Previous IFPA-Fletcher Conferences

The 34th IFPA-Fletcher Conference on
National Security Strategy and Policy:
Security Planning and Military Transformation

December 2-3, 2003
U.S. Chamber of
Commerce Building
Lafayette Square, 1615 H Street, NW
Washington, D.C.

Address by Brigadier Mark Kelly, Royal Australian Army, is Director, Combined Planning Group, U.S. Central Command

Introduction by Dr. Charles M. Perry, Vice President and Director of Studies, IFPA

Dr. Perry: Let me welcome you to our last panel of the day, on the topic “Coalition Operations and Alliance Transformation.” Now, as we have already had more than once in this conference, we continue to enjoy an embarrassment of riches this afternoon, with five, highly-prominent speakers from diverse regions, all deeply involved in shaping the defense policies of their respective countries, including their approaches to coalition planning and alliance adaptations for the 21st century.

Now, as you may have guess, I say five because we’re only slightly less rich than we had expected, since unfortunately, Secretary Richard Lawless had to be drawn off to another meeting that competed. He sends his apologies, and we also regret his not being here, but that’s said. We have, as I said, an ongoing embarrassment anyways, with the wonderful people we have here before you.

You have their individual bios in your program, so I won’t read them here. But just to be sure that everyone knows who’s who, I’ll just introduce the speakers in the order that I’ve asked them to speak, beginning with General Wagner, Deputy Commander of the U.S. Force Joint Command. There’ll be Tony Brenton next, number two of the British Embassy here in Washington. Third will be Ovidiu Dranga, who’s the Deputy Secretary of State for Euro-Atlantic affairs—NATO affairs—the Romanian Ministry of National Defense. Next will be Nobukatsu Kanehara, who is now the Political Counselor at the Japanese Embassy here in D.C., but was most recently also Director of the Japan-United States Treaty Division in the Foreign Ministry, so deeply involved in these issues. And last, but far from least, Brigadier Mark Kelly from the Royal Australian Army, who also is now detailed to CentCom and will be speaking from that perspective today, as well as from his national perspective.

With that introduction, it’s horribly—I’ve taken something of a modified regional approach, beginning first with our U.S. Command, that has responsibility for this entire issue of integrating U.S. forces, training them for transformation, but also integrating them with allies and coalition partners, and then moving to Europe, and in the Euro-Atlantic and NATO region, and then moving to Asia, with our most important ally in that region, Japan, and then finally, again, to Brigadier Kelly, who will speak a bit about his national experiences from the Australian point of view, but also speak about CentCom as the region which really begins to bring together all the new allies from Europe and from Asia, at least from an operational sense. And it may continue to do for some years more, as we’ve been speaking about this last day and a half.

Before turning the floor over to General Wagner, let me just make three very quick points about the basic theme and topic of this panel that we might all keep in mind as we listen to the presentations, and think about what we might want to ask each of the panelists.

I think the first point to make is just simply to underscore, as many have at this conference already, the importance of coalition and alliance planning to future military operations of the 21st century. For even though we’ve been bombarded in recent months by near-constant commentaries regarding the American impulse in unilateralism, and despite the fact that United States can, and sometimes must, take the lead and act alone, the simple truth of the matter is that, more often than not, we have acted as part of a coalition, rather than alone, both by choice and sometimes by necessity—maybe at all times by necessity. Certainly depending on the circumstances, the coalition might be smaller or larger, and it may be more active in one phase of the operation as than in another, but it is a coalition nonetheless and that’s what we need to be planning for.

The second point follows from this first one, and it relates to how we think about and define coalition and coalition operations. And again, simply put, when we think about coalition operations, I think we need to think about much more than just the contribution of combat troops to combat operations, as important as that is. Keep in mind that the allies and the coalition partners can, and do, bring to an operation a broad range of assets and capabilities, material, and otherwise, and they can, and do, do just that across the rather wide spectrum of time, ranging from pre-conflict to the actual conflict, and as we now are seeing, at least some(?) are post-conflict phase.

