Defense Planning: DOD Needs Specific Measures and Milestones to Gauge Progress of Preparations for Operational Access Challenges
Published: 2014-09-10T00:00:00

Fast Facts:

Highlights:
section_title: Why GAO Did This Study
paragraphs: According to DOD, its ability to deploy military forces from the United States to a conflict area is being increasingly challenged as potential adversaries pursue capabilities designed to deny access. Access can be denied by either preventing an opposing force from entering an operational area or limiting an opposing force's freedom of action within an operational area. DOD has a joint concept that broadly describes how DOD will operate effectively in such access-denied environments. DOD's initial efforts have emphasized the roles of the Air Force and Navy.
GAO was mandated to review the role of the Army and Marine Corps in access-denied areas. This report (1) describes Army and Marine Corps efforts to address operational access challenges and (2) analyzes the extent to which DOD is able to gauge how its efforts support implementation of its concept for future operations in access-denied environments. GAO analyzed DOD, Army, and Marine Corps concepts; reports on service-level exercises; DOD policy and guidance on concept implementation; and documents specifically related to the joint concept. GAO also interviewed cognizant DOD officials.
section_title: What GAO Found
paragraphs: The Army and Marine Corps are undertaking multiple efforts to address operational access challenges—challenges that impede a military force's ability to enter and conduct operations in an area—that impact a broad range of their existing missions. For example, they are incorporating operational access challenges into their wargames and revising their service concepts, which inform their assessments of capability needs, gaps, and solutions. In addition, the Army and the Marine Corps have identified important roles they play in overcoming operational access challenges and are examining ways to carry them out in access-denied environments, including
engagement activities—improving access conditions through such activities as multinational exercises, prepositioning supplies, and forward presence, and
entry operations—deploying forces onto foreign territory to conduct missions such as eliminating land-based threats to access.
In addition, the Army has identified areas specific to its role, including
logistics—sustaining forces despite increased vulnerabilities from access threats and challenges associated with new operational approaches, and
missile defense—providing defense against increasingly accurate, lethal, and available ballistic and cruise missiles.
The Department of Defense (DOD) is unable to gauge the extent to which its efforts to overcome operational access challenges support the implementation of the 2012 Joint Operational Access Concept (JOAC). The JOAC describes how the department will operate effectively in future operating environments with access challenges and is intended to guide the development of capabilities for the joint force of 2020. The Joint Staff is leading a multiyear DOD-wide effort, initiated in June 2013, to coordinate, oversee, and assess the department's implementation of the JOAC. DOD plans to issue the first iteration of the JOAC Implementation Plan in 2014 and to assess and update the plan annually. The draft plan focuses on the highest-priority JOAC-required capabilities and identifies related actions, but does not fully establish specific measures and milestones to gauge progress. While DOD has stated its intent to assess progress in the future, its current planning lacks specific details about the measures it will employ and the milestones it will use to gauge that progress. Until DOD establishes specific measures and milestones in future iterations of its implementation plan, the department will not be able to gauge implementation progress and assess whether efforts by the joint force, to include the Army and the Marine Corps, will achieve DOD's goals in desired time frames. As a result, DOD may lack assurance that efforts, including those currently being undertaken by the Army and the Marine Corps to address areas such as engagement activities, entry operations, logistics, and expeditionary missile defense, will fully align with the JOAC.
section_title: What GAO Recommends
paragraphs: GAO recommends that DOD establish specific measures and milestones in future iterations of the JOAC Implementation Plan to improve DOD's ability to gauge implementation progress. DOD agreed with the importance of assessing the plan and said it is developing measures and milestones and will continue to refine these tracking tools in the future.

section_title: Letter
paragraphs: For decades, the Department of Defense’s (DOD) ability to deploy military  forces from the United States to a conflict area went essentially  unopposed. For example, U.S. and coalition forces flowed into the  Persian Gulf area unhindered for 6 months in the buildup to Operation  Desert Storm in 1990 and 1991. However, this global reach is being  increasingly challenged with potential adversaries now pursuing anti- access/area denial (A2/AD) strategies and capabilities designed to either  prevent an opposing force from entering an operational area (anti-access)  or limit an opposing force’s freedom of action within an operational area  (area denial), according to DOD. For instance, potential adversaries could  challenge DOD’s ability to deploy military forces by using ballistic and  cruise missiles to prevent U.S. forces from getting to an operational area  by attacking U.S. bases, ships, and logistics hubs. Similarly, potential  adversaries could use mines and guided rockets to limit U.S. freedom of  action once U.S. forces are in an area. DOD is increasingly focusing on  A2/AD challenges and issued the Joint Operational Access Concept  (JOAC) in 2012, which broadly describes how it will operate effectively in  an A2/AD environment to support development of the joint force of 2020,  as described by the 2012 Defense Strategic Guidance.
We issued two classified reports in 2013 focused on the A2/AD  capabilities of Iran and China and DOD’s ability to overcome them. A  House Armed Services Committee report accompanying the National  Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2014 noted that DOD’s initial  efforts to prepare for A2/AD challenges emphasized the roles of the Air  Force and Navy in countering A2/AD challenges, while less attention has  been given to the roles of the Army and Marine Corps.committee’s report mandated us to review the role of the Army and  Marine Corps in access-denied environments. This report (1) describes  Army and Marine Corps efforts to address operational access challenges  and (2) analyzes the extent to which DOD is able to gauge how its efforts  support implementation of its concept for future operations in an access- denied environment.
To describe Army and Marine Corps efforts to address operational access  challenges, we reviewed and analyzed documents from both services.  These included the Army Capstone Concept, the Army Operating  Concept (draft), and the Marine Corps’ Expeditionary Force 21–Forward  and Ready: Now and in the Future; reports and briefings on service-level  wargames and exercises; studies and reviews of possible future  operations in A2/AD environments conducted or sponsored by DOD; and  other documents describing ideas or initiatives for how Army and Marine  Corps forces might overcome A2/AD challenges.
