Joint Capability Experimentation

Mission— Joint Capability Experimentation

The FY 2019 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) included as one of the Chairman’s responsibilities to address experimentation on future concepts. Rigorous experimentation takes place on concepts to ensure Department investments adequately address future requirements as well as those of today. Accordingly, the Joint Staff requires an experimentation capability to analyze and validate priority joint concept required capabilities. The Joint Staff leads, plans, and executes the Global Integrated Wargame (GIWG) events to examine the Joint Warfighting Concept (JWC) operational logic and identified gaps to support delivery of an evaluated concept to the Secretary of Defense. Concept analysis and validation have a multi-faceted nature to meet the Chairman’s Title 10 responsibility of, “identifying new joint military capabilities based on advances in technology and concepts of operation, and recommending investments and experiments in such capabilities.” Wargames assess baseline missions and campaign level outcomes of the concepts as well as identify tradespace for potential new capabilities. This tradespace of capabilities is further explored with quantitative models and software that identify the most efficient cost and capability tradeoffs to help meet the Title 10 responsibility of “advising the Secretary on new and alternative joint military capabilities, and alternative program recommendations and budget proposals, within projected resource levels.” The Joint Staff approach to tradespace exploration provides a cost conscious and operationally relevant prioritization tradeoff technique early in the portfolio design process. Using this rigorous prioritization approach, the capability development cycle can efficiently focus resources on more detailed experimentation of specific capabilities to inform the requirements process. The analysis from the experimentation program will be used to provide foundational evidence to directly inform the Joint Military Net Assessment (JMNA), the Chairman’s Program Recommendation (CPR), and ultimately the Defense Planning Guidance for Joint Force development.

Mission— Joint Capability Experimentation

The National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) documents the Chairman’s responsibilities to include experimentation on future concepts. Rigorous experimentation on concepts are a means to ensure Department investments adequately address future requirements, not just near term. Given this, the Joint Staff established an experimentation capability suitable for analysis and validation of priority joint concept required capabilities. This allows the Chairman to identify cost efficient and effective capability tradeoffs. This capability enables the Chairman to fulfill his Title 10 responsibility, “advising the Secretary on new and alternative joint military capabilities, and alternative program recommendations and budget proposals, within projected resource levels.” This capability more fully supports the Chairman’s production of the Joint Military Needs Assessment (JMNA), the Chairman’s Program Recommendation (CPR) and ultimately the Defense Planning Guidance for Joint Force development. This PE funds the Joint Staff J7 Joint Wargaming and Experimentation Division (JWED) three main Advanced Technologies efforts; 1) Globally Integrated Wargames - Advanced Technologies (GIWG –AT), 2) Experimentation Campaign events necessary such as the Joint Experimentation Forum (JEF) for force design and development events supporting Joint Warfighting Concept, Joint Fires, Joint Logistics, and Joint Command & Control, and 3) Joint Experimentation Network - Advanced Technologies (JExNet AT) develops an integrated system of data architecture across federated knowledge platforms and networks to include joint experimentation activities and various learning events that enable knowledge sharing.

Accomplishments & Planned Programs (1)