JC2WC: C2W expertise for the joint world

By Dom Cardonita
HQ AIA/PA
Kelly Air Force Base, Texas

One hundred and 59 strong, the Joint Command and Control Warfare Center (JC2WC) continues to play a pivotal role in joint service operations.

Collocated with Air Intelligence Agency headquarters, the JC2WC is a small, energetic unit of soldiers, sailors, Marines, airmen, and civilians, commanded by Maj. Gen. John Baker, who also commands AIA.

Formed as the Joint Electronic Warfare Center nearly 20 years ago, the JC2WC provides command and control warfare support to a variety of customers, most principally U.S. unified commanders throughout the world.

"We changed our name in 1994," explained U.S. Army Col. David Kirk, deputy commander, "to reflect our expanding role in the C2W arena. Prior to that, we were fundamentally focused on electronic warfare.

"As we evolved," he added, "we realized that EW, although vitally important, was just a piece of the C2W picture. Further lessons learned from Desert Storm revealed the need for an agency that could pull the disparate functions together for the joint commander."

C2W, he explained, is both offensive and defensive and includes traditional heat, blast and fragmentation to destroy an enemy’s command and control systems as well as operational security, deception, the traditional EW and psychological operations.

In recent years, the center has become involved in integrating the traditional pillars of C2W and civil affairs, public affairs and computer network operations throughout the spectrum of conflict and has evolved into the joint center supporting information operations. "A new charter is being staffed at the U.S. Atlantic Command to extend our mission area," the colonel said.

The JC2WC brings expertise in all those areas to the joint commanders-in-chief’s planning cells so that the commanders have IO expertise at their disposal in any campaign being planned. The augmentation the center deploys to a commander’s IO cell, the colonel explained, can be drawn from across the JC2WC’s operations directorate. Each team chief has about 10 people who can be enroute to a CinC’s headquarters within 24 hours. To minimize the footprint in a supported commander’s staff, the JC2WC’s operations officer usually deploys three to four staff officers forward and uses a reachback capability into the center to leverage the computing power and engineering in San Antonio.

"While we work primarily with the CinC’s planners," Kirk said, "we are there to assist in the execution of combat operations as well and have been called upon to advise the combatant commander during his daily updates."

The center in recent years has supported military operations in Iraq, Somali, Haiti, Bosnia, and now Kosovo. They even supported the military relief operations for Hurricane Mitch.

Kirk said that the only way his people can perform well in a crisis situation is to train the way they will fight. "We’re involved in all major exercises so the commander’s staff know us, know what we’re capable of providing and, more importantly, know what information operations brings to the fight."

Participating in 30-40 exercises a year establishes the JC2WC’s credibility with the commander’s and their staffs. We can’t do our jobs if we don’t establish ourselves in these exercises," the colonel said. "The staffs won’t be able to absorb us in a crisis if we don’t exercise with them on a regular basis. Furthermore, information operations are so complex that if we don’t exercise them and demonstrate their value, commanders will not call upon the force multiplying affects IO provides."

The center adds realism to many exercises through modeling and simulation. Kirk says the JC2WC has suites of models that cover most situations. They are plugged into the exercise simulators and provide automatic feedback into the exercise control cells. "For instance," he said, "if you fly a Compass Call (airborne jamming platform) and you jam a command and control communications link, our model will actually degrade the enemy’s ability to control his network within the game simulation."

What about PSYOP? What themes will enhance the joint commander’s mission? Can you use Commando Solo (airborne PSYOP aircraft) and, if so, at what range? Will leaflets do or is the air defense system too dangerous to allow for a leaflet drop? These are just some of the many questions the Center’s people answer in planning the IO strategy.

How do they get ready for an exercise? "We get the key information operations players together in preliminary seminars to prepare them for when they go to the theater exercise.

We’ve found that to be very successful and we plan to do that more frequently," Kirk said. Once in theater, the IO teams work with J3 (operations), J6(communications), and J2 (intelligence). With the latter, they help in target selection in the event the IO strategy calls for the physical destruction of a C2W node, telephone switching center, radio transmitter or other targets that make up to the enemy’s command and control system.

Another tool in the center’s vast arsenal is ‘Red Teaming.’ Through an Office of the Secretary of Defense program called Advanced Concepts Technology Demonstration (ACTD), concepts are being formulated and equipment is being applied to them. Some of this equipment is highly advanced. Problems are being solved and equipment fielded. "The problem," Kirk said, "was that the equipment was being fielded without a clear understanding of the vulnerabilities built into them - particularly in the IO area." The JC2WC was then asked to be an independent, neutral source to review those programs, determine the vulnerabilities of the equipment and make recommendations on how to eliminate them. "It’s become a valuable part of the OSD process and, while it does not directly support the CinC, its output does because now the commander has a system that works and does not increase his risks of conducting operations.

"We’ve had great success in identifying weaknesses in some technologies and often, just a minor modification of the equipment eliminated the vulnerabilities we discovered."

In 1998, after years as a Joint Chiefs of Staff organization, the organization became part of the U.S. Atlantic Command in a force structure realignment. The change, however, has not affected the fundamental way the JC2WC does business. "We still support the same CinC’s and still perform the same missions," Kirk said. He said the chop to ACOM has primarily affected the support functions that include personnel issues, financial management and management oversight.

"Right now," he said, "we’re preparing for our first Inspector General inspection since becoming a center in the 80s. We’ve been working with the ACOM staff and I’m confident that our people will excel."

One-hundred and fifty-nine Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marine service people and a professional cadre of civilians and contractors are convinced they will.