To analyze the extent to which DOD is able to gauge how its efforts  support implementation of its concept for future operations in an access- denied environment, we reviewed and analyzed DOD strategic guidance,  including the 2012 Defense Strategic Guidance and the 2014  Quadrennial Defense Review,implications of operations in A2/AD environments, such as the Joint  Operational Access Concept, the Air-Sea Battle Concept, and the Joint  Concept for Entry Operations. We also reviewed and analyzed DOD’s  policies and guidance on concept implementation and its specific plans  for implementation of the JOAC, including the Joint Operational Access  Implementation Terms of Reference and a draft of the implementation  plan being developed by DOD during the time of our review. We used  criteria based on DOD guidance for concept implementation, DOD’s  JOAC implementation guidance, standards for internal control in the   and joint concepts that discuss the  federal government, and best practices for developing project schedules  to assess DOD’s implementation plan for the JOAC.
For both objectives, we interviewed DOD officials to gain a better  understanding of how DOD and the services are taking steps to address  operations in A2/AD environments and the extent to which DOD is  positioned to integrate those efforts into its DOD-wide implementation of  its concept for future operations in A2/AD environments. Specifically, we  interviewed officials from the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for  Policy; Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition,  Technology, and Logistics; Air Sea Battle Office; Joint Staff; Army  Capabilities Integration Command; Marine Corps Combat Development  Command; and Army officials with logistics and missile defense expertise.  On the basis of discussions with DOD officials, we also met with officials  from U.S. Pacific Command, U.S. Central Command, U.S. Special  Operations Command, and U.S. Transportation Command.
We conducted this performance audit from July 2013 to September 2014  in accordance with generally accepted government auditing standards.  Those standards require that we plan and perform the audit to obtain  sufficient, appropriate evidence to provide a reasonable basis for our  findings and conclusions based on our audit objectives. We believe that  the evidence obtained provides a reasonable basis for our findings and  conclusions based on our audit objectives.
subsections: section_title: Background
subsections: section_title: Future Operational Environment Includes Increasing A2/AD Challenges
paragraphs: Future A2/AD challenges are part of a security environment that will be  characterized by increasing complexity, uncertainty, and rapid change,  according to DOD. Further, national security challenges will continue to  arise from ongoing concerns such as violent extremism, the proliferation  of weapons of mass destruction, resource competition, and the rise of  modern competitor states, among others. These concerns, according to  DOD, combined with the proliferation of advanced technologies; the  increasing importance of space and cyberspace; and the ubiquity of  digital networks, including social media, will make the future security  environment less predictable, more complex, and potentially more  dangerous than it is today.
The JOAC notes that challenges to operational access are not new but  that three trends promise to significantly complicate DOD’s ability to  establish operational access.are   According to the JOAC, the three trends
Technology Improvement and Proliferation: The first important trend is  the dramatic improvement and proliferation of weapons and other  technologies capable of denying access or freedom of action within an  operational area. Specifically, an increasing number of state and  nonstate actors are developing or obtaining weapons of increasing  range and accuracy.
Space and Cyberspace Emergence: The second and related trend is  the emergence of space and cyberspace as increasingly important  and contested domains. According to the JOAC, the U.S. military will  continue to derive great benefit from its space and cyberspace  capabilities, but potential adversaries understand that and are  increasingly targeting those capabilities. Operating in the space and  cyberspace domains is also attractive to potential adversaries  because actions in those domains are often difficult to attribute.
Posture Changes: The third trend is that the change in U.S. overseas  defense posture complicates the U.S. ability to obtain operational  access. Specifically, DOD has reduced the number of overseas  facilities and number of deployed forces, meaning that future  operations will likely require it to deploy over longer distances.
According to the JOAC, the effect of these three trends is that potential  adversaries who may have once perceived that they could not stop U.S.  forces from deploying into an operational area are now adopting A2/AD  strategies. Figure 1 provides examples of anti-access and area denial  capabilities.
The JOAC describes A2/AD challenges in the context of an adversary’s  strategy rather than a list of technical capabilities that need to be  overcome. In general, the intent of an adversary that adopts an A2/AD  strategy is to convince and, if necessary and possible, compel the United  States to keep out of its affairs. At the most sophisticated level, an A2/AD  strategy is not a sequential series of actions using specific military  capabilities but rather an integrated and adaptive campaign using all  levers of national power and influence before, during, and after any actual  military conflict. Critical elements of an A2/AD strategy include keeping  U.S. forces as far away as possible and imposing steeper costs on the  United States than it is willing to bear.
Militarily, an A2/AD environment is characterized by sophisticated  adversaries using asymmetric capabilities, such as electronic and cyber  warfare, space capabilities, advanced air defenses, missiles, and mines,  according to DOD. The advanced weapons and technologies are  characterized by their increasing precision and range, and are often  affordable and increasingly proliferated. Adversaries could range from a  high-end peer state that has integrated a wide range of domestically  produced advanced capabilities to states, including failed or failing states,  adopting a hybrid strategy that includes regular and irregular forces and a  number of sophisticated weapons and technology developed at home or  acquired abroad. Even nonstate actors could obtain some A2/AD  capabilities, such as guided anti-ship missiles and cyber attack tools,  according to DOD. Figure 2 depicts the range of A2/AD challenges.
section_title: DOD Strategic Guidance and Recent Joint Concepts Focus on Operational Access
paragraphs: DOD has increasingly focused over the past few years on the operational  access challenges it may face in the future, although it has recognized  A2/AD challenges for well over a decade. For example, projecting and  sustaining U.S. forces in distant A2/AD environments and defeating  A2/AD threats was one of six operational goals identified in the 2001  Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR). However, DOD’s focus over the  subsequent decade was on operations in Afghanistan and Iraq. As those  operations began to wind down, DOD began to reemphasize the need to  be able to overcome challenges to operational access.
