?
A:
Right. If you were doing it right, you’d want
to be able to operate in the city and not have accidental
damage to infrastructure, so you don’t have to
rebuild it.
The
same thing with civilians - we don’t want to
hurt civilians. It is a complication. The question is -
can we go after the bad guys and not destroy the infrastructure?
Or, do it in limited fashion – so, we don’t
turn the population against us? They’re the real
challenge.
Q: Do you pull on all the elements of Diplomatic, Information,
Military and Economic (DIME)?
A:
Yes, it’s about DIME and having an interagency
group that is supported by military action. It’s
shaping the battlefield before you go - setting the right
conditions and executing it in a military manner that doesn’t
work against or perhaps defeat the purpose of the strategy/policy.
In
Vietnam, you heard a lot of “destroy the city
to save it.” But flattening a city doesn’t
necessarily equate to success. You might be able to flatten
the city, but what does that do to the population? What’s
it do to public opinion?
We’re discovering that there are steps beyond the
military fight. We are dealing with those implications
and maybe in the future we can do a better job. It takes
an integrated plan and it’s about DIME.
Q: I’ve heard you mention that during urban warfare,
a soldier on the ground might do something that blurs the
operational/strategic lines. What does that mean and why
is it so important?
A:
One thing that has become abundantly clear in urban area
operations is the idea of “a strategic corporal.” In
the past, during open-field warfare, it was easy to separate
the tactical (warfighter), operational (joint force commander
(JTF)), and strategic (president, national command authority,
and 4-star) levels.
In
urban environments it all collapses. It’s all
the same. For example, if a guy at the tactical level feels
threatened and takes action against a crowd, it could have
a strategic impact all the way back to Washington. I’ll
make something up. He throws a hand grenade, it shows up
on the news – that’s bad. But, what happens
if it occurs in a mosque, then it has implications across
the entire region perhaps globally. It is this type of
complexity which could very well require the president
to take action.
That’s why doing operations in cities is so difficult;
the lines between, strategic, operational and tactical
are blurred. You can’t do one without the other.
Therefore, we need to build capabilities that allow the
tactical guy to do his job in an operational context and
have the right strategic effect.
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