Joint Military Operations Historical Collection: 15 July 1997
(Joint doctrines roots reach back to the commanders who f...)
Joint doctrines roots reach back to the commanders who first dealt with the timeless problems of coordinating military operations among land, sea and, later, air forces. The challenges inherent in coordinating different military forces have existed since armies became distinct from navies. The nation-states of ancient Greece that maintained both armies and navies faced the same challenges of joint coordination that General Grant and Admiral Porter addressed at the battle of Vicksburg. As technological developments added air power to the joint coordination equation, multi-Service coordination became even more complex. The nature of multi-Service coordination seen in World War II convinced Congress in 1947 that a permanent institution was required to control its complexities. The result was legislation that created the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Establishing a permanent structure to coordinate US land, sea, and air forces recognized that multiplying force effectiveness through joint action was critical to military success. Throughout history, nations that successfully coordinated simultaneous land and sea actions won their battles. Those that did not, lost. Although the ancients coordinated forces on land and sea, modern military planners must also deal with air and space. These new media change the situation quantitatively, not qualitatively. Multi-Service coordination still seeks to solve problems revealed when Pericles balanced his naval and land forces to defend Athens. Since Athens fought Sparta, technological advances have greatly reduced the time available for military decision making. In the age of sail, governments had months to decide how to coordinate land and sea responses to military threats. W ith modern weapons and communications, the luxury of time has virtually disappeared. The pace of events requires rapid and more effective decision making. Lacking time and facing critical decisions, military planners who know their history can base their choices on useful knowledge. The outstanding characteristic of all joint operations is their relative complexity compared to single Service operations. The increasing capability of todays forces exacerbates the coordination problem, while the lethality and accuracy of modern weaponry demand a higher standard of control. For example, in DESERT STORM coalition forces dropped more bomb tonnage in 100 days than the allies dropped in all of World War II. Coordinating the logistics, maneuver , and timing of huge forces over great distances increases the opportunities for friction, the fog of war, and enemy action to destroy plans. The case histories each show specific actions taken to handle the coordination of large for ces. These US joint and multinational operations also demonstrate the efforts required to make operational reach over extreme distances work for, rather than against, US goals. Prosecuting the war on the adversarys territory is always a good plan, but it requires long term investment, enormous planning capabilities, and the ability to synchronize activities on land, on the sea, and in the air for long periods. Leader, planner, and action officer accomplishments demonstrated in these case histories show how the proper use of experience and applied knowledge leads to military success.
National Military Strategy: of the United States of America; 1995; A Strategy of Flexible and Selective Engagement
(In formulating national military strategy, the Chairman o...)
In formulating national military strategy, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff derives guidance from the national security strategy articulated by the President and from the Bottom-Up Review conducted by the Secretary of Defense. The National Security Strategy of Engagement and Enlargement emphasizes worldwide engagement and the enlargement of the community of free market democracies. Challenges to our global interests did not disappear with the end of the Cold War. Today we face a world in which threats are widespread and uncertain, and where conflict is probably, but too often unpredictable. Overseas presence takes the form of both permanently stationed forces and forces temporarily deployed abroad. Being ready to fight and win the Nations wars remains our foremost responsibility and the prime consideration governing all our military activities. This ability serves as the ultimate guarantor of our vital interests and is the fundamental reason that our Nation has raised and sustained its military forces. The core requirement of our strategy as laid out in the Bottom- Up Review is a force capable of fighting and winning two major regional conflicts nearly simultaneously. The national military strategy of flexible and selective engagement addresses the challenges and opportunities of the next century. US global responsibilities require global capabilities, despite a regional focus in implementing the strategy. We must apply all our strengths and work with allies and friends to assure stability in a troubled and complex world. This means our smaller forces must be made stronger and more versatile but remain built on the same strong foundation of outstanding people.
John Malchase David Shalikashvili was the U. S. General, was appointed chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in August 1993, culminating a military career that began in 1958.
Background
John Shalikashvili was born in Warsaw, Poland, on June 27, 1936, one of three children of Dimitri Shalikashvili and Maria Ruediger, daughter of a czarist general. Dimitri Shalikashvili, who had gone into exile from his native Georgia following communist victory in the Russian Civil War, was serving as a contract (foreign national) officer in the Polish army when World War II began. Demobilized after Poland's surrender to Germany, Dimitri Shalikashvili joined the Georgian Legion in 1942, a military unit composed of Georgian expatriates who believed they could free their homeland from communist oppression by aligning themselves with Germany. Until 1944 the Shalikashvili family lived in relative comfort given Poland's status as a defeated and occupied nation.
During the uprising of Warsaw underground forces, however, fighting raged around the apartment building where the family was living, and for weeks Maria Shalikashvili and her children took refuge in the basement. Once the resistance was suppressed, the Shalikashvilis were among many civilians evacuated to transit camps along the border between Poland and Germany. To evade the advancing Red Army, the family settled in Pappenheim, a village in Bavaria where Maria Shalikashvili had wealthy relatives who provided them with a residence and a livelihood.