The 2012 Defense Strategic Guidance was intended to transition the  department from an emphasis on current operations to preparing for  future challenges, including helping guide decisions regarding the size  and shape of the future force in a more fiscally constrained environment.  In the guidance, the Secretary of Defense established projecting power  despite A2/AD challenges as 1 of 10 primary DOD missions, noting that  countries such as Iran and China will continue to pursue capabilities such  as electronic and cyber warfare and ballistic and cruise missiles to  counter U.S. power projection capabilities and limit the operational access  of U.S. forces. Other primary missions, such as operating effectively in  cyberspace and space, deterring and defeating aggression, and providing  a stabilizing presence, are also relevant to overcoming A2/AD challenges.
The 2014 QDR maintains the emphasis on overcoming A2/AD  challenges. It builds on the 2012 Defense Strategic Guidance and  continues DOD’s transition to focusing on future challenges during a time  of fiscal uncertainty. The QDR states that DOD must be prepared for a full  range of conflicts, including against state powers with advanced A2/AD  capabilities. Further, two of the QDR’s three strategic pillars—build  security globally and project power and win decisively—emphasize the  importance of being able to project power and overcome challenges to  access. The 2014 QDR also stresses that innovation will be paramount  across all of DOD’s activities in order to best address the increasingly  complex operational environment.
The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff has also issued guidance in the  past 2 years that emphasizes the importance of overcoming access  challenges. The Capstone Concept for Joint Operations: Joint Force 2020  is the foundational concept document that describes the Chairman’s  vision for how the joint force will defend the nation against a wide range of  security challenges and helps establish force development priorities.
Among these priorities is developing capabilities to defeat A2/AD threats,  which as noted above is the specific focus of the JOAC.
The JOAC includes a list of 30 required capabilities that are essential to  the implementation of the concept (see app. I). It further states that this  list is neither complete nor prioritized but provides a baseline for further  analysis and concept development. DOD also has a number of supporting  concepts to the JOAC that provide further detail on specific aspects of  operations in A2/AD environments. The first of these supporting concepts  is the Air-Sea Battle Concept, which is focused on overcoming the longer- range and advanced anti-access challenges. At the direction of the  Secretary of Defense, the Departments of the Navy and Air Force  developed this multiservice concept focused on gaining and maintaining  freedom of action in the global commons, that is, the areas of air, sea,   In April 2014, the  space, and cyberspace that belong to no one state.Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff issued the Joint Concept for Entry  Operations, a supporting concept to JOAC focused on how forces will  enter onto foreign territory and immediately conduct operations in the face  of adversaries with increasingly effective area-denial strategies and  capabilities. There are a number of other existing concepts, as well as  concepts that are being developed, that support the JOAC (see fig. 3).
section_title: Army and Marine Corps Are Undertaking Efforts to Prepare for Operational Access Challenges
paragraphs: The Army and Marine Corps are undertaking multiple efforts to address  operational access challenges, which impact a broad range of their  existing missions. In light of the rapidly changing operational environment,  the Army and Marine Corps are reviewing how they will need to carry out  their roles and functions in part by revising their service concepts and by  conducting wargames that incorporate such challenges. Further, the  Army and Marine Corps have identified several areas where they have  important roles in overcoming access challenges, including engagement  activities and entry operations, as well as logistics and missile defense for  the Army. The services are beginning to take steps to change how they  carry out these roles.
subsections: section_title: Army and Marine Corps Are Incorporating Operational Access Challenges into Service Concepts and Wargames
paragraphs: The Army and the Marine Corps have begun examining the impact of  operational access challenges on existing missions by revising their  concepts and incorporating such challenges into their wargames. For  example, the Army is revising the Army Operating Concept, which  generally describes how an Army commander will operate in future  environments that include A2/AD challenges, and identifies required  capabilities in land operations. Given future operational challenges, the  draft concept states that Army forces need to be agile, responsive,  adaptive, and regionally engaged across the globe, and be able to  conduct distributed operations. These distributed operations would  involve Army elements arriving from numerous directions and domains to  distributed locations in a joint operations area. According to the draft  concept, this operational approach, also discussed in the JOAC, could  help to overcome A2/AD challenges because the Army forces would be  more spread out and thus more difficult to target and defend against.  Once completed, the Army Operating Concept is to provide guidance for  the Army’s development of supporting functional concepts, which  eventually inform Army assessments of capability needs, gaps, and  solutions.
The Marine Corps has also incorporated consideration of A2/AD  challenges into Expeditionary Force 21, its capstone concept, which  provides guidance for how the Marine Corps will be organized, trained,  and equipped to fulfill its assigned responsibilities over the next 10  years. Published in March 2014, the concept identifies the JOAC as an  input and is consistent with many of its themes, including the importance  of distributed operations. Expeditionary Force 21 identifies a number of  challenges to Marine Corps operations caused by A2/AD threats and  proposes a number of potential solutions for how the service will  overcome them, including operating from amphibious ships farther from  shore and using dispersed formations. According to Marine Corps  officials, the service is also developing a number of supporting concepts,  including some with the Navy that will further explore proposed  approaches for overcoming A2/AD challenges. These officials stated that  eventually this will inform Marine Corps assessments of capability needs,  gaps, and solutions. The officials added that while the capstone concept  has been issued and the associated analysis and innovation is under  way, developing the full range of capabilities envisioned will be a long- term endeavor.
