US Joint Forces Command (USJFCOM) released today their Joint Operating Environment 2008 (JOE 2008), a report that discusses the trends and contexts of the future operating environment and their implication for the future joint force. JOE 2008 is designed to spark discussions with the widest set of national security and multinational partners about the nature of the future security environment and its potential military requirements.
In the broadest sense, the Joint Operating Environment examines three questions:
1. What future trends and disruptions are likely to affect the joint force over the next quarter century?2. How are these trends and disruptions likely to define the future contexts for joint operations?
3. What are the implications of these trends and contexts for the joint force?
By exploring these trends, contexts, and implications, the Joint Operating Environment provides a basis for thinking about the world a quarter of a century from now. Its purpose is not to predict, but to suggest ways leaders might think about the future.
JOE 2008 examines changes and trends in the geopolitical and military landscape, such as: demographics, globalization, economics, pandemics, cyber, space, energy, resource scarcity, climate change and national disasters. These trends then form the context for exploring the following types of scenarios:
1. Competition and Cooperation Among Conventional Powers2. Potential Challenges and Threats
3. Weak and Failing States
4. The Threats of Unconventional Power
5. Proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction
6. Technology
7. The Battle of Narratives
8. Urbanization.
JOE 2008 makes the case that, "The next quarter century will challenge US joint forces with threats and opportunities ranging from regular and irregular wars in remote lands, to relief and reconstruction in crisis zones, to sustained engagement in the global commons."
JOE 2008 contributes to USJFCOM's central mission to develop a vision for how our military forces will conduct future operations and test this vision in the most realistic and challenging ways possible.
Joint Operating Environment 2008 (JOE 2008 full document)