The Seven Steps of the Joint Planning Process

The Joint Planning process has seven steps that ensure that any set move focuses on the national objective. The incoherent commanders and staff that were involved in the planning of Operation ANACONDA failed to implement the seven steps of the Joint Planning Process, more specifically steps 4-7, in which doctrine tells us to "repeat as often as necessary to integrate new requirements into the development of the plan."

The Joint Planning Process 

Joint Planning is the planned and calculated process of shaping how or finding ways to use military potential or means within time and space to meet the objective or ends, taking into consideration connected risks. Planning is initiated based on the specific national strategic objective while the military offers a conclusive decision to which actions and resources are injected. The joint planning and executive community (JPEC) carry out a common planning to identify with the strategic and operational environment (EO) and conclude on the best technique for using the Department of Defense's (DoD's) existing potential to meet the national goals and objectives (Doctrine for the Armed Forces of the United States. 2017). Joint planning determine the different military alternatives that the president can incorporate with other tools of national power such as diplomatic and economical factors to meet nation's objectives.

The seven steps of the Joint Planning Process 

The seven-steps Joint Planning Process matches with the four APEX planning function. The steps are planning initiation; mission analysis; course of action (COA) development; COA analysis and Wargaming; COA comparison; COA approval; and lastly plan or order development. The initiation stage begins immediately a suitable authority detects the likelihood of use of the military to support the national objective or in response to potential threats or crisis (Doctrine for the Armed Forces of the United States. 2017). At the strategic level, those in power, the President, SecDef, and CJCS start the planning process to focus on military option using the different strategic guidance documents such as SGSs. Line commanders also play a significant role at this stage.

The second stage is mission analysis. Here, the CCDR and staff scrutinize the strategic plan and develops a mission statement for commander's acknowledgment, enabling the subordinate and assistant commanders to initiate their approximation and direction efforts to match their goals to those of the headquarter (Doctrine for the Armed Forces of the United States. 2017). The joint force's mission refers to the subsets of tasks, integrated with purpose, clearly bringing out the action to be taken and why such action is necessary. It helps identify actions and tasks necessary for successful mission accomplishment. It helps the staff involved to focus on the problem at hand.

The third step, course of action (COA) development defines the best way, solution or technique that best accomplishes the mission at hand. The personnel is tasked with the process of developing the best and unique alternative of accomplishing the set mission, offers flexibilities to meet the anticipated events during implementation and sets standby force for the future response (Doctrine for the Armed Forces of the United States. 2017). This step define who will respond, what kind of military response is take place; response initiation period; why the response is the best; and lastly how the action will be deployed.

The fourth step is the course of action analysis and wargaming. COA analysis is detailed scrutiny of the available options to enable the staff and commander to ascertain the best options and ascertain benefits and pitfall of each COA (Doctrine for the Armed Forces of the United States. 2017). The staff and commanders use wargaming a primary tool in the analysis process. It involves representation of war in a synthetic setting, whereby people reach into conclusion and establishes the benefits and pitfall for those decisions. At this point, the flow of operations using joint force is presented identifying strengths, enemy capability, disposition, possible COA and OA and other elements of OE.

The course of action comparison is the fifth step. At this phase, the COA are compared and considered individually and scrutinized taking into consideration specific criteria set by the personnel and commander. The ends, means, ways, and threats of every COA are analyzed and evaluated (Doctrine for the Armed Forces of the United States. 2017). The primary aim here is to recommend the best action that will successfully meet the national objective.

The sixth step is the course of action approval. At this point, the personnel experts provide a brief detailed report to the commander regarding the COA contrast and evaluation and wargaming outcome, with supporting information (Doctrine for the Armed Forces of the United States. 2017). Here the personnel provides the best recommendation to the commander to handle the current mission, and he/she, the commander, select the recommendation that he deems fit.

The final step is plan order development. After proper evaluation, the best action is enforced. The CONOPs clearly and precisely stipulates JFC mission and how it will be accomplished using the set resources. It defines how the different joint force elements and assistive organizations will be incorporated, coordinated and phased to meet the mission goal and objectives (Doctrine for the Armed Forces of the United States. 2017).

Strategy and Campaign Development 

The DOD primary function is to carry out activities every day with the aim of achieving the national objectives, on the other hand, CCDRs major function is to develop strategies and campaigns to outlining the OE in a way that supports the set goals and objectives (Doctrine for the Armed Forces of the United States. 2017). The campaigns are conducted through military involvement, operations, and posture among other activities whose primary purpose is to achieve the US national goals and objectives and avert emergence of armed conflicts. The CCDRs through its strategic function also sets an environment to change into contingency operations in case a need arise.