In addition, the Army and Marine Corps are incorporating operational  access challenges into their wargames. Services conduct wargames for  multiple reasons, including mission rehearsal, concept analysis, and  doctrine validation. The Army’s Unified Quest wargames explore a broad  range of future conflicts and have included A2/AD scenarios. For  example, the scenario for Unified Quest 2013 was set in the 2030-2040  time frame with fictional adversaries adopting hybrid warfighting  approaches that used a mix of A2/AD capabilities, including integrated air  defenses, cyber warfare, and anti-ship cruise missiles. The wargame  explored new operating concepts, including how to effectively fight with  dispersed forces. The Marine Corps’ Expeditionary Warrior wargames  have also included A2/AD challenges. For example, Expeditionary  Warrior 2012 was set in 2024 in a fictional country where state and  nonstate adversaries were armed with A2/AD capabilities, including cyber  warfare, ballistic missiles, anti-ship cruise missiles, integrated air defense  systems, mines, and submarines. The Marine Corps used this wargame,  in part, to explore integration with special operations, cyber, and other  joint forces.
Although they have functions important to overcoming the range of A2/AD  challenges, the Army and Marine Corps have focused their wargames on  A2/AD challenges from states and failed or failing states with less- advanced A2/AD capabilities. A primary reason for this approach,  according to Army and Marine Corps officials, is that ground forces are  likely to have a larger role in failed and failing state scenarios as  compared with their roles in scenarios involving a peer or near-peer  competitor. Further, such conflicts are more likely than a conflict with a  peer competitor (see fig. 4). The officials added that the Army and Marine  Corps participate in Navy and Air Force wargames that examine the  A2/AD challenges posed by peer competitors.
section_title: Army and Marine Corps Have Identified Important Roles in Overcoming Operational Access Challenges and Are Beginning to Take Steps to Change How They Carry Out These Roles
paragraphs: The Army and the Marine Corps have identified several areas where they  have important roles in overcoming operational access challenges.  According to Army and Marine Corps officials, A2/AD challenges impact a   While  broad range of their existing missions but do not create new ones.A2/AD challenges impact many missions, primary missions include the  engagement activities and entry operations of both services, as well as  logistics and missile defense for the Army. The services are beginning to  take steps to change how they carry out these missions. Some of these  efforts are expected to stretch well into the next decade and beyond.
subsections: section_title: Engagement Activities
paragraphs: The Army and the Marine Corps play a primary role in establishing  access through their engagement activities and are using these  opportunities to help address A2/AD challenges, according to DOD  officials. The JOAC emphasizes that success in overcoming A2/AD  challenges in combat often depends on activities prior to conflict that help  gain and maintain access and identifies three required capabilities for  such activities. According to the JOAC, such activities include  multinational exercises, basing and support agreements, improving  overseas facilities, prepositioning supplies, and forward-deploying forces.  These types of activities help shape favorable access conditions. For  example, engagement activities such as combined training or exercises,  or improving a host-nation’s infrastructure, help maintain and develop  good relationships with and improve the capabilities of allies and partners  that then may be called upon in the event of a crisis. Also, officials from  the U.S. Pacific Command (PACOM) and the U.S. Central Command  (CENTCOM) emphasized the importance of engagement activities in  gaining and maintaining access and stated that continued forward  presence of U.S. forces in their regions may help deter potential  adversaries and reassure allies and partners by signaling U.S.  commitment to that region. Moreover, DOD officials stated that having  Army and Marine Corps forces forward deployed conducting engagement  activities helps with access challenges because these forces are already  in theater and can respond more quickly if a crisis occurs than they could  if they had to deploy from the United States.
Both the Army and Marine Corps are developing new approaches to their  engagement activities to help shape favorable access conditions. For  example, the Army is testing a new operational approach in 2014, called  Pacific Pathways, that changes the way the Army supplies forces for  engagement activities. Rather than sending a number of small units that  each conduct a single activity for a short period of time, under Pacific  Pathways the Army will send a fully-equipped, combat-trained, 700- soldier battalion-sized force to participate in two or three regional  exercises over the course of 90 days. Soldiers and their equipment would  travel by air and sea between engagements. Similarly, the Marine Corps  is also taking steps to enhance engagement activities and provide  forward presence. The Marine Corps is planning on having one-third of its  forces forward deployed. As part of this effort, the Marine Corps is  returning to the practice of rotational deployments, where units based in  the United States deploy to Japan or Australia for 6 months to train,  engage allies and partners in the region, and provide forward presence.  According to DOD officials, these approaches allow the forces to better  fulfill their respective missions while providing the combatant  commanders with more options for their employment.
In addition, officials from CENTCOM, PACOM, and U.S. Special  Operations Command told us they are increasingly incorporating  engagement activities into their planning efforts. Moreover, the JOAC  states that combatant commanders will need to coordinate these efforts  with other U.S. agencies that are also conducting engagement activities.  In February 2013, we testified that as DOD continues to emphasize  engagement activities, to include building partner capacity, the need for  efficient and effective coordination with foreign partners and within the  U.S. government has become more important, in part because of fiscal  challenges, which can be exacerbated by overlapping or ineffective  efforts.
section_title: Entry Operations
paragraphs: The Army and the Marine Corps both play a primary role in conducting  entry operations in an A2/AD environment, according to DOD. Entry  operations are the projection and immediate employment of military  forces from the sea or through the air onto foreign territory to accomplish  assigned missions. The JOAC states that maintaining or expanding  operational access may require entry of Army or Marine Corps forces into  hostile territory to accomplish missions, such as eliminating land-based  threats or initiating sustained land operations, and identifies the ability to  conduct forcible entry operations as a required capability.
The Army has conducted several studies, exercises, and wargames that  examine entry operations in an A2/AD environment and concluded,  among other things, that it must be able to deploy decisive force much  more rapidly. The Army identified a number of areas requiring  improvement, including enhancing engagement with friends and allies,  increasing the ability to deploy small units, reducing logistics demands,  and greatly advancing technologies such as vertical lift, lighter yet  survivable vehicles, missile defenses, and command and control.  Moreover, for Army airborne units, the Army has identified the need for  capabilities such as weapon systems and vehicles that can be air- dropped in a location and provide forces with long-range, precision  firepower; mobility across a range of terrain; and protection, among other  things.improvements by 2025 and to have significantly improved forces in the  2040 time frame.