In 1952 the Shalikashvilis emigrated to Peoria, Illinois, where a distant relative resided.
Education
John Shalikashvili, who was fluent in Polish, German, and Russian, enrolled as a junior in Central High School in Peoria. He improved his English, the story goes, by watching John Wayne films. In 1958 he graduated from Bradley University with a degree in mechanical engineering. Drafted into the army, Shalikashvili was accepted in Officer Candidate School (OCS) at Fort Sill, Oklahoma, after completing his training.
In the decade following his service in Vietnam, Shalikashvili studied at both the Naval War College (1969 - 1970) and the Army War College (1977 - 1978) as well as at George Washington University, which awarded him a Master's degree in international relations (1970).
Career
He was commissioned a second lieutenant in 1959 and assigned to a mortar battery in Alaska. Deciding to make a career in the army, Shalikashvili served as an instructor (1961 - 1963) and staff officer (1963 - 1964) at the Army Air Defense School and Center in Fort Bliss, Texas, and then joined the 32nd Army Air Defense Command in Germany (1965 - 1967). He had been promoted to captain in 1963 and became a major in 1967. Service at
In January 1968 he began an 18-month assignment as senior advisor in the Trieu Phong district, Advisory Team 19, with the United States Military Assistance Command in Vietnam. Shalikashvili's responsibilities included training local militia and accompanying Vietnamese militia units into combat as well as working with officials on rice production and other civilian economic and political tasks.
He had staff assignments overseas in South Korea (1971 - 1972) and Italy (1978 - 1979) and twice served at Fort Lewis, Washington, the second time as commander of the 16th Battalion, 84th Field Artillery (1975 - 1977). He was promoted to lieutenant colonel in 1974 and to colonel five years later.
Between 1979 and 1981 Shalikashvili was in Germany with the 16t Armored Division. He was then transferred to Washington, D. C. , where he served as chief of the politico-military division and then as deputy director of the Strategy, Plans and Policy Directorate. In 1983 he was promoted to brigadier general and to major general in 1986.
From 1984 to 1986 he again served in Germany as assistant commander of the 16th Armored Division, after which he had duty in the Pentagon as the army's director of strategy, plans, and policy (1986 - 1987). Shalikashvili next commanded the 9th Infantry Division before returning to Germany in 1989 as deputy commander-in-chief, United States Army, Europe. Shalikashvili was in Germany when the Persian Gulf War began. He did not participate in the war. In its aftermath, however, Iraqi forces had driven the substantial Kurdish minority within Iraq from their home area in the north into harsh mountainous terrain along the borders between Iraq, Iran, and Turkey.
President George Bush gained approval to organize an international relief expedition to serve in what was identified as Operation Provide Comfort. Military contingents as well as medical personnel from the United States and a dozen other countries began entering the area in April 1991. Shalikashvili, a lieutenant general since 1989, was named commander. The operation, which had as its stated goals the provision of humanitarian aid and the establishment of a safe haven for the Kurds in northern Iraq, lasted until July and was perceived as a success. That is, at a time when the possibility of a land confrontation between North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) forces and the former Soviet army had receded, military operations were apt to be modest in scale and unconventional in nature, combining both peacemaking and peacekeeping missions as well as the distribution of humanitarian aid.
With the conclusion of his service in the Middle East, Shalikashvili completed his assignment in Europe, and in August 1991, reported to the Pentagon as assistant to General Colin Powell, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS). The following June he became Supreme Allied Commander, Europe (SACEUR). As head of NATO forces, Shalikashvili, now a full (four-star) general, had to provide leadership in evaluating the alliance's mission as well as prepare it for possible operations in such places as Bosnia, where problems existed that were even more daunting than those seen in northern Iraq.
In August 1993 Shalikashvili, known to many as General Shali, was chosen to become chairman of the JCS by President Bill Clinton. Although it was unusual for one army general to replace another in this position that would normally have been rotated to a navy or air force officer, the unassuming Shalikashvili, seemed to have unsurpassed qualifications to deal with post-Cold War problems in places like Somalia and Bosnia. Taking office at a time of realignment in international affairs and budget cutbacks at home, Shalikashvili faced formidable challenges. Not least was the task of succeeding Colin Powell, arguably the nation's most popular military leader since Dwight Eisenhower nearly half a century earlier.
In late January, 1997, Shalikashvili announced his plans to retire from his position in keeping with the tradition of Chairmen of the Joint Chiefs serving two two-year terms.
Shalikashvili was an advisor to John Kerry's 2004 Presidential campaign. He was a visiting professor at the Center for International Security and Cooperation at Stanford University. Shalikashvili died at the age of 75 on July 23, 2011, at the Madigan Army Medical Center in Joint Base Lewis-McChord, Washington, from a stroke.