So, apart from military forces, they can bring, among other things, crucial diplomatic support, important intelligence, access to key on-route facilities, and, not to be forgotten, vital insights into the nature of an adversary or a combat environment based on their own experience that we don’t have and we need to have access to. So, all of this will be as crucial in the future as it is today. We need to keep that. Bottom line is, we need to think about coalition and alliance planning in a larger context, and we have to think about wider range of options and a number of different time frames and keep those in mind, I think.

And the third and final point I’d leave you with is just to remember that coalitions of the willing are really just that, voluntary associations that we can’t just assume will be there, ready and available when wanted and needed. Indeed, as recent U.S. consultations, even with old friends, regarding potential contributions to the effort in Iraq confirms there’s often a good deal of diplomatic work and in-country political wrangling that needs to be done before a decision to join a coalition will be taken. And even after that decision is made, there’s generally a good deal of additional training and organizational work that needs to be done, before deployment can actually take place.

So, in other words, we need to be working very closely, very intimately, every day with good friends and allies well ahead of any contingency for which their help might be needed, or that help might never come, or at least not in a very timely and effective way. Fundamental point, again, is that transformation, with transformation—and probably even because of it—the alliance and coalition dimension of military operations will remain vital, and it will require an enormous amount of advance coordination and joint preparation to get it right.

So, with those brief introductory comments, let me pass it to the real experts, who are doing just that work.

Brigadier Kelly: Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. As introduced earlier, my name is Mark Kelly, and, just in case the introduction was too far back in your memory, I’ve just put up on the slide, so as you can recall that. I’d also like to express my thanks for the opportunity to speak at this conference, and also congratulate the co-organizers of the event and its obvious success. I’m also encouraged by the looks of anticipation on your faces. [laughter] At this late stage of the second day—and I do note that I’m the last speaker before the closing remarks—I’m encouraged that the levels of interest are still there. So I look forward to speaking to you.

I have been asked to provide some Australian perspective on coalition operations, as well as also describe to you my unique role at U.S. Central Command, at this particular time in history. Australian military history is indeed a history of coalition operations, our country has been involved since its federation, on the first of January, 1901 as the Commonwealth of Australia, in a collection of coalition operations throughout the 20th century and now into the new century.

Normally operating as part of a larger coalition, as a troop-contributing nation, with a powerful friend or senior ally in the lead. Australia was involved in both World Wars, with significant numbers of soldiers deployed from what was a very small nation in population terms. And that was normally to distant theaters of war, far away from our part of the world, other than when the War came close to the home during the Pacific Campaign in the Second World War. Following the conclusion of the Second World War, during the period of the Cold War, Australia again contributed forces to a series of conflicts, including the Korean War, the Malayan Emergency, Confrontation in Borneo, and the Vietnam War. Normally with a senior partner in the lead nation role in each of these occasions.

In the post-Vietnam era, and also following the conclusion of the Cold War, Australia again answered the call for a variety of conflicts and operations, including the Persian Gulf—or Desert Storm—and a variety of peacekeeping operations both United Nations led and others that have been more regionally focused. It has also been during this time that senior Australian officers have commanded United Nation operations and, indeed, other multinational peacekeeping operations, in places such as Cambodia, the Sinai, and the Middle East.

Our recent experiences included assuming the lead nation role in the United Nation’s mandated intervention in East Timor, with the INTERFET operation, and mostly recently, as the lead nation in stabilization operations in the Solomon Islands in the Southwest Pacific.

I personally was fortunate enough to be the Chief of Staff of the INTERFET force during Operation STABILISE in East Timor, in 1999-2000. So I saw events unfold in East Timor from an unique perspective, and I dealt with our Coalition senior national commanders on a daily basis, on matters of coordination.

Our experience as a lead nation confirmed that there will always be challenges when operating as part of a coalition or, indeed, in that particular case for us, leading a coalition. Contributing nations will usually bring to the fight or the operation, what they want to bring, or what they can afford, and not necessarily what you need, or what you want at that time. And there will be certain requirements or restrictions in terms of where they will operate and what specific tasks they have prepared to fulfill. Next slide, please.