It has further outlined an approach intended to achieve some  The Marine Corps is also examining how to conduct entry operations in  an A2/AD environment. According to the Marine Corps, the joint force has  become brittle and risk averse because of its reliance on a small number  of very advanced and expensive weapons systems that are increasingly  vulnerable to A2/AD capabilities. A key force priority for overcoming  A2/AD challenges is resilience, according to PACOM officials. To  increase resilience, the Marine Corps is developing the idea of using a  greater number of highly mobile capabilities on expeditionary advanced  bases—small, temporary, austere, and distributed bases that can be  established for a variety of purposes. For example, the Marine Corps  could use land-based anti-ship missiles on small mobile platforms to  control sea-lanes. However, according to the Marine Corps, pursuing this  idea would require it to obtain new missile capabilities as well as more  flexible supply and command and control systems than are currently in  place. Additionally, the Marine Corps is examining operating short- takeoff/vertical-landing-capable joint strike fighters from small distributed  bases; however, according to the Marine Corps, it has not yet determined  the supportability requirements for this aircraft in austere environments.  The Marine Corps is aware of such challenges and is in the early stages  of addressing them. It has not yet completed the concepts and follow-on  analyses needed to support the implementation of these ideas, according  to Marine Corps officials.
section_title: Logistics
paragraphs: The Army has a fundamental role in providing logistics support in an  A2/AD environment, according to DOD, and the JOAC states that  increased threats and operational demands of future operations in such  environments may present challenges for logistics. Specifically, the  JOAC states that logistics hubs and networks may be increasingly  vulnerable to attack by adversaries with A2/AD capabilities, such as  cyber, counterspace, and ballistic missiles. Further, one of DOD’s and the  Army’s approaches to conducting operations in an A2/AD environment is  to use multiple smaller units operating independently, but supporting such  units is more logistically demanding. The JOAC identifies three required  capabilities for logistics, but also notes that new logistics concepts are  needed to explore the challenges to logistics in an A2/AD environment  and to help define required capabilities. Also, a study examining the  impacts of the JOAC on joint logistics echoed this need.
According to  officials from the Joint Staff and the Army, they have begun revising the  Joint Concept for Logistics, in part, to include A2/AD challenges.
In addition, the Army is examining how it might address A2/AD challenges  related to logistics. One way that the Army is proposing to mitigate the  problem of increased demands on logistics is to focus efforts on  decreasing the Army’s and the joint force’s demand for items such as  fuel, water, and ammunition. For example, the Army’s Functional Concept  for Sustainment, issued in October 2010, states that during operations in  Iraq, 22 percent of all convoys into the theater per year were for fuel. The  concept states that technological advances are needed to reduce the fuel  demand for vehicles and energy production, among other things. In  addition, the Army is exploring unmanned distribution of supplies in  theater to help provide timely sustainment and reduce the exposure of  soldiers to potential threats. A 2013 Army Unified Quest wargame report  stated that while this technology could provide benefits, additional study is  needed to understand how and when automated systems should be  used, as well as the costs, such as those for maintenance, that would be  involved.
section_title: Missile Defense
paragraphs: Another primary Army contribution to overcoming A2/AD challenges is  providing active missile defenses, according to DOD. The JOAC notes  that the increasing accuracy, lethality, and proliferation of ballistic and  cruise missiles are a key A2/AD challenge. Further, such capabilities are  attractive to potential adversaries because they are cost imposing: that is,  defenses against ballistic and cruise missiles tend to be more costly than  the missiles themselves. According to DOD, adversaries will use ballistic  and cruise missiles to counter U.S. power projection capabilities by  attacking forward bases, naval forces, and logistics support and  command and control capabilities. The JOAC therefore identifies  expeditionary missile defense as a required capability for overcoming  access challenges.
Land-based missile defense is a core Army function and a main element  of DOD’s force structure, according to DOD. Although the JOAC does not  provide a clear definition of what constitutes expeditionary missile  defense, several characteristics of the Army’s missile defense force  structure indicate that they do not meet this required capability, including  the following:
Mobility/supportability—The JOAC emphasizes the need for smaller  and highly mobile systems requiring little support. Current Army  missile defenses are transportable but lack strategic and tactical  mobility, according to the Army. They also have large logistical  requirements.
Capacity—According to DOD, demand for missile defenses, including  those provided by the Army, exceeds capacity. Missiles are the core  of adversary A2/AD capabilities, and growing adversary missile  inventories and improving capabilities will exacerbate capacity  issues.
Cost—According to DOD, current missile defenses are very  expensive. By pursuing increasingly advanced missiles, adversaries  are able to impose costs on the United States.
Army and Army-sponsored reviews recognize some of these difficulties  and have recommended that more attention be paid to other, less costly  technologies that can protect against large numbers of missiles, such as  directed energy weapons and railguns.Office is working with the Navy and others to develop a railgun that can  provide cost-effective land-based ballistic and cruise missile defense   DOD’s Strategic Capabilities  capability.projectiles with sensors and existing guns, including Army artillery, to  shoot down cruise missiles. These alternatives could provide high- capacity, cost-effective missile defense capabilities, but they have not yet  matured into programs, according to the Strategic Capabilities Office.  According to the Army, power generation, storage, and mobility issues  associated with directed energy weapons and railguns will be resolved in  the 2040 time frame.
