Decisions on Air Power Programs and Priorities Require Comprehensive Joint studies were still underway or the results were under consideration within DOD at the completion of our review. New Oversight Since the spring of 1994, the Chairman and Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff have taken steps to implement a process to assess U.S. warfighting needs and capabilities from a joint perspective. This process, which has centered around the JROC, is intended to provide the Chairman, and ultimately the Secretary of Defense and the Congress, with a joint view on program and budget issues. Both the Chairman and Vice Chairman recognized that the requirements generation and resource allocation processes depended heavily on each service's assessment of its individual needs and priorities and that requirements had not been sufficiently reviewed from a joint perspective. In response to these concerns, the JROC's role was expanded and a new process to assess warfighting capabilities from a joint mission perspective was established to support the JROC's deliberations. While this process has contributed to changes that should improve joint warfighting, its role is still evolving, and its impact on air power programs and budgets has been limited. JROC's Role Has Expanded Between 1986 and 1994, the JROC served as the principal forum for senior military leaders to review and validate mission need statements for major defense acquisition programs. Approved mission statements are reviewed by the Defense Acquisition Board, which decides whether concept studies of solutions should be performed. In early 1994, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff directed the Vice Chairman to expand the JROC charter to more fully support the Chairman in executing his statutory responsibilities. In addition to validating mission needs statements for major defense acquisition programs, Council responsibilities now include assisting the Chairman in (1) assessing joint warfighting capabilities, (2) assigning a joint priority among major weapons meeting valid requirements, and (3) assessing the extent to which the military departments' program recommendations and budget proposals conform with established priorities. Under the Fiscal Year 1996 Defense Authorization Act, title 10 of U.S. Code was amended to include the JROC and its functions. The function of assigning priorities was revised and expanded through this legislation to include assisting the Chairman in identifying and assessing the priority of joint military requirements Decisions on Air Power Programs and Priorities Require Comprehensive Joint (including existing systems and equipment), ensuring that the assignment of priorities conforms to and reflects resource levels projected by the Secretary of Defense. Additionally, the JROC's responsibilities were further expanded to include assisting the Chairman in considering the relative costs and benefits of alternatives to acquisition programs aimed at meeting identified military requirements. Figure 5.1 shows the JROC's expanded responsibilities. The Fiscal Year 1996 Defense Authorization Act also designated the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff as the Chairman of the JROC. Other Council members include an Army, Air Force, and Marine Corps officer in the grade of general and a Navy admiral. The Chairman can delegate his functions only to the Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who for years has chaired the Council. In executing its responsibilities, JROC does not vote, but rather develops a consensus, or unanimity, in the positions it takes. New Assessment Process To assist the JROC in advising the Chairman on joint warfighting capabilities, the joint warfighting capability assessment (JWCA) process was established in April 1994. Under this process, 10 assessment teams have been established in selected mission areas (see fig. 5.2). As sponsors of the JWCA teams, Joint Staff directorates coordinate the assessments with representatives from the Joint Staff, services, OSD, combatant commands (CINCS), and others as necessary. The teams are organized separate and apart from the Joint Staff and report to the JROC, which decides which issues they will assess. The intent is for the JWCA teams to continuously assess available information on their respective joint capability areas to identify opportunities to improve warfighting effectiveness. A key word is “assess." The teams do not conduct analytical studies to develop new information to support the JROC. Rather, they assess available information and then develop and present briefings to the JROC. The JWCA teams produce only briefings, not reports or papers that lay out in detail the pros and cons of any options identified to address the issue(s) at hand. The Chairman uses the information from the JWCA team assessments to develop two key documents-the Chairman's Program Recommendations, which contains his recommendations to the Secretary of Defense for consideration in developing the Defense Planning Guidance, and the Chairman's Program Assessment, which contains alternative program recommendations and budget proposals for the Secretary's consideration in refining the defense program and budget. Decisions on Air Power Programs and Priorities Require Comprehensive Joint JWCA Process Has JWCA Process Has Not In expanding the JROC process, including the establishment of the JWCA teams, it was envisioned