However, if you aspire to internationalize a solution to the problem that you are faced with, then you need to remain flexible and adjust plans accordingly, to accommodate your coalition partners. Now, this will only be achieved through dialogue, consultation, and in some cases, material support. All of this is important, so all contributing nations are brought into the team and can then make a valuable contribution. This confidence building is an ongoing task, and it requires constant effort throughout the operation. Indeed, it could be argued that efforts to maintain a coalition is a full-time job in itself, let alone the effort involved in gathering your coalition initially or, indeed, conducting the operation.

Following the events of 9/11, Australia again answered the call to deal with the latest challenge that we faced together—that is, the Global War on Terrorism. This included the provision of maritime, air, and land capabilities —including Special Forces—in Afghanistan for Operation ENDURING FREEDOM and subsequently, a similar mix of capabilities for Operation IRAQI FREEDOM in Iraq.

Now, this U.S.-led coalition of the willing—for Operation ENDURING FREEDOM and Operation IRAQI FREEDOM—consists of some sixty-eight nations that are now represented by senior national representatives and liaison teams which are co-located with the U.S. Central Command, Headquarters, in Tampa, Florida. The contribution of these coalition partners includes significant military capabilities through to niche capabilities, as well as basing and over flight access in the area of operations, to support the overall effort.

This Coalition of willing is what could be described as a “walk in, walk out” Coalition. It is not a formalized alliance, but we are engaged in a marathon, not a sprint, when we are dealing with this ongoing threat of international terrorism. So there is a great deal of effort required to maintain this coalition, as the solution to this challenge will indeed be an international solution. Next slide.

Now, I would like to take time for the last part of my presentation to describe to you one initiative at U.S. Central Command, aimed at a more inclusive approach to coalition operations and, indeed, combined operations. And perhaps it presents a useful tool in helping to sustain this particular coalition of the willing.

This vision on the slide was expressed by the dowager Commander at U.S. Central Command, General Tommy Franks, in the middle of last year (2002). Following the initial success of the Operation Enduring Freedom coalition that had convened to deal with the Global War on Terrorism, he wanted to adopt a more inclusive approach to coalition operations, and thereby integrate a planning element into his core headquarters. So he saw that as a useful way to sustain the coalition; he also wanted to a bring coalition perspective into the planning. Now, this same vision is shared by the new Commander, General John Abizaid. And so, as a group, we have certainly been embraced by the new boss. Next slide.

This schematic shows from the expression of that vision by General Franks in the middle of last year, a staff team was put together to determine what sort of shape this combined planning effort might take in U.S. Central Command. Letters of invitation were then sent out to the Chiefs of Defense of the participating coalition partners at that time. Nominations were sent forward, and the selections were conducted in the early part of November 2002. The group started to arrive in the first couple of weeks of December last year, and, indeed, next week will mark the first anniversary of the combined planning group standing up. The rest of our group arrived in the second half of January 2003, and we were fully operationally capable at the end of January. Next slide.

From the commander’s vision and his intent, we derived this particular mission for ourselves. As a group coalition planners, our focus has in fact been the Global War on Terrorism as it applies to the Central Command Area of Responsibility (AOR). And that is generically still referred to as Operation Enduring Freedom. We are a complementary planning capability; we do not replace any of the staff-planning horsepower that already existed in Central Command or, indeed, the components. But we indeed complement that, and we work closely with them. We are also capable of working independently of that core planning effort that exists within Central Command. We are tasked by the co-chaired Joint Planning Group, which is a conference convened and chaired by the Director of Operations, the J3 and the Director of Plans, the J5. Any tasking for the CPG along with the tasking of all the other planning elements within the headquarters is directed by that co-chaired effort. And of course, the CPG is there to further integrate coalition perspective in the ongoing planning. Next slide.