section_title: DOD Is in the Early Stages of Developing the JOAC Implementation Plan, but Has Not Fully Established Specific Measures and Milestones to Assess Progress
paragraphs: DOD is developing an implementation plan for the JOAC in order to bring  coherence to the department’s many simultaneous efforts to overcome  A2/AD challenges but has not fully established measures and milestones  to gauge progress.effort to coordinate, oversee, and assess the department’s  implementation of the JOAC. DOD is planning to issue the first iteration of  the plan in 2014 and intends to assess and update the plan annually.  However, the draft 2014 JOAC Implementation Plan is limited in scope  and does not fully establish the specific measures and milestones DOD  needs to allow decision makers to assess the progress the department is  making, including the contributions of the Army and the Marine Corps.
subsections: section_title: DOD Is in the Early Stages of Developing the Joint Operational Access Concept Implementation Plan
paragraphs: The Joint Staff is leading a multiyear DOD-wide effort, initiated in June  2013, to coordinate, oversee, and assess the department’s  implementation of the JOAC. In order for DOD to fulfill its mission to  project power despite A2/AD challenges, the 2012 Defense Strategic  Guidance requires DOD to implement the JOAC. In addition, DOD  guidance on concept development requires DOD to develop and execute  implementation plans for joint concepts and to assess their  implementation.JOAC is the first joint concept to be implemented under the new  guidance, according to DOD officials. They further stated that the  emphasis on implementation is a significant and positive change to the  guidance but will be challenging to execute.
The guidance was issued in November 2013 and the  In accordance with this guidance, DOD is planning to issue the first  iteration of the JOAC Implementation Plan in August 2014 and intends to  assess and update the plan annually. single place where it was tracking and coordinating its efforts to address  A2/AD challenges, including those of the Army and Marine Corps, even  though the JOAC notes that addressing A2/AD challenges requires closer  integration between services than ever before. The draft 2014 JOAC  Implementation Plan states that it is intended to provide coherence by  integrating, overseeing, communicating, and assessing the various efforts  being taken across DOD to create the capabilities required to overcome  A2/AD challenges.
The first iteration of the implementation plan—the 2014 plan—remains in draft as of July  2014. officials.force development processes to gather information about current and  planned activities that contributed to the implementation of the JOAC.  They further noted that the JOAC implementation process may eventually  address not only capability issues but also capacity issues, which officials  from the Army, Marine Corps, and the combatant commands we spoke  with noted were critical in terms of overcoming A2/AD challenges.
These officials stated that the intent was to leverage existing  Because of the large scope of the JOAC and to help familiarize  stakeholders with a new process, Joint Staff officials stated that the  working group decided to focus the first iteration of the plan on 10  required capabilities that it determined to be the highest priority rather  than including all 30 JOAC-required capabilities.  Once those capabilities  were identified, officials said that working group members, including those  from the Army and Marine Corps, reviewed ongoing and planned  activities from their respective organizations that they believed would  align with the implementation of 1 or more of the 10 prioritized  capabilities.
The JOAC identifies 30 required capabilities as essential to the implementation of the  concept (see app. I). While the 30 capabilities are unclassified, when they are ordered in  terms of priority, they become classified. Thus, the 10 capabilities that were considered  the highest priority for the department are classified. The working group identified the 10  priorities by comparing DOD’s current list of prioritized gaps in the Chairman’s Capability  Gap Assessment with the list of JOAC capabilities. The working group also included a  special topic in the annual Chairman’s Joint Assessment that asked the services,  combatant commanders, and other DOD organizations to identify the highest-priority  JOAC-required capabilities. for completion determined by the organization responsible for the action  that could span several years. Thus, for each capability, multiple  organizations are simultaneously undertaking implementation actions with  various timelines for completion. Joint Staff officials stated that the  execution matrix revealed that DOD was already taking many actions  addressing the 10 prioritized capabilities.
Officials noted that the 165 implementation actions do not constitute the  full effort required to complete implementation of these 10 required  capabilities, and future iterations of the execution matrix will be updated  as required based on analyses to identify additional discrete  implementation actions. In addition, future iterations of the JOAC  Implementation Plan will also include the other JOAC-required  capabilities as well as required capabilities from other joint concepts that  support the JOAC, according to Joint Staff officials.
section_title: Draft Implementation Plan Does Not Have Fully Established Specific Measures and Milestones to Assess Progress
paragraphs: The draft 2014 JOAC Implementation Plan does not fully establish the  specific measures and milestones DOD needs to allow decision makers  to assess the progress the department is making, including the  contributions of the Army and the Marine Corps. DOD guidance requires  that all joint concepts have an implementation plan that includes  measures and milestones that allow decision makers to gauge  implementation progress. Further, a stated purpose of the plan is to  measure progress toward the development of a joint force able to project  power despite A2/AD challenges. Internal control standards in the federal  government also call for agencies to provide reasonable assurance to  decision makers that their objectives are being achieved and that decision  makers have reliable data to determine whether they are meeting goals  and using resources effectively and efficiently.
Moreover, GAO’s  Schedule Assessment Guide states that milestones and measures are  essential for tracking an organization’s progress toward achieving  intermediate and long-term goals, and helping to identify critical phases of  the project and the essential activities needed to be completed within  given time frames.
The draft JOAC Implementation Plan identifies four stages at which the  working group is to assess implementation.
Implementation Actions. The working group is to assess the progress  made in implementing the discrete materiel and nonmateriel actions in  the execution matrix.
Required Capabilities. The working group is to assess progress in  implementing each JOAC-required capability based on the progress  made on completing the implementation actions relevant to that  capability.
Operational Objectives. The Implementation Plan organizes the  required capabilities into four operational objectives—the broad goals  a commander must achieve in order to project power despite A2/AD  challenges. The working group is to assess progress in  implementing each operational objective based on the progress of the  required capabilities aligned under each objective.
End State. The working group is to assess progress in reaching the  JOAC end state based on the implementation progress of the four  operational objectives.
