U.S. Strategic Command transforming, decentralizing

  • Published
  • By Jim Garamone
  • American Forces Press Service
WASHINGTON (AFPN) --  The U.S. Strategic Command is transforming by incorporating old missions, adding new ones and making the command more flexible and agile for the 21st century, officials said.

STRATCOM, at Offutt Air Force Base, Neb., still maintains the U.S. nuclear deterrent, but gained a number of new missions as a result of changes in the unified command plan in 2002.

These new missions called for the command to make fundamental changes in the way it has conducted business, said Army Maj. Gen. Kevin Campbell, the command's chief of staff.

In the plan, the command received missile defense, global strike, information operations and intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance missions. In 2004, the mission of combating weapons of mass destruction was added.

"Those missions, by and large, were about planning, coordinating and integrating," General Campbell said. "Execution is when directed - especially for global strike."

Since Pentagon leaders announced the changes in 2002, command officials have been “developing the concepts for how we thought we would do these missions," the general said.

The command developed four joint-force component commands to take on the new missions.

The component commanders are:

Integrated missile defense -- Army Lt. Gen. Larry J. Dodgen, commander of Army Space and Missile Defense Command at Colorado Springs, Colo.

Space and global strike -- Lt. Gen. Bruce Carlson, 8th Air Force commander at Barksdale Air Force Base, La.

Network warfare -- Lt. Gen. Michael V. Hayden, National Security Agency director at Fort Meade, Md.

Intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance -- Navy Vice Adm. Lowell E. Jacoby, Defense Intelligence Agency director, The Pentagon.

General Campbell said it is important for people to remember the DIA and NSA directores do not control the JFCCs.

“These are separate and distinct hats that those gents wear for us," the general said.

The command still is working on the combating weapons of mass destruction mission, General Campbell said.

STRATCOM is working with the various component commanders in standing up the new organizations.

He said many of the billets for the JFCCs will come from commands headquarters and make it much smaller than the more than 2,000 members currently on staff. The reduction will force the command to think differently, General Campbell explained.

Taking the manpower positions out of the headquarters forces the command to decentralize, he said.

The new construct creates bridges between the agency world and the combatant command world. "That was our vision, to see if we could better tap the resources that we need to do our ... jobs," he said.