The RMA and the Interagency

The Joint Staff knows why interagency coordination does not occur. According to a Joint Staff memorandum, “in the past it has been extremely difficult to achieve coordinated interdepartmental planning” for two reasons: other agencies of the U. S. government do not understand “systematic planning procedures” and each agency has its own approach to solving problems. The State Department, for example, values flexibility and its ability to respond to daily changes in a situation more than it does planning, while the CIA is reluctant to coordinate for security reasons and USIA holds Defense and the CIA at arm’s length for fear that it will be seen as a mere dispenser of propaganda. If we are to have interagency coordination, the memorandum warns, “these inhibitions of other governmental agencies must in some way be overcome.” Furthermore, the Joint Staff has been aware of the obstacles to interagency coordination for a long time. The memorandum just quoted was written in 1961. This longstanding concern helps explain, no doubt, the worry expressed when the military contemplates the future. A report on Army After Next (AAN) experimentation comments that “the diversity of the interagency, with each agency having its own culture, hierarchy, bias, misperceptions, and unique perspectives, makes unity of effort difficult.” These problems, compounded by “low technical and procedural interoperability, and the absence of a common vision” create “formidable obstacles” to interagency coordination. The Joint Staff’s standard briefing for JV 2010 is less explicit about the causes of interagency problems. Nevertheless, by listing as endstates for reform such items as an “integrated pol-mil plan before execution; an effective, integrated, proactive, quick-reacting unified action process; integrated policy decisions and execution process across the spectrum of conflict; [and] a national security vision,” it implies agreement with the AAN assessment that diversity among agencies of the U.S. government has produced a lack of integration and unity. The military is worried about the interagency because of the demands that a Revolution in Military Affairs (RMA) would place on the interagency process. If an RMA occurs in the years to come, it will be led by advances in sensor, communication and information processing technology that will allow our forces to see and attack the enemy throughout the depth and height of the battle space. That the enemy will see our forces almost as well as we see theirs will require that we attack from dispersed or remote positions with stunning speed. Knowledge and speed will allow us to achieve “the near simultaneous application of combat power against key elements within the enemy’s entire zone of operations.” The result will be the disintegration of the enemy’s forces. Such disintegration is more likely to occur or to be more valuable strategically and politically, if we can enter the theatre of operations before the enemy has established himself fully or achieved his objectives. Such rapid strategic maneuver may result in