The draft 2014 JOAC Implementation Plan includes measures and  milestones for the 165 identified implementation actions but not for the  other three implementation stages. Specifically, the 165 actions will be  assessed as being either complete or not yet complete, according to Joint  Staff officials. However, Joint Staff officials stated the working group has  not yet developed the necessary measures to gauge the extent to which  required capabilities, operational objectives, or the end state have been  implemented. For example, the working group has not yet developed  measures for how the completion of an implementation action affects the  completion of the required capability to which it is tied. In other words, the  aggregate of the implementation actions will show how much work has  been completed—i.e., the number of actions—but it will not show how  much work remains to be completed to fully implement the required  capability. Thus, even if DOD completed all 165 implementation actions  identified in the first plan, it currently would not be able to determine the  progress in implementing the 10 required capabilities. Figure 5 shows the  stages at which the draft 2014 JOAC Implementation Plan has measures  and milestones.
Similarly, the draft 2014 JOAC Implementation Plan does not fully identify  milestones for all four implementation stages. Specifically, the plan  identifies milestones for the 165 implementation actions, but not for  required capabilities, operational objectives, and the end state. Moreover,  the 2014 plan does not indicate if or when milestones will be established.  For example, the implementation plan does not identify when the required  capability for expeditionary missile defense should be completed, and  Army officials told us that plans for developing this high-priority capability  may take decades. Additionally, the plan does not identify milestones for  implementing the operational objective related to engagement activities,  which, as noted previously, is an area in which the Army and Marine  Corps play primary roles.
Joint Staff officials emphasized that the 2014 JOAC Implementation Plan  is the first of many iterations and was intended only to provide visibility of  ongoing activities relevant to the top 10 JOAC-required capabilities. Joint  Staff officials stated that they intend to include ways to assess overall  implementation progress in future iterations of the plan. Specifically, the  draft 2014 Implementation Plan states that the working group will  establish a process to aggregate implementation actions in such a way as  to allow it to gauge progress at the required capability, operational  objective, and end state stages. However, the draft plan provides no  detail about how or when this will be accomplished.
While DOD has stated its intent to assess progress in the future, its  current planning lacks specifics about the measures it will employ and  how it will set milestones to gauge that progress. Consequently, the draft  2014 plan is not fully consistent with DOD guidance, as well as federal  internal control standards and GAO’s Schedule Assessment Guide, that  emphasize the importance of tracking an organization’s progress toward  achieving its goals. Without establishing specific measures and  milestones in future iterations of the JOAC Implementation Plan, DOD will  not be able to gauge JOAC implementation progress and assess whether  efforts by the joint force, to include the Army and the Marine Corps, will  achieve DOD’s goals in desired time frames in the near and long terms.  Specifically, if DOD does not have a means to assess implementation  progress, it may lack assurance that Army and Marine Corps efforts to  address areas such as engagement activities, entry operations, logistics  support, and expeditionary missile defense fully align with the JOAC.  Moreover, without an effective implementation plan that allows decision  makers to track progress over time, DOD will not have the assurance that  it will be able to provide commanders with the forces they need to  overcome A2/AD challenges envisioned to be faced by the joint force of  2020.
section_title: Conclusions
paragraphs: The proliferation of relatively low-cost advanced technologies and the  emergence of space and cyberspace as contested domains, along with  the change in U.S. overseas defense posture, present DOD with a future  operational environment that no longer includes the unimpeded  operational access DOD has enjoyed for decades. As potential  adversaries develop strategies aimed at preventing the U.S. military from  arriving at the fight and complicating its freedom of action once there,  DOD’s planning has shifted to focus on how to maintain its ability to  project power into operational areas. While DOD may have initially  emphasized the role of the Air Force and Navy in overcoming A2/AD  challenges, the Army and the Marine Corps also have primary roles to  play and are beginning to address these challenges.
DOD’s effort to develop an implementation plan is a significant step and  provides the foundation for a roadmap to move the JOAC from concept to  implementation. However, since it does not yet include specific measures  and milestones that would allow DOD to gauge JOAC implementation  progress, it is not yet clear the extent to which efforts across the  department to address A2/AD challenges, including those of the Army  and Marine Corps, support JOAC implementation, or whether current  efforts align with JOAC implementation time frames. Given that some of  the department’s efforts to address JOAC-required capabilities, such as  the Army’s work on missile defense, may take many years, a means to  assess progress is essential. Specifically, fully establishing measures and  milestones would clarify what additional steps the Army and Marine Corps  may need to take to align their current efforts to address A2/AD  challenges—including with respect to their key roles in engagement  activities, entry operations, logistics support, and missile defense—with  the required capabilities in the JOAC. Until future iterations of the JOAC  Implementation Plan contain specific measures and milestones to gauge  progress, DOD may find it difficult to judge whether it is on target to meet  its overall goal of ensuring the joint force of 2020 can operate effectively  in an A2/AD environment.
section_title: Recommendation for Executive Action
paragraphs: To improve DOD’s ability to assess Joint Operational Access Concept  implementation, including the contribution of the Army and the Marine  Corps, we recommend that the Secretary of Defense direct the Joint  Staff, in coordination with the Army, the Marine Corps, and other  members of the working group, to establish specific measures and  milestones in future iterations of the JOAC Implementation Plan to gauge  how individual implementation actions contribute in the near and long  terms to achieving the required capabilities, operational objectives, and  end state envisioned by the department.
section_title: Agency Comments and Our Evaluation
paragraphs: We provided a draft of this report to DOD for review and comment. DOD  provided written comments, which are summarized below and reprinted in  appendix II. In its written comments, DOD partially concurred with the  report’s recommendation to establish specific measures and milestones  in future iterations of the JOAC Implementation Plan to gauge how  individual implementation actions contribute in the near and long term to  achieving the required capabilities, operational objectives, and end state  envisioned by the department.