The CCMD strategies and campaign plans are integrated into the structure of NSS, DSR, and NMS and are carried out together with other tools of national authority. Specific directions to the commanders are located in the UCP, GEF, and JSCP (Doctrine for the Armed Forces of the United States. 2017). Proper scheduling, strategy prioritization and allocation of resources aimed at achieving the future required goals. It recognizes the current situation using past events as the base to plot a roadmap to the desired future outcomes (Doctrine for the Armed Forces of the United States. 2017). The CCDRs and other key stakeholders create a strategy and plan campaigns to incorporate joint function with national-level resources planning and policy development and in combination with other USG units and bodies.

What went wrong in Operation ANACONDA’s planning process 

Vision and integration of all forces available- failure into involving all the forces into the joint planning process negatively influenced ANACONDA's planning process. Failure to involve and consider airpower in the planning process was wrong (Fleri et al., 2003). If the air commanders had been involved in the planning from the inception stage of the Anaconda planning process, maybe the entire process and concept of operation could have been different. The reason behind this is that SOF and air leaders had been carrying out operations in Afghanistan using tradition forces and were conversant that the use of untrained tribal soldiers as a tool against a ready enemy with use of airstrikes was not a viable course of action (ABC News, 2002). Additionally, SOF and air leaders knew that al Qaeda soldiers were fighters and would never retaliate.

Communication between allied forces, and Joint Operations -poor communication and lack common command base significantly influenced the coordination of the forces (Fleri et al., 2003). The operations, black SOF and inter-agency operations had its command chain. CJTF Mountain lacked TACON or any control within all the agencies that directly briefed CENTCOM Commander. Black SOF had diverse priorities and powers to demand and get assistance from vast but same machinery that assisted CJTF Mountain operations like the AC-130 ( ABC News, 2002). The crashing command framework using the similar assets in the same operations caused confusion and disappointment during the implementation stage of the operation. 

Lack of trust of coalition forces - lack of trust among the coalition forces to be deployed in operation negatively affected the ANACONDA's planning process (Fleri et al., 2003). The CJTF Mountain had restricted capability to coordinate with the air section. CJFT Mountain did not have the vigorous ability for controlling and prioritizing airpower inhabit the military base Air Support Operation Center (Fleri et al., 2003). Taking this into consideration, these different sections should have been well integrated to avoid any conflict. 

The heart and will to win of our ground Soldiers saved the whole operation 

Ground Soldiers resiliency- irrespective of poor coordination with the airpower, the ground soldiers did not surrender in the battlefield but pushed on to the end (Fleri et al., 2003). The initiated new commands relations between the ground and airpower drastically modified the way the soldiers had been operating in Afghanistan. The operation was altered into a more ground force with operation needing comprehensive functional section planning. It is fascinating that our resilient soldiers were able to adjust and adopt these drastic changes within a very short period ( ABC News, 2002). Additionally, although the enemy had highly trained and possessed sophisticated machines, they ground soldiers fought hard and conquered them. 

After action reviews- In future Joint Planning, there is a need for airpower section representation. ANACONDA planning challenges were steered by lack of proper representation of the airpower section in the CJTF (Kugler, Baranick & Binnendijk, 2009). Even though this section's ALO offered sensitive intelligence information to the staffs involved in planning, to a considerable extent, it was ignored and did not appear to reach to the JFC. Both ground component and airpower component should be represented equally in the joint planning taskforce to ensure success and proper integration (Kugler, Baranick & Binnendijk, 2009). The top leaders have a big role to play in ensuring that their components are involved in the joint planning. In ANACONDA’s case, the CJFT had enough time to involve the air component in the planning taskforce but failed despite having frequent talks with CFACC a month before moving into the battlefield. With today’s advancements, airpower’s capabilities have significantly advanced, hence the need for its incorporation in the joint planning. Today, new-air-and-space-based sensors and networks can provide an overview of the battlefield, a development that was an ideal situation 30 years ago (Kugler, Baranick & Binnendijk, 2009). Integration of these capabilities into joint planning was essential for the operation’s success and time wastage avoidance experienced during ANACONDA. 

In conclusion, considering ANACONDA's case, the United States joint forces are exceptional. However, using and achieving the best out of them will need proper coordination and integration of all the component into the joint planning process. An initial step towards this achievement is extensive scrutiny and open debates of controversial operations such as ANACONDA to identify mistakes and their best corrective measures. 

References 

ABC News,(2002). Soldiers Recount Anatomy of Operation Anaconda. Retrieved from http://abcnews.go.com/Nightline/story?id=128582&page=1 

Doctrine for the Armed Forces of the United States. (2017). Joint Publication 3-0O. Retrieved from https://www.apd.army.mil 

Fleri, E., Howard, E., Hukill, J., & Searle, T.R. (2003). Operation Anaconda Case Study 

Kugler, R., Baranick, M., & Binnendijk, H., (2009). Operation Anaconda Lessons for Joint Operations, Appendix II