I have a team of twenty-six officers, including myself. The feature of the group is that there will always be an international one-star officer as the Director. I happen to be the first director. It is not tied as an Australian billet, so, therefore, there are a number of other coalition partners that nominated for the appointment that I fill at the present time, and there will be other coalition partners that will nominate to replace me when I am due to leave during the course of next year.

There is a mix of capabilities both joint and national, and the team brings a unique national, cultural, and religious—as well as regional perspective —to the planning. We have twenty nations represented in that twenty-six man team. I have six U.S. officers included in that twenty-six man team. So the constants in the team are the one-star international coalition officer, as the Director, and six U.S. personnel. But the flags around the table, as they exist now, representing those twenty nations, will change progressively.

And, indeed, we are in the throes of going through our first rotation within the group, and about fifty percent of the group will rotate after twelve months; the rest of us as ‘carry-over champions’ will continue on to the end of our two-year tenure and will achieve a natural stagger. But we have retained a twenty nation representation, within the changeover nominations that we received. We have also maintained a regional perspective to the planning, with officers from Central Asia, with officers from Southwest Asia, and, indeed, with the changeover in this December-January period, we will have an officer from the Horn of Africa part of the Central Command Area of Responsibility. Next slide.

This shows some of the big muscle movements that the group has been involved in. And some of those have been independent planning efforts; others have been collaborative planning efforts with the wider planning elements of the Central Command staff. Some of these are big tasks; some of them bring a unique Coalition perspective to the commander—and are presented first hand to the Commander by a read-ahead packet as well as formal briefings to the Commander and the senior staff. And he has certainly been encouraged by the refreshing perspective that the group brings to this planning. Next slide.

That is all I would like to cover this afternoon, in terms of explaining Australia’s involvement in coalition operations, throughout the full period of the 20th century, as well as into the new millennium. And, one example of the unique way of a more-inclusive approach to coalition operations and, indeed, Coalition planning – that I am a part of at U.S. Central Command at present. And any future operations that we will be involved in together will certainly be of a coalition nature, and perhaps this could provide a model for future planning at the coalition level, in a combined sense, for our ongoing operations. Thank you.

Questions and Answers

Dr. Perry: We have some time for questions now, and I’m sure we’ve got some questions out there to these presentations, all very interesting and compelling. Right here, first question?

Audience: Peter Sharpen, Mider(?) Corporation. General Wagner, one of your slides indicated that, in the retrospective on Operation Iraqi Freedom, one of the areas where we need to do better is coalition information sharing. Could you discuss a little bit the directions in which you think we might move to do that better?

General Wagner: Well, certainly, it is a frustration, not only to the United States forces, but also to our allies and partners who we attempt to operate with. In the past eleven months, I’ve had the opportunity to host twenty-two MoDs—Ministers of Defense, or Chiefs of Defense—from other nations, and, endurably, we get to that topic. In fact, in talking to Australia, their comment was, “We want to be by your side when the war fights start, but we can’t be there unless we’re part of a planning upfront—enabled to see the planning, see the information, and share in the development of it.” That is just one country, who would say the same thing. And in fact, many of our operating forces have had to figure out ways on their own, where they can figure out how to share the information because our systems don’t allow us to do that.

Really, we do think that there are technologies solutions to this. A large part of our information-- Of course, we do a lot of our work and a lot of our planning on secure nets—a secure net which has more information on it than you want to share. And so, the question is how do you allow partial access. And there are technologies now that will enable us to do this. Plus, as you know, perhaps, that DEP STEP DEF(?) is just recently authorized, and written provided guidance set(?) enables us to do more information sharing. So, it’s a question of policy, and it’s a question of technology.

This certainly isn’t a question of a lack of desire on the part of either(?) the United States forces or our allies, who we’re working with to share the information. But it is a question of setting the rules, and the business rules, that allow us to share that information. And I think we are making progress, and I think we have reason to be optimistic. This is an issue that is-- the importance of which we share it(?) at all levels. And we do have some technologies that we’re working on, that allow us to have somebody have access to the computer and limit the access to where they can go within the information that’s available. So, I think there’s reason to be optimistic, and I think that the DEP STEP DEF(?) has made a first, good step along that line, and I think we’ve got some technologies solutions.

