News From USJFCOM: USJFCOM hosts summit examining strategic communication exercise and training support


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USJFCOM hosts summit examining strategic communication exercise and training support

U.S. Joint Forces Command (USJFCOM) hosted the Office of the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Joint Communication's first strategic communication exercise and training support summit.

By Susy Dodson
USJFCOM Public Affairs

(SUFFOLK, Va. - March 5, 2009) -- U.S. Joint Forces Command (USJFCOM) hosted the Office of the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense Joint Communication's (ODASD (JC)) first Strategic Communication Exercise and Training Support Summit here last week.

The summit brought joint warfighters, trainers, exercise designers, planners and combatant commands strategic communication representatives together to create open dialogue, explore and partner on better ways to include strategic communication training into combatant command exercises.

Navy Capt. Hal Pittman, USJFCOM's Joint Public Affairs Support Element commander, said the participants came from the various combatant commands to learn from each other how strategic communication processes work and determine the best way to insert strategic communication into major military exercises.

"It works differently in every combatant command, but the intent here is to be able to kind of glean some best practices and look at how we can inject those best practices into the exercise program," Pittman said.

According to Pittman, the simple definition of strategic communication is a process that aligns actions, words and images with the intent to achieve a desired outcome or effect.

Army Brig. Gen. Sanford E. Holman, USJFCOM's Joint Warfighting Center vice commander, began the event with a keynote address on the benefits of incorporating strategic communication throughout the various components of the training cycle.

Holman spoke about current and future communication strategy efforts underway at USJFCOM to develop an "interlaced strategic communication" asset for the joint commander and warfighter.

"We are stimulating strategic communication in the exercises we support," said Holman. "There is much more work to be done in this area and this summit will help us improve our future exercise support."

The summit included several presentations ranging from strategic communication lessons learned during recent combatant command exercises to the use of visual imagery as an effective component of strategic communication. Breakout sessions during the summit focused on strategic communication in recent exercises, exercise design, assessment of the joint exercise control groups' role, and training objectives.

Summit participants also provided recommended changes to current strategic communication strategies and to the universal joint task list (UJTL) for strategic communication. The UJTL is a common language and point of reference for joint force commanders, combat support agencies, operational planners, combat developers, and trainers to establish a baseline for critical tasks used as training requirements to drive exercise scenario development.

"We train like we fight, so ensuring realistic training scenarios and creating realistic training on how we do communication processes at the combatant command or JTF [joint task force] level is absolutely necessary," Pittman said. "We can always improve our unity of effort with regards to communication and being able to horizontally integrate actions, words and images. We're looking at how we integrate all those actions that have communication ramifications, and how they are included in the exercise development process."

Summit organizers will use participant recommendations to improve strategic communication integration training in future joint force exercises.