that the JROC would be more than simply another military committee on which members participate strictly as representatives of their services. Recommendations coming from the JROC would not simply reflect the sum of each service's requirements. Rather, the JROC, with the support of the JWCA process, would produce joint information the Chairman needs to meet his program review and assessment responsibilities and to resolve cross-service requirements issues, eliminate duplicative programs, and pursue opportunities to enhance the interoperability of weapon systems. The JWCA process has been in existence over 2 years and is still evolving. Representatives of both the Joint Staff and OSD believe that the process has led to more systematic and extensive discussions of joint issues among the top military leadership. They also believe that JWCA briefings have led to more informed and extensive discussions of joint issues within the JROC. Progress has been made on some interoperability issues as a result of the process. For example, in response to a JROC tasking, a JWCA team combined with Joint Staff elements to assess the interoperability of intelligence sensors and processors, fusion, and communication systems. According to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the team's recommendations will improve the interoperability among the individual services' platforms so that data can be provided in a more timely manner to the battlefield. JWCA teams have also, on at least one occasion, been used in conjunction with other DOD elements to study key issues for the Secretary of Defense. In 1994, in response to a request of the Deputy Secretary of Defense, the JROC chairman formed a study group using representatives of three JWCA teams and several offices within OSD to examine issues related to precision strikes on targets and required intelligence support. The study group briefed the JROC on its findings and recommendations concerning databases, battlespace coverage, joint targeting doctrine, battle damage assessment, and other areas. A key recommendation was that intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance and command, control, and communications considerations be fully integrated early into the weapon system acquisition process. To implement this recommendation, the group devised revisions to DOD acquisition regulations that have been adopted. While the new JWCA process has raised the level of attention and sensitivity to joint issues, we found little evidence that the process is identifying unnecessary or overly redundant air power capabilities, confronting the Decisions on Air Power Programs and Priorities Require Comprehensive Joint challenge of modernizing the military's air power, or helping establish priorities among competing programs. According to representatives from several JWCA teams, the teams have not been identifying tradeoffs among combat air power forces or programs to reduce redundancies. We were told that, unless specifically directed by the JROC, the JWCA teams are not empowered to develop such proposals. The primary example cited to us of an impact the JWCA teams had on reducing overlap among the services was DOD's decision to retire the Air Force's EF-111 radar jamming aircraft and consolidate the services' airborne radar jamming capabilities into one platform-the Navy's EA-6B. Documentation provided us, however, only indicates that the JWCA process became involved subsequent to the approval of the consolidation, when the Deputy Secretary of Defense asked the Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to study the associated operational issues. The air superiority JWCA team performed the study, which included evaluating the performance of the EA-6B, developing an integrated operational concept for the consolidation, proposing a transition schedule, and assessing the requirement for upgrades to the EA-6B. Joint Staff officials told us JWCA teams have not examined the affordability of individual weapon systems in their assessments. Moreover, according to one Joint Staff official, attempts to raise these larger, more controversial issues have not led to specific JWCA assessment mandates from the JROC. For example, the JWCA teams elevated recapitalization and affordability issues to the JROC in December 1995. At these meetings, the issue of the affordability of acquiring high-priced aircraft, particularly after the turn of the century under projected budgets, was raised. According to Joint Staff officials, the top 20 most expensive acquisition programs-half of them aircraft—were presented to the JROC during these meetings. Although the JROC and the services conceptually agreed on the need to scrutinize the cost of tactical aircraft, the JROC has not taken any concrete actions or directed the JWCA teams to further study the affordability issue. Additionally, we found little evidence that the JROC, with the support of the JWCA process, has developed specific proposals to transfer resources from one service to another to meet higher priority needs. A review of Future Years Defense Program data also indicates no notable shifts in acquisition funding among the services between fiscal years 1994 and 2001. A key goal of the JROC, according to the Office of the Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, is to enhance force capability by assisting the Chairman in proposing cross-service transfers of resources. Additionally, Joint Staff |