Dr. Perry: There are two questions, back there on that table.

Audience: Wendy Jaffe, General Accounting Office. With the U.S. Army investing in future combat system and network-centric operations, provide through network-centric operations, how is this going to affect U.K. forces and Australian forces, in terms of inoperability?

Dr. Perry: ...[inaudible] who the question is directed to?

Would you care to address it from your standpoint?

Mr. Brenton: The issue goes slightly wider than network-centric operations. The U.S. is spending-- It’s a fascinating fact about U.S. military spending. The U.S. are now spending more on Defence R&D than any other country spending on its entire defense budget. And this is obviously a challenge for those countries that expect to be working closely with the United States in future campaigns, to ensure that we can. And the trick has to be, as these systems evolve, to be involved ourselves, to evolve parallel systems or to have a share in the systems, and to ensure that our doctrines and practices, and equipment, develop in parallel with those in the United States. I quoted the example of joint strike fighter —it’s exactly an application, that sort of approach.

Dr. Perry: Anyone else like to add to that, or--?

We had another question at that same table—one more?

Audience: Ray Stuchohl, a student at Catholic University. In the last three year, there have been several occasions when the U.S. worked hard to involve ally partners throughout the world in operations or goals. One that I can think of is missile defense, then, of course, operations Enduring Freedom and Iraq. General Wagner just mentioned information operations as a possible lesson learned. Can you tell us some other lessons learned for the future, that we might want to look into?

General Wagner: Other areas to look into -- and I’m sorry, into which area? Can you--

Dr. Perry: Other lessons learned from the combined operations of the--

General Wagner: Would combine?

Mr. Stuchohl: ...[inaudible] Sorry. More in getting the allies on board to support us, particularly some of the errors that might have been made with First Missile Defense, and then with convincing other countries to work with us on Iraq.

General Wagner: I think that the first thing I would say, for OIF, would be the phenomenal amount of cooperation and support that was provided by other nations in many different ways. There was information sharing; there was logistical support. There was basing. There were nations who were riding the one aircraft that they had or the one courier(?) that they had. There was a tremendous amount of support that did come from other nations, so the first thing to do would be to acknowledge the tremendous amount of cooperation and support that we did get from many other nations, not least of which was seen at CenCom in the planning and the support there.

I think there’s also a lot of operational sharing of how to do things, how to operate in an urban area. There are other forces that have been operating with terrorist forces for a long time. Their forces have been operating in the build-up areas against an organized crime. So, there’s all sorts of information that’s been shared, and tactics and procedures that have allowed us to operate more effectively and to, in fact, save the lives of the soldiers of all countries, as they are operating on the battlefields. So, I think that there are many, many successes, far more so than become a current from what we would normally read in the newspapers. A very strong partnership has been mentioned by General Kelly, not just in CentCom, but on the battlefield, and the support from the nations that we have operated from.

Now, specific other aspects besides the information sharing —Clearly, we were able to engage targets with our aircraft. With the information that we share, we can use precision munitions together. There are many aspects of the battle fight that have been fought, and are very much of a coalition aspect, with absolute sharing of the same training techniques.

And one of the aspects that we’re trying to do is through our joint national training capability, that soleverage(?) the same experience that we found in Iraq, in our training. If you were to take the map of the world and you put on it, Iraq, where do forces come from to fight? They never got together at a given stage, and based and planned. They came from all around the world, and they came to fight on the battlefield. That’s where they first joined for the operational forces. They launched from bases all around the world, and they came to fight. That’s the way we fight. We don’t get together—all gather together at Fort Benning and have a big conference to decide how we’re going to fight. We come from all the bases around the world, whether the naval, ground, or air assets(?), and we join on the battlefield to fight. And that’s what we’re trying to replicate with a global-national training capability, where we replicate that on our training fields, around the world.

