Joint cooperation makes the Armed Forces a stonger team

  • Published
  • By Navy Capt. Peter Rush
  • Naval Air Facility Misawa
MISAWA AIR BASE, Japan --  There is probably not a one of us who hasn't shared in inter-service rivalries (USN vs. USAF) and intra-service rivalries such as USN (Aviation vs. Ships vs. Subs). Many of those rivalries were good spirited in nature and tend to focus on pride in ones own service. At the Pentagon level, those rivalries however lead to severe service infighting and bickering as the service chiefs fought for limited resources and budgets to ensure their service got what they wanted. On a strategic level, those service rivalries have lead to shaping war fighting campaigns and none were more high visibility than those between Admiral Nimitz and General McArthur who both tried to sway the president on the overall righteousness of their plans to fight the war. Of course, you can probably guess which officer's plan favored a Naval approach and which officer favored an Army approach to the problem. Those rivalries continued after the war and even more so with the creation of the USAF (Happy 60th!) in 1947. 

Over the years as technology changed, the way we fought wars changed, and the overall size of the forces decreased, those service rivalries began to take their toll in unintended ways. Our doctrine was different, our training was different, our equipment and how we acquired it was different and maybe most dangerously; our thinking and priorities were
different. In many cases service specific issues and leadership fought more vigorously against each other than the enemy. In many cases we failed to achieve our nations tasking due to a lack of understanding and coordination between our forces. We lacked jointness throughout and no one service could brag about themselves or point at any other service's deficiencies without highlighting their own. 

Many visionary civilian and military leaders saw these divides and took legislative and military leadership action to correct them and mandate a new approach to joint war fighting and education and that corrective action continues to this day. 

Under revised joint legislation, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff is the president's primary uniformed military advisor vice any single specific service. The services are still tasked to train and equip their individual service, but the war fighting requirements and use of those forces lies in the hands of the area combatant commander regardless of what service uniform that commander wears. For example, the Chief of Naval Operations has no operational control over our fighting ships at sea. It's the Combatant Commander Admirals and Generals in areas like Central Command, Pacific Command, Southern Command, etc, who have that operational control and direct them as their vision and strategy directs in harmony with that commanders air and ground campaign vision. 

Today we have Staff, War, and Joint Colleges where you'd be hard pressed to not see officers from each of the services, and those from allied nations in each class. We have educational requirements all officers must complete if they expect to move up the leadership ladder. This training provides a bedrock foundation for younger leaders to develop those personal relationships and understanding of what each service can bring to the fight. 

Here at Misawa, many look at us as a model of jointness. That's only partially true. The Navy and Army benefit greatly from a relatively seamless and transparent USAF approach to supporting our working and living at Misawa. We do jointly occupy the base but our joint war fighting interoperability has been naturally limited due the 35th Fighter Wing mission and F-16 centric ops being so different from the predominantly P-3 centric ops of the Navy. We do however participate in joint meetings, community relations events, and several logistic, Force Protection, environmental and medical related areas to name a few. 

Both Misawa Navy and Air Force leadership are exploring ways to find and increase those areas of joint cooperation, which will make us a stronger team. Some initial planning and training steps are focused on leading the base in the event of a natural or man-made disaster. 

The bottom line is joint is the wave and we'd ride it a lot better if we accept it as the right way to do business. No one knows better than those of us far away from Washington, D.C. and in the field the power of solid teamwork. As we continue to develop new ideas and ways to work more closely here at Misawa, it's incumbent upon each of us to help each other and disregard the color of uniform. Our training can be different but our nation expects us to work together to achieve a common goal. 

We have all seen and know that diversity in our culture can divide and separate us if we let it. We also know for a fact that combining each of those unique talents, ideas and backgrounds each of us brings to the fight makes us a stronger team. The same can be said of jointness which harnesses the strengths of each service to achieve a synergistic effect no enemy can defeat. That should be our goal at Misawa as we work together. 

Don't forget, there are people out there who hate you, our way of life and our nation and they don't care what color uniform you wear.