In its comments, the department stated that it had previously recognized  the need to assess JOAC implementation progress and that it had  already begun to develop specific measures and milestones and would  incorporate them into annual updates of the JOAC Implementation Plan.  We noted in the report that DOD intended to include ways to assess  overall implementation progress in future iterations of the implementation  plan but that the draft 2014 plan did not fully establish specific measures  and milestones to assess progress or provide detail for how progress  would be assessed or when this would be accomplished. As also noted in  the report, it is important that specific measures and milestones move  beyond being able to assess progress of individual implementation  actions and expand to allow the department to gauge JOAC  implementation progress and assess whether efforts by the joint force, to  include the Army and the Marine Corps, will achieve DOD’s goals in  desired time frames in the near and long terms. In doing so, DOD will be  better positioned to judge whether it is on target to meet its overall goal of  ensuring the joint force of 2020 can operate effectively in an A2/AD  environment.
DOD also provided technical comments, which we have incorporated as  appropriate.
We are sending copies of this report to appropriate congressional  committees, the Secretary of Defense, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of  Staff, the Secretary of the Army, and the Commandant of the Marine  Corps. In addition, the report is available at no charge on the GAO  website at http://www.gao.gov.
If you or your staff have any questions about this report, please contact  me at (202) 512-3489 or pendletonj@gao.gov. Contact points for our  Offices of Congressional Relations and Public Affairs may be found on  the last page of this report. GAO staff who made key contributions to this  report are listed in appendix III.
section_title: Appendix I: Joint Operational Access Concept Required Capabilities
paragraphs: The Joint Operational Access Concept (JOAC) identifies 30 capabilities  considered essential to the implementation of the concept and what the  future joint force will need to gain operational access in an opposed  environment. According to the JOAC, the list of required capabilities is  neither complete nor prioritized but provides a baseline for further  analysis and concept development. The JOAC organizes the required  capabilities in eight categories as described below.
subsections: section_title: Command and Control
paragraphs: 1.  The ability to maintain reliable connectivity and interoperability among  major warfighting headquarters and supported/supporting forces while  en route.  2.  The ability to perform effective command and control in a degraded  and/or austere communications environment.  3.  The ability to create sharable, user-defined operating pictures from a  common database to provide situational awareness (including  friendly, enemy, and neutral situations) across the domains.  4.  The ability to integrate cross-domain operations, to include at lower  echelons, with the full integration of space and cyberspace  operations.  5.  The ability to employ mission command to enable subordinate  commanders to act independently in consonance with the higher  commander’s intent and effect the necessary cross-domain  integration laterally at the required echelon.
section_title: Intelligence
paragraphs: 6.  The ability of operational forces to detect and respond to hostile  computer network attack in an opposed access situation.  7.  The ability to conduct timely and accurate cross-domain all-source  intelligence fusion in an opposed access situation.  8.  The ability to develop all categories of intelligence in any necessary  domain in the context of opposed access.
section_title: Fires
paragraphs: 9.  The ability to locate, target, and suppress or neutralize hostile anti- access and area denial capabilities in complex terrain with the  necessary range, precision, responsiveness, and reversible and  permanent effects while limiting collateral damage.  10. The ability to leverage cross-domain cueing to detect and engage in- depth to delay, disrupt, or destroy enemy systems.  11. The ability to conduct electronic attack and computer network attack  against hostile anti-access/area denial capabilities.  12. The ability to interdict enemy forces and materiel deploying to an  operational area.
section_title: Movement and Maneuver
paragraphs: 13. The ability to conduct and support operational maneuver over  strategic distances along multiple axes of advance by air and sea.  14. The ability to “maneuver” in cyberspace to gain entry into hostile  digital networks.  15. The ability to conduct en route command and control, mission  planning and rehearsal, and assembly of deploying forces, to include  linking up of personnel and prepositioned equipment.  16. The ability to conduct forcible entry operations, from raids and other  limited-objective operations to the initiation of sustained land  operations.  17. The ability to mask the approach of joint maneuver elements to  enable those forces to penetrate sophisticated anti-access systems  and close within striking range with acceptable risk.
section_title: Protection
paragraphs: 18. The ability to defeat enemy targeting systems, including their  precision firing capabilities.  19. The ability to provide expeditionary missile defense to counter the  increased precision, lethality, and range of enemy anti-access/area  denial systems.  20. The ability to protect and, if necessary, reconstitute bases and other  infrastructure required to project military force, to include points of  origin, ports of embarkation and debarkation, and intermediate staging  bases.  21. The ability to protect forces and supplies deploying by sea and air.  22. The ability to protect friendly space forces while disrupting enemy  space operations.  23. The ability to conduct cyber defense in the context of opposed  access.
section_title: Sustainment
paragraphs: 24. The ability to deploy, employ, and sustain forces via a global network  of fixed and mobile bases, to include seabasing.  25. The ability to quickly and flexibly establish nonstandard support  mechanisms, such as the use of commercial providers and facilities.  26. The ability to plan, manage, and integrate contractor support in the  context of operations to gain operational access in the face of armed  resistance.
section_title: Information
paragraphs: 27. The ability to inform and influence selected audiences to facilitate  operational access before, during, and after hostilities.
section_title: Engagement
paragraphs: 28. The ability to develop relationships and partnership goals and to share  capabilities and capacities to ensure access and advance long-term  regional stability.  29. The ability to secure basing, navigation, and overflight rights and  support agreements from regional partners.  30. The ability to provide training, supplies, equipment, and other  assistance to regional partners to improve their access capabilities.
section_title: Appendix II: Comments from the Department of Defense
section_title: Appendix III: GAO Contact and Staff Acknowledgments
subsections: section_title: GAO Contact
section_title: Staff Acknowledgments
paragraphs: In addition to the contact named above, Patricia Lentini, Assistant  Director; Margaret Morgan, Assistant Director; Carolynn Cavanaugh;  Colin Chambers; Nicolaas Cornelisse; Amie Steele; and Erik Wilkins- McKee made key contributions to this report.