So, we feel that we’ve learned a lot and are willing(?) to work together. We have done extraordinarily good job of doing that, but we want to build--
Audience:—and how—what, perhaps—is going on between your forces and U.S. forces or other coalition forces, or might go on, that would improve the chances for coalition combined operations?

Brigadier Kelly: We shouldn’t underestimate the benefits of the ongoing exchange programs that many of us share, in a bilateral sense and also multilateral sense, and the joint combined exercises that our forces participate in, at a variety of time.

If I look back at our experience before going into East Timor in September of 1999, we had done a series of activities with U.S. forces from the Pacific—by naval, marine, and air force—as well as from USARPAC in Hawaii. And in a series of command post exercises and other planning activities that were totally unrelated to the events of September 1999, we actually then had similar personalities come and join our team in that combined force headquarters for the Internet operations. So, the fact that we understood, knew these people, we shared common procedures—these are things that allow you to meet in the dark night before going into an operation and actually work through things in a very balanced way.

But that means that we need that time to continue that sort of remediation training, when we are fully committed to ongoing operations, which global war on terrorism actually presents at the moment. So if we’re dealing with nations that have small defense forces, they need time to remediate themselves; they can’t sustain a level of operation. So, we have to be able to pace ourselves, as I said, and, indeed, Admiral Olson mentioned it yesterday. We’re involved in a marathon, not a sprint. So, our planning has to actually be able to articulate to our coalition partners potentially how long this effort is required, and they may be able to identify certain events in the timeline where they can contribute another niche capability which will actually relieve the pressure from another senior partner.

So, all of that is within the same sphere of the planning required, but also, the relationships that develop during those combined exercises that we’re fortunate to participate in, as well as the exchange programs and the exchange of officers at our respective command and staff colleges.

Dr. Perry: Anyone else? Question, here, in the front.

Audience: Jason Sherman, from Defense News. My question is directed to Kanahara-san. Near the end of your talk, you outlined a seven point initiative that you said reflected your personal views for a set of modernization and policy initiatives that the Japanese self-defense forces might do well to adopt. I’m wondering if you might be able to offer us any insights into the ongoing National Defense Program Outline, the NDPO, that the Japan Defense Agency is undertaking, that is expected to inform new thinking and new decisions in terms of how the Japan military is organized and any new modernization initiatives they may undertake.

Mr. Kinehara: To be clear for everybody here, the Defense Program, ours, is based upon five years programs ...[inaudible] continuous. We are now in the fourth year of that chairman and we have to make a new one next 2005. For several mid five years program, we set big policy guideline that is defense outline, and that will be changed for we are facing new threats and new missions. And debate is going on, in December, I think a decision could be made, but I don’t know, really. This is really hot issue, and my government is working on this very hard. I’m not allowed to discuss anything here; I’m sorry. [laughter]

Audience: ...[inaudible] to discuss enhanced cooperation with the U.S. missile defense capability and a small ...[inaudible] strategic air ...[inaudible]. Are any of those things being discussed and debated? Can you tell us some of the things that are being debated?

Mr. Kinehara: I can give you some basic line of thinking. As I said, our forces are based upon the exclusively homeland defense posture, and this defense posture will not change, because we are still in alliance with the United States. U.S. is a spear, and Japan is a shield. That is our basic concept of our defense.

But, because of that, we have no long legs(?), cargo planes for example. When we started our peacekeeping operation in 1993, we sent our air forces to Rwanda, in Kenya, to have strategic transportation there. But we had only C-130s—still have C-130s only—and our Chief of Air Staff went to Rwanda, made six stopovers. And we think it’s too obsolete; we have to have new cargo planes to have new missions. That does not mean that we’re going to have huge, power-position capabilities like U.S. It’s not our intention. But we have more international missions that were not conceived in 1960s, 1970s, and to cope with these new missions, we have to have suitable instruments to deliver these missions.

