Joint Warfare

Although the concept of joint warfare has existed for over many decades, it was only during World War II where it was aptly enhanced with the utilisation of air power. Both the Allies nations and the Axis Powers had demonstrated the effective use of joint warfare to fight and overcome each other. This essay is inspired by the interest in the likelihood of merging all services into one main ‘joint’ service. Firstly, it will define joint warfare and state its advantages with reference to Dempsey. Next, it will examine its benefits of merging, its advantages of maintaining independent services and its developments leading to the future of joint warfare. In contrast to Douhet’s and Mahan’s theories in air and sea powers respectively, when the

Since the concept of joint warfare reaps many significant advantages, why not merge all services into one main ‘joint’ service? Will this be an endorsement that one main ‘joint’ service is the answer to handle all adversities faced by state nation? To appreciate this, we should look at who are the stakeholders involved in making the joint operation so effective. Joint operation implies cross service combination in synergy. Each service has its own unique and specific equipment, systems and manpower skills to form the very core of a force’s military capability. They have the responsibility to raise, train, sustain and equip their forces. By managing the joint forces as a single identity, the services may not have the time or opportunity to develop and hone their capabilities to fulfil their basic domain requirements. Moreover, the air-land-sea unique identity crisis may arise and it is difficult to standardise the common “lingo” across the three services. Other considerations will include logistics, defence researches, intelligence and joint force uniform consistency. Unless we can overcome these issues systematically, if not, maintaining independent services and managing them as service level would be the best option

There are definitely potential challenges to effectively integrate and synchronise service and combat service support (CSS) elements in joint operations. Functional related capabilities and activities can be grouped together as a working group. The groupings are called joint functions, facilitating planning and employment of the joint force. Joint operation planning provides a common basis for discussion, understanding and change for their joint force structures. These structures include its subordinate and higher headquarters planning and information process, the joint executive arms and lastly national leadership. One of the organisations that successfully reorganised into joint functions is the RSAF. It has transformed the entire service into 6 specific task orientated functional groups. In this way, RSAF supports SAF through a unified synchroniser, coordinates and integrate with other services clearer and