Admiral Harold Gehman
Who directed or managed United States Joint Forces Command from 1999 to 2000?
United States Joint Forces Command United States Joint Forces Command ( USJFCOM ) was a Unified Combatant Command of the United States Department of Defense . USJFCOM was a functional command that provided specific services to the military . The last commander was Army Gen . Ray Odierno . As directed by the President to identify opportunities to cut costs and rebalance priorities , Defense Secretary Robert Gates recommended that USJFCOM be disestablished and its essential functions reassigned to other unified combatant commands . Formal disestablishment occurred on 4 August 2011 . History . USJFCOM was formed in 1999 when the old United States Atlantic Command was renamed and given a new mission : leading the transformation of the Department of Defense through experimentation and education . USLANTCOM had been active from 1947 to 1993 as a primarily U.S . Navy command , focused upon the wartime defence of the Atlantic sea lanes against Soviet Union attack . After the end of the Cold War , a 1993 reorganization gave the Command a new acronym , USACOM , and brought United States Army Forces Command and Air Combat Command under its authority . In late 2004 , U.S . Joint Forces Command assumed the role of primary conventional force provider . This landmark change assigned nearly all U.S . conventional forces to Joint Forces Command . Requirements , for example , for U.S . service personnel to support the transformation of the Armed Forces of Liberia , were fed to JFCOM , in this case via Africa Command , and JFCOM liaised with the service staffs to obtain available forces . Along with this responsibility came the task to develop a new risk-assessment process that provided national leaders a worldwide perspective on force-sourcing solutions . Its operations and exercises included Noble Resolve , an experimentation campaign plan to enhance homeland defense and improve military support to civil authorities in advance of and following natural and man-made disasters and Empire Challenge , an annual intelligence , surveillance and reconnaissance ( ISR ) interoperability demonstration . Mission . United States Joint Forces Command was the only combatant command focused on the transformation of U.S . military capabilities . The commander of USJFCOM oversaw the commands four primary roles in transformation – joint concept development and experimentation , joint training , joint interoperability and integration , and the primary conventional force provider as outlined in the Unified Command Plan approved by the President . Its Unified Command Plan designated USJFCOM as the transformation laboratory of the United States military to enhance the combatant commanders capabilities to implement the presidents strategy . USJFCOM developed joint operational concepts , tested those concepts through rigorous experimentation , educated joint leaders , trained joint task force commanders and staffs , and recommended joint solutions to the Army , Navy , Air Force and Marines to better integrate their warfighting capabilities . Organization . USJFCOM included members from each branch of the U.S . military , civil servants , contract employees , and consultants . It had four component commands , a sub-unified command ( Special Operations component is SOCJFCOM and eight subordinate activities , including : Joint Warfighting Center ; Joint Systems Integration Center ; Joint Transformation Command for Intelligence ; and Joint Warfare Analysis Center ( JWAC ) . JFCOMs Service components were the CONUS based commands that provided forces to other combatant commands : United States Army Forces Command ( FORSCOM ) , United States Fleet Forces Command ( USFLTFORCOM ) , Air Combat Command ( ACC ) , and United States Marine Corps Forces Command ( MARFORCOM ) . USJFCOM Joint Concept Development and Experimentation ( JCD&E ) ( J9 ) aimed to develop innovative joint concepts and capabilities providing experimentally proven solutions to the most pressing problems facing the joint force . It aimed to rapidly deliver operationally relevant solutions to support current operations and drive DOTMLPF and policy changes to better enable the future joint force . JCD&E aimed to provide thought leadership and collaborative environments to generate innovative ideas with a range of interagency , multinational , academic and private sector partners . The C2 ( Command and Control ) Core was a DoD project sponsored by Joint Forces Command and the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense/Network and Information Integration ( OASD/NII ) to develop an open standard-supporting , extensible markup language ( XML ) -based command and control ( C2 ) data exchange . It represents the first major implementation of the Universal Core v2.0 , a federal information sharing initiative . It supports the DoD Net Centric Data Strategy by enabling data to be visible , accessible , understandable , trustworthy and interoperable . The overarching goal of this project is to support national and coalition warfighters by improving joint interoperability at the data and information layer . Accomplishing these strategic goals within the C2 community involves publishing and evolving agreed-upon standards that exchange partners ( services and , down the line , combatant commands and agencies ) can use to share data more broadly , efficiently and effectively . The C2 Core standards also link C2 design guidance emerging at both the DoD enterprise level and within multiple C2-related communities of interest and programs of record to support the broadest range of interoperability requirements possible . Among the commands many directorates and departments was Project Alpha , a JFCOM rapid idea analysis group created to identify high-impact ideas from industry , academia and the defense community that could transform the United States Department of Defense into an organization better equipped to deal with the uncertain landscape of the future . Project Alpha was discontinued as part of an internal reorganization of U.S . Joint Forces Commands Joint Experimentation Directorate . As of 1 August 2011 , the Joint Warfighting Center ( J7 ) , Joint Center for Operational Analysis , and the Joint Concept Development and Experimentation directorate ( J9 ) merged and transitioned from Joint Forces Command to the Joint Staff J7 as part of USJFCOMs disestablishment . The new organization created by this merger will remain in Suffolk , Va. , and be known as the deputy director J7 for joint and coalition warfighting , a subordinate element of the Joint Staff J7 . We will continue our mission to provide comprehensive training that meets demands of the joint warfighter who continue to engage our adversaries in an ever-changing operational environment , said Army Maj . Gen . Frederick S . Rudesheim , deputy director for joint and coalition warfighting . Key functions and missions will be linked together in a more efficient and effective manner , providing an integrated approach to joint development and joint training . Disestablishment . US Joint Forces command was in charge of the theater surrounding Washington , DC and New York during the 9/11 attacks . During a cost cutting session , General Mattis , then in command of JFCOM suggested to disband because in his interviews with his own staff it was clear to him that most did not see added value . On 9 August 2010 Secretary of Defense Robert Gates announced that Joint Forces Command has been slated for elimination as a budget-saving measure . General Ray Odierno was given the task of winding down JFCOM . On 6 January 2011 , the plan was officially approved in a memorandum by President Obama . On 4 August 2011 , Joint Forces Command cased its flag colors and officially disestablished on 31 August 2011 . Special Operations Command Joint Forces Command ( SOCJFCOM ) was transferred to U.S . Special Operations Command after the disestablishment of JFCOM , but was then disestablished in 2013 . Former commanders . - Admiral Harold Gehman , USN ( 1999–2000 ) - General Buck Kernan , USA ( 2000–2002 ) - Admiral Edmund Giambastiani , USN ( 2002–2005 ) - General Lance Smith , USAF ( 2005–2007 ) - General Jim Mattis , USMC ( 2007–2010 ) - Lieutenant General Keith Huber , USA ( 2010 ) ( Acting ) - General Ray Odierno , USA ( 2010–2011 ) External links . - USJFCOM official site - Small Wars Journal stitch-together of news articles covering JFCOM deactivation