Our threats too—the ballistic missiles were luxurious weapons for ships of powers. But, these days, they’re proliferating and the concept of deterrence has changing. It’s no longer the way to defend itself by pointing guns and-- but through(?) here. But we see now many people having guns; why not putting bulletproof here? So the concept is changing. We have to prepare new threats and new defense concepts. But, what would be the final decision of the governments is top secret; sorry, can’t tell you.

Dr. Perry: We’ll be waiting for December.

Question, here ...[inaudible]

Audience: Ed Bruner, from the Congressional Research Service—direct a question to General Kelly. I was very much unaware of your coalition planning group, but I applaud the apparent promise that this approach would hold, and wonder if you might share with us a coalition perspective that the group perhaps developed and presented to the commander?

Brigadier Kelly: Just a ...[inaudible]

Mr. Bruner: A coalition-- You said, one of your missions was to incorporate the coalition perspective under the overall planning. I’m just curious if you could offer us a type of coalition perspective that might have come out of that process.

Brigadier Kelly: One of the products that we produced on behalf of command of Central Command is a quarterly area of responsibility-wide estimate, which is a bit of a rugged check. It was formerly done by an element within the J-3 Operations Directorate of the headquarters. It’s now solely done by the Combined Planning Group. So, it’s a refreshing perspective for the commander. It looks at his full area of responsibility, not just specific sub-theaters that are active at present, and it provides him with a view drawn from a variety of sources—but quite often, open sources—and gives him just a view as to where we are. It may inform or influence other planning efforts, but it’s presented to his senior staff and himself; it’s an internal document. And he’s certainly been challenged by the view, which is now done by a twenty plus team of coalition officers versus a uniquely U.S.-only product, as it had been done prior to December, last year.

So, that’s one example. The other is within some of the courses of action being developed within the review of the campaign plan. Again, we are drawing on a wide variety of experience, a wide variety of national, cultural, religious, and regional perspectives, and so, different militaries have different ways of dealing with the problem. And so, some of the solutions will be different from a U.S.-only planner’s perspective to the way to conduct the operation. And that’s what this group is being acknowledged as providing other ways of doing business.

Dr. Perry: Question, here.

Audience: Colonel Jim Holzerith. I’m the Canadian Military Attaché here in the Canadian Embassy. My question actually goes back to Admiral Cebrowski’s notions this morning, that he introduced on interdependence versus interoperability. And, I think he introduced to them the joint context, but I would extend it to the multination(?) and coalition arena as well. And I guess, it really does tie back into the notion of design—joint—or design with interoperability in mind, in the first set. My question really is, is to what degree are we able to do that? Perhaps beyond concept development and experimentation, collaborative planning upfront, to truly get to an interdependent or at least a stage of coalitions where you can burden-share and plan on specific capabilities or leverage specific capabilities within a coalition.

Dr. Perry: General Wagner, do you want to--

General Wagner: ...[inaudible] from the standpoint of ally command transformation, NATO, and the operations that are going on there, and say that-- I think that that is exactly what you will see happen. That is exactly what should happen. We’ve heard Japan talk about the fact that they don’t have the long legs, but they need the long legs. They have the willingness to participate, but they don’t necessarily need to buy everything they need to do that. We need to share, in doing that. And so, that is an interdependence, just as within our own military. The Army does not need to buy their own transports. We are dependent upon the Air Force for the transport.

That same sort of a concept is what you will see come out of the work that’s being done with ally command transformation and NATO, as they look to the capabilities that they need to collectively and figure out who’s going to buy which piece of the part that is required for the whole. And so, I think you’re 100% right in your direction as to where things will go—is that they will go to a direction of interdependence, not just interoperable. And they should be; it’s an efficiency, and it’s an effectiveness. It’s a partnership and it’s a trust. And I think that we are there to the point where we can do that, and will do that.

Dr. Perry: Tom, perhaps time for one more question? Another one, anyone?

Okay, I think that will do it for this afternoon, and I want to thank all the panelists for wonderful contributions. And, I would ask that-- [applause]

I would ask everybody, please, to just stay where you are for a few minutes, so Dr. Pfaltzgraff and Admiral Green can come up